Friday, August 2, 2019

2020 Chachi Preview - Celebrating 15 Years of Custom Phillies Cards


Topps surprised the collecting community last Thursday afternoon, with a Tweet showing a first look at its 2020 flagship baseball card set design.  This is the earliest they've done this in recent memory, as the first look at next year's set usually comes in mid to late August.  That forced The Phillies Room support staff to hold an emergency meeting and settle on a design for our 2020 set.  Given this is the 15th year for Chachi sets, and also that one of my son Doug's favorite "recent" Topps designs is the 1991 Topps set, a decision was reached relatively quickly.

After spending the entire 2019 season with the 1971 Topps set, we'll be jumping 20 years forward to the 1991 Topps set, marking the most recent Topps design I've tackled.  Time will tell, but it's probably the most recent Topps design I'll ever tackle, given that my preference is for vintage designs.  To celebrate the 15 year milestone, I came up with a special "15 Years" logo, working with the original "40 Years" logo from the 1991 Topps set.


The design of the 1991 Topps set seems fairly basic, but there's actually quite a lot going on here.  The name plate with the black lines in the background wasn't easy to replicate given my limited graphic design skills.  There's also part of the player's photo (be it a bat or a helmet or a glove) that crosses over the background border to give the card a more three dimensional look.  It's going to be hard to find photos that work with this design, especially for some of the lesser known Phillies, but I shall do my best.

Already looking ahead to the 2021 Chachi set, there aren't many Topps set designs remaining from the 1970s and 1980s I haven't used yet.  If the Chachi brand is around for another 15 years, I'm eventually going to venture into designs from the Donruss and Fleer sets from the early 1980s, and I could see myself repeating some Topps designs already used.  Here's what's still out there for 2021 and beyond:

1965 - My favorite Topps design from the 1960s.
1972 - The only set design from the 1970s I've not used yet, given I'm not advanced enough to replicate the font used for team names.
1984, 1986, 1987, 1989 - The 1986 design is the front-runner for the 2021 Chachi set.
Other Future Candidates - 1981 Donruss, 1981 Fleer, 1982 Donruss, 1983 Fleer, 1985 Fleer, 1987 Donruss

Memory Lane
2014 Chachi Preview #1 (8/8/13)
2015 Chachi Preview #1 (8/15/14)
2016 Chachi Preview #1 (8/11/15)
2017 Chachi Preview #1 (8/10/16)
2018 Chachi Preview #1 (8/7/17)
2019 Chachi Preview #1 (8/20/18)
2020 Chachi Preview #1 (8/2/19)

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