2000 Ultimate Victory Tomokazu Ohka
Wow, there’s a lot going on with this card. The most
overpowering feature is the blue. It doesn’t show as well in the scan, but the
whole thing has a blue tint to it. Talk about distracting. This was part of the
wave of cards that assumed “high end” meant shiny and hard to read.” In it’s
basic parts, this card is well done. It has the nice action shot cropped to
make Ohka stand out. It has the player name, team name, and position clearly
shown. Even the player’s number makes an appearance. If I made a list of things
I need to have on a card, this would get them all. It even throws in an extra
headshot of the player. I even like the border, giving the appeal of a
painting.
So, I can understand in a production meeting, everything
going well. But, once they threw it all together, it went crazy. Especially in
this card, the fact that the headshot is a crop of the larger image is awkward.
Maybe if Ohka weren’t making such a weird face, it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s
really the blue sheen that ruins the card. It makes everything almost
impossible to read unless you constantly tilt the card in different direction
to catch the light. Otherwise, this would be a pretty nice card.
Instead of a mess.
One of my design pet peeves: Using part of a bigger shot somewhere else, instead of having two different shots. 1996 Topps did this too. You also see it in cheap pamphlets where they obviously could only afford one pic and then they just used zooms and crops of the same shot, but stretched it or put it in a different color. Hate.
ReplyDeleteIt's at its worst on this card. Know what would be a better use of the space that they filled with the same thing that's right next to it? Anything.
I could let them claim the design works with the repeated picture, if the picture weren't so awful. If it were a simpler shot, I would listen to a claim that "design-wist the double picture draws your eye across the frame, blah blah blah..." and respect a difference of opinion. But, with this shot it's just lousy.
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