Now that Topps Series 1 has hit the shelves and Spring Training is up and running, it’s time to take a look at what 2025 has in store for my fake Spirit brand.

I went borderless once again like I’ve done for the past 14 years now (omg). Photographically, I tried to get a good variety of photos here, sprinkling in some actions shots along with stuff from the sidelines or dugout. Even with the action shots, I tried to pick some with interesting angles or a unique element. The Toglia one in particular is good example of a run-of-the-mill action that’s a little different than what you might typically see on cardboard. Of course the stuff like the Gatorade bath, tv interview, etc., might stand out a bit more.

As for the design, there are basically three elements all reflecting each team’s identity — the ribbon running from edge-to-edge with the player name, the secondary bar below holding the team name and player position, and then the wedge with the team logo in the bottom left corner. The 45-degree angle adds a little drama along with the stroke of the underneath bar overlapping the ribbon. There’s a little texture and depth in there but overall it’s a rather clean design.

I already have my designs for the Clubhouse, Pennant and Deluxe sets squared away. Just need to finish putting together all the cards and I’ll be posting those in the near-ish future. Maybe even before Opening Day!

After the Eagles finished dismantling the Chiefs in the Super Bowl Sunday night, my Bluesky feed was full of posts declaring it “officially baseball season.” Pitchers and catchers are trickling into Spring Training facilities in Arizona and Florida. And with Topps Series 1 hitting the shelves on Wednesday, it’s fair to say it is indeed baseball season.

Fanatics released images of the 2025 flagship design last month and from what I’ve seen, the response has been pretty middling, at least compared to the near-universal praise the 2024 design received. I haven’t really seen anybody say they absolutely love the design but I also don’t really remember any intense hate for it either. That’s pretty much where I sit as well. But like past years, I do have a few tweaks I think would help the design overall.

On the left is the original Topps design and on the right my “remix.” The first thing I addressed was the big team name text on the left side. The outline on the original is just too plain hard to read. I don’t know if the physical cards will change a bit with the printing process (like the metallic shine on 2024’s neon elements) but on-screen, it’s a bit of a mess. I decided to place the text “inside” the colored bars but have them be a bit transparent so there’s a little depth there. Speaking of the colored bars, I tweaked the curves of the corners just a bit so they look “truer.” And I swapped the Yankees’ color palette to blue and red rather than the blue and gray Topps chose. Not sure why they want to make the cards less colorful, especially since the Yankees primary logo has more red than anything else in it.

The next area of adjustment is the bottom bar where the player name is. I’m just really not a fan of the treatment they gave it. The first name outlined with the drop shadow is a bad solution to a problem of their own doing. And the last name is a bit too thin weight-wise for my taste. They also seem to have made the gray bar fade out towards the bottom, adding the possibility of some legibility issues for some photos. My fix was to make it a solid bar as part of the border and then switch the typeface from Eurostile Wide to Eurostile Condensed Bold. And to keep with their motif, the first name is outline-only. The last name should be more prominent than the first in my opinion. Their original design has the opposite.

The one element that I have seen a lot of people praise the position indicator field icon in the bottom right corner. I kept that the same except updated the colors and then shaved the little tab off the bottom so the color border is straight across. After moving the Topps logo to the upper right corner, I called this one done. Nothing too drastic but enough little improvements I think makes a big difference overall.