November is here, which means a chance to gather all of my Mocktober designs from this year’s MLB Postseason. Just like last year, I created a unique card design for every postseason game featuring the “player of the game” for each contest. With the expanded playoff format this year, I knew I’d be doing more cards than previous years. Luckily, the way each series played out there weren’t an overwhelming number of extra games. The final count was 40 cards this year compared to 37 last year.

Jeremy Peña was the most featured with 4 individual cards. That makes sense since he was the ALCS and World Series MVP. Yordan made it onto 3 cards (with Peña getting a cameo on that final WS card). There were a couple of firsts for me this time around. Thanks to the Phillies’ historic homer-fest in Game 3 of the World Series, I did my first 5-player design. And then the following night, Cristian Javier and 3 other Astros pitchers combined for a no-hitter. In trying to figure out a way to feature them all without making another multi-player card, I focused on Javier while giving the rest of the crew the old hologram treatment. Thanks to some Photoshop tutorial vids on YouTube, I feel like I did a decent job with the hologram effect.

Looking at the whole lot now, it looks like I had better ideas as the postseason went on. I think that’s almost exclusively thanks to the number of games happening each day in the first round. That old adage “done is better than perfect” was definitely in play there. But this whole exercise is precisely about churning out ideas and trying out different things. All of them aren’t going to be great, but they’re all valuable.

Well, the 2021 MLB season has officially come to an end with the Braves winning the World Series earlier this week. And even though I didn’t watch a single game of final series, I was followed along the entire postseason thanks to my Mocktober project. I did this in 2019 but without the clever name. Basically, whomever is the player of the game for each potential contest, I would make a card featuring them the following day. Each design would be something completely new for me (no leftovers, repurposed designs, etc.). Then I’d add it to a thread on Twitter and watch the 1s of likes just roll in. The purpose of the whole thing is to keep my creativity flowing and try out new stuff. Occasionally, something good-to-great would break through. And then of course there were a few flops here in there. But the schedule and volume of games dictated that I wouldn’t spend too much time on a particular card, so the misfires can be excused. If you didn’t happen to follow along on Twitter or maybe missed a post here or there, I’ve collected all the final 37 images here.

The styles here run the gamut, from retro to modern, bordered to full-bleed, clean to overdone. Seeing them all here side-by-side for the first time, it’s easy for me to pick out which ones would work for a full set and which would be one-offs or inserts. I do know this year I seemed to design the cards around the photos a bit more often than I usually do. I guess that’s understandable given that the player featured is pretty much set in stone and the images are limited to a single game. Normally, I have a season’s worth of photos to comb through so I can find the right one to fit a design.

So long, 2021 season. Hopefully the 2022 campaign starts on schedule or close to it. I’m willing to sacrifice a bit as a fan, though, if it means the players get a better shake and the owners reign of terror gets toned down a bit. (Not holding my breath on that one.)