Missed Oppurtunity For Panini?

Have you ever had a situation when you pulled a card and you looked at it and thought “This is a missed opportunity”? As a graphic designer I tend to be picky about card designs and while I may pick up packs of various products just to see what they offer I will not buy any set I find flawed for my personal collection no matter who is on the card.

I recently pulled two Donruss Production Line jersey cards, a Russell Westbrook #8 die-cut and a Birdman #1 die-cut. When I pulled the Westbrook I thought the small floating “8” made the card unbalanced but when I pulled the Andersen I was just amazed that this card design was given the go-ahead. We are talking a jersey swatch that is not even dime sized; it is ¾” by ¼” in size. I like the production line idea highlighting various stats of the players but this insert could have been laid out in a different manor that would be more appealing.

 I thought that one of the most important changes was to go with a landscape layout, this layout would use a smaller player image but it would increase the real estate for the jersey swatch. Adjusting the placement of the text and added a die-cut window displaying the player's stat adds appeal to the overall design. I even used the background image to balance out the negative spacing on the card.