Perfect Team Card Art Thread - Talk with our artist here!

[Rich Grisham]

HI everyone! This thread is a place to discuss the Perfect Team card art. Our artist Daniel would like to know what everyone thinks about:

1) The Perfect Team cards (any and all versions of Perfect Team)
2) Your favorite baseball cards/card styles throughout history
3) Which Perfect Team cards you like the most in our game
4) Anything else related to the cards, the art, and the visual presentation of them

Daniel will be in here looking at the feedback and interacting when possible.

Thank you for your time!

[TheNamelessPoet]

I have nothing specific... but I have thought they were FANTASTIC!

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[dboeyr12007]

I love the art on the 100 Randy Johnson, 100 Gagne and 100 Curt Schilling. Anything in that style makes me want to buy it right away.

[BMW]

I've been a fan of baseball cards all my life. I even participated in the OOTP betas when having a card-generator in-game was being discussed and created and I was very big on the feature. I even wrote a guide back for OOTP11 (I think) on how to create templates. In my spare time, I sometimes make baseball cards as art.

The card styles you've emulated are fantastic. I even showed them to my wife, who is a graphic designer (and also a card collector), to show off the styles because I was so impressed with them.

All of the designs are great - even to the point that, while I'd love to have the real player photos, the cards are so good without them - I'm not sure I'd really want them anymore.

I like the pre-1930s design a lot, but I can't quite place it. What was the inspiration for that one?

I especially like the 1970s set, inspired by 1975 Topps. The 1961 inspired design is fantastic too.

The 1980s design seems to take cues from 1983 Topps (the two colored boxes) and 1982-3 Donruss (The Rookie Sensations' yellow bat).

The 1992 Topps used in the 1990s set is also evocative of the era.

It's a fantastic job!

I seriously can't wait see what's in store for the next version.

[kq76]

I love a lot of the designs, especially the decades I focus on, the 60s-80s.

The one design I don't care for is the Special Edition, to the point that sometimes I'll buy a worse overall card for that player than keep the SE. But that's not all on the design. It's largely due to how unfortunately common they are / how good ratings-wise they are. I feel like the word "special" should mean something "better than others", and I guess some would argue they are "better", in a way, but they're not at all to me. I guess I'd like some of these special cards to be designated "limited edition", like the tournament only cards which are hard to get (or rename them "tournament edition"). Then maybe the ones that are gotten by missions, rename them "mission edition" so it's clear that they're a dime a dozen. Besides the commonness, I feel like the SE text takes up too much of the card.

It'd be nice to see a difference between the 1900s-1920s cards although I realize there's not much to go on.

I think the weakest decade design is the 50s. I'd like to do a 50s themed team next year, but maybe not if they stay the same.

I think some of the patches (e.g., unsung heroes, hardware heroes, snapshot) should be differentiated more, like the others. HH should at least have a trophy, Snapshot should have a camera, UH maybe a laurel wreath. And give Rookie Sensations something more meaningful than a bat, which really doesn't make sense for any pitchers, like a baby bottle or a pawn.

I'd also like to see "Record Breakers" brought back.

And I'd love to see some other types too although I'm not sure what. Maybe something for players who hung around for a long long time, but weren't hall of famers? Maybe their ratings could be a bit like peak cards, but instead be an average of their entire careers? Maybe high draft pick cards and/or very low draft pick cards?

[Daniel Wallner]

Thank you all for your kind feetback! The cards are a heart project of mine! Happy that I make you happy

@BMW
Thank you so much! I never thought that card collector like my work.
The pre 1930s are my favorite too. It was a lot of fun to create the player dummies and trying to get the feeling of old lithograph prints.
For the portraits, I was inspired by the T206 Honus Wagner.
Your guesses are right. I always try not to copy a complete style and rather to capture the feeling of the decade. It is not easy. Sometimes it is a thin line between copy and inspiration.

@kq76
Thanks for the feedback. I like the idea patches.

[Splitter24]

More templates for variety so Daniel can go nuts would be cool. Special props for the psychedelic Dock Ellis card.

[DotDash]

Hi Daniel,

My favorites tend to be the cards which most strongly embrace the aesthetic of their era, and I like cards with bold, striking designs in general.

I agree with kq76's comment about the 50's cards, and in my opinion this extends to the 60's cards as well. To me, these cards are more muted than these turbulent, lively decades warrant, and in general I'm not so fond of the out of focus ballpark backgrounds. I attached some examples of IRL cards from the era which I quite like - simplistic but colorful and rich in contrast.

For the 80's and 90's cards, I would enjoy seeing more 'extreme' designs. There were so many garish cards back then (see attached), and I wouldn't mind if you leaned into that some more. I like the triangular 80's HW Heroes / Historical Legend logo and the 90's neon HW Heroes one as well.

I also agree with Splitter24: more variety and 'go nuts'

One last idea: would it be possible to have multiple versions of the 'banner' which contains the player's overall rating? I like the current design, but it seems to suit modern cards better than some of the older ones i.m.o.

Thanks for the work on the cards so far, I look forward to seeing more of it!

[johnwlits]

Why does Dusty Baker's diamond card display a picture of a white guy?

[rdt24]

I absolutely love the cards this year - the attention to detail and unique designs for different eras is fantastic. Whilst previous version card art from PT20/19 is also good, you can really see the improvements when compared side by side with the new cards this year.

My favourites have to be the NL collections, Pop Lloyd in particular. The mixture of design, colour scheme and batting stance is amazing, and is one card I'm probably never going to sell.

It may seem a small detail, but I also love that there are different types and effects used on the background/border grey of certain era cards (e.g. 1970s, 1900/10s). Makes a lovely visual difference to the cards that may not be immediately obvious.

Keeping in mind how amazing the card art is in general, there are a couple cards which come to mind when thinking of ones I liked less than average. For some 1950's cards, a dark stadium background is used, which works ok for bright logos, but dark logos seem to get a bit lost in this background (for example FotF Campanella & FotF Spahn). It would be lovely in these cases if these logos could be highlighted a bit better imo.

Thanks for all the excellent work, really excited for what next year brings!

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by johnwlits

Why does Dusty Baker's diamond card display a picture of a white guy?

That's not an art problem, it's a database bug where he was accidently assigned caucasian ethnicity. It's fixed now, but you might have to clear your card cache to be able to see the new image.

[Daniel Wallner]

Hey DotDash,
thanks for your feedback! The Larry Walker card is awesome! I agree with you two, the 50ies are a bit boring. Funny thing, the norman cash style was my inspiration for this. I think the problem is here the team color. I often try to add team color to the cards to get more variety and make the fans happy. But it does not work with all team colors.

Yeah, I want to have more extreme design, too!

We often talked in the team about multiple banners. As a graphic designer, I love the idea! On the other side you should recognize in the first moment your overall rating and that is easier when you always have the same versions.

[Daniel Wallner]

Originally Posted by rdt24

I absolutely love the cards this year - the attention to detail and unique designs for different eras is fantastic. Whilst previous version card art from PT20/19 is also good, you can really see the improvements when compared side by side with the new cards this year.

My favourites have to be the NL collections, Pop Lloyd in particular. The mixture of design, colour scheme and batting stance is amazing, and is one card I'm probably never going to sell.

It may seem a small detail, but I also love that there are different types and effects used on the background/border grey of certain era cards (e.g. 1970s, 1900/10s). Makes a lovely visual difference to the cards that may not be immediately obvious.

Keeping in mind how amazing the card art is in general, there are a couple cards which come to mind when thinking of ones I liked less than average. For some 1950's cards, a dark stadium background is used, which works ok for bright logos, but dark logos seem to get a bit lost in this background (for example FotF Campanella & FotF Spahn). It would be lovely in these cases if these logos could be highlighted a bit better imo.

Thanks for all the excellent work, really excited for what next year brings!