Baseball Cards Anyone?

OhEddie · April 10, 2009

Here are a few of my cards I have made for my boys High School team.

Has anyone else made baseball cards?

If you have I would love to see your designs.

Comments?

zack75144 · April 10, 2009

1st class, Eddie.
If I wanted to be nit picky, I would say that the last name font and angle is my least favorite part.
I'd probably put the last name in the block font across the bottom and arch the first name smaller sized above the last name. JMHO

All in all though, great Job

shphotos · April 12, 2009

Eddie,
These are great. I love your design, and your photos are superb.

Diamond D · April 13, 2009

The photos are very nice, and I like the individual elements of the design, especially the background, but it does seem a bit busy overall. The real question though is how do the players and parents like them?

I do approve of the NY Mets colors for the uniform

Jeff_Milo · April 14, 2009

I really like your cards, good action shots.

I made these for my daughters little league training/tee-ball team. Normaly I would not use the MLB logo's but these I am giving to the team and not selling.

Front

Back

OhEddie · April 14, 2009

Jeff,

That little guy has a great stance for a 5yr old.

I love the design of the card too.

OhEddie · April 14, 2009

Diamond D

The parents and kids love them. The comment I hear most is "Please make more"

Oh and FYI, Mets = bad

Braves = Good

b08rsa · April 15, 2009

Both sets of cards are very nice. What size are you all starting out with in photoshop? I have been looking for ideas to make cards for my daughters soccer team. I am kind of stuck in a rut on creating something that is as eye catching as the cards you have displayed here.

Ron A.

OhEddie · April 15, 2009

Ron,

Last year I made them actual baseball card size, but this year I made them 4"x6" because 95% of the photos I sell are that size and it is big enough to frame.

I've also let everyone know I can make everything from 4"x6" to 24"x40"

Jeff_Milo · April 15, 2009

OhEddie wrote:

Jeff,

That little guy has a great stance for a 5yr old.

I love the design of the card too.

Thank you, much appreciated. that little guy and his brother are the two best players on the team, they also happen to be the only two on the team who have played before. I love going to the games its like watching the bad news bears in live action, but most importantly they have a lot of fun.

b08rsa wrote:

What size are you all starting out with in photoshop?

I made these actual baseball card size 2.5" x 3" at 300 dpi, largely because of the lack of quality i could find on the net for the A's logos. If I were making them for resale I would have gone the same route as OhEddie and made them bigger. It takes way to long trying to resize the pictures into the appropriate spaces.

Diamond D · April 15, 2009

OhEddie wrote:

Diamond D

Oh and FYI, Mets = bad

Braves = Good

Haha, well the Marlins are better than both of us right now!

OhEddie · April 15, 2009

Diamond D wrote:

Haha, well the Marlins are better than both of us right now!

You got that right!

I had to turn the Braves off tonight they were stinkin' it up so bad. :cry

rich56k · April 16, 2009

Jeff_Milo wrote:

I really like your cards, good action shots.

I made these for my daughters little league training/tee-ball team. Normaly I would not use the MLB logo's but these I am giving to the team and not selling.

Front

Back

Jeff,

Yikes!! You may want to re-examine your policies, as the fact you sell or give away is totally irrelevant to the trademark / copyright owners...it's not worth the potential problems you could encounter, see attached from bottom of their web site - even the color combinations are mentioned!!

just my .02

rich56k

OhEddie · April 16, 2009

Hmmmm? I wonder what the lawyers will do if they find out that millions of youth sports teams use the trademarked and copyrighted logos of college, minor league, and professional sports teams on everything from jerseys, hats, equipment bags, team photos, and even advertisements.

b08rsa · April 17, 2009

rich56k wrote:

Jeff,

Yikes!! You may want to re-examine your policies, as the fact you sell or give away is totally irrelevant to the trademark / copyright owners...it's not worth the potential problems you could encounter, see attached from bottom of their web site - even the color combinations are mentioned!!

just my .02

rich56k

Thats why I got a written consent from my daughter's soccer club. Since they are a semi professional club that plays in the PDL.

Jeff_Milo · April 17, 2009

OhEddie wrote:

Hmmmm? I wonder what the lawyers will do if they find out that millions of youth sports teams use the trademarked and copyrighted logos of college, minor league, and professional sports teams on everything from jerseys, hats, equipment bags, team photos, and even advertisements.

Unfortunatly the sad part of the whole thing is that the nationally affiliated "Little League" teams here are required to use the MLB team names and logos on there shirts and hats and the little league pays a fee to MLB to do so. You would think that with all the $$ MLB makes that they would donate the uniforms. We pay a $70 regestration fee per kid to play. The fee is not for playing it is for membership to the National Little League and uniform fees.

B08rsa wrote:

Thats why I got a written consent from my daughter's soccer club. Since they are a semi professional club that plays in the PDL.

I just did the same thing last night with the Jurupa Litttle League as they pay the fee they have the right to allow people to use the Logo's. After the parents saw the cards they started requesting full orders of just their kids. I didnt want to print them without permission. Maybe I will send an email to MLB as well just to be safe.

OhEddie · April 17, 2009

This all got me curious, so I called my buddy at the local uniform supply and he told me that yes, for all of the official trademarked logo, a fee has been paid to the owner. All MLB logos are owned by MLB, not each individual club.

But here is the catch. He can create a logo that is very similar to the real thing, but there has to be at least what is considered a ten percent variance. This is why Alabama can use the exact same "A" as the Atlanta Braves, except Alabama has a little swish added to the top of the A.

He told me that in the case of our Red Sox team he uses a font that is very similar to the real thing, but if you hold them up next to each other then you will see the difference.

As far as selling a few dozen baseball cards, with the kids photo on it, to parents of the local basball league your kid plays in. It is highly unlikely that any team would take the time to have their lawyers send you a threatening nasty-gram. So if you are going to make less that a couple hundred bucks, I wouldn't worry, as it cost more than that to get the lawyers to answer the phone. However, if you were to do this in some high volume fashion, that would be a different story.

b08rsa · April 17, 2009

Well here is where I get stuck in a Rut, I guess. As much as I like a simple style card, I need ideas to make this more appealing. Let me know your thoughts.

Ron A.

OhEddie · April 17, 2009

Oooo, I like it

How did you make the background? Is it from a photo you took?
Works great with the team colors. You might try cloning out the one person on the left in the background. Other than that, nice job!!!

b08rsa · April 17, 2009

OhEddie wrote:

Oooo, I like it

How did you make the background? Is it from a photo you took?
Works great with the team colors. You might try cloning out the one person on the left in the background. Other than that, nice job!!!

In Photoshop, I took a picture of a soccer ball, deleted the background. Once I did that, I converted the jpeg file into a paintbrush. Pretty simple to do.
Thanks, Ron A.

budman101 · April 17, 2009

Where do you get the fonts for the team names?

b08rsa · April 17, 2009

OhEddie wrote:

Oooo, I like it

How did you make the background? Is it from a photo you took?
Works great with the team colors. You might try cloning out the one person on the left in the background. Other than that, nice job!!!

Look Better??? First time doing a clone in PS.

Person in background.

First Time Cloning in Photoshop.

shphotos · April 18, 2009

b08rsa wrote:

Well here is where I get stuck in a Rut, I guess. As much as I like a simple style card, I need ideas to make this more appealing. Let me know your thoughts.

Ron A.

I also really like what you've done with the soccer ball background. Did you try a sharper edge on the photo? Or maybe a black or white frame around the photo? It looks good.

OhEddie · April 18, 2009

b08rsa

Yes, the cloned one is much better. Remember, cloning is your friend.

madigg · April 19, 2009

Springfield Cardinals

Here are a couple of the Cards that I get the Players for the Springfield Cards to Sign. They Freek Out.

Adam Wainwright on rehab in Springfield.

Jeff_Milo · May 11, 2009

rich56k wrote:

Jeff,

Yikes!! You may want to re-examine your policies, as the fact you sell or give away is totally irrelevant to the trademark / copyright owners...it's not worth the potential problems you could encounter, see attached from bottom of their web site - even the color combinations are mentioned!!

just my .02

rich56k

Just thought I would give an update on this. Figuring it better to be safe than sorry way back in mid April I decided to send an email to the A's requesting permission to use their logo's. Finally heard back from them on Friday and after sending their Senior Counsel a sample of the cards and an explanation of their intended use the Oakland A's were kind enough to grant me permission to use the logos. I thought that was kind of cool, almost renewed my faith in MLB.

Also found a great vendor to print the cards www.mvpcards.com, unfortunatly smugmug does not print them. Now if I could only find the sticks of rock hard gum to include with the sets

OhEddie · May 11, 2009

Jeff,

Wow, that's outstanding. Nice to know they are not the big evil corporation I thought they might be.

Sledhed · May 11, 2009

Jeff_Milo wrote:

Just thought I would give an update on this. Figuring it better to be safe than sorry way back in mid April I decided to send an email to the A's requesting permission to use their logo's. Finally heard back from them on Friday and after sending their Senior Counsel a sample of the cards and an explanation of their intended use the Oakland A's were kind enough to grant me permission to use the logos. I thought that was kind of cool, almost renewed my faith in MLB.

Congratulations on doing it the right way!