Unless you read my “About” page, you may not know this, but I’m a photographer and designer by trade. Baseball cards actually combine those two fields with my love for everything baseball. So, for me, baseball cards aren’t just pieces of cardboard, their little works of art.

Since my day job is mostly web design and webmaster/maintenance work at the moment, I like to take a little break every now and then and stretch the ol’ Photoshop muscles a little.

That leads me to “Custom Baseball Cards”. If you actually put that phrase into Google, you get a wide variety of absolutely astonishing or completely terrible cards. It’s clear who is a designer that likes baseball and who is a teenager with Photoshop, making cards for his garage band. Everyone has their own style too. Some people are creating beautiful cards that could, in all seriousness, go into production tomorrow. Some people are creating cards with large blank spaces so they can print them out and take them to a game to be autographed, creating their own completely custom collection.

Me, I like the artsy ones. My all time favorite cards are Upper Deck Masterpieces and Topps Gallery. If I’m feeling a little retro, nothing can beat Goodwin Champions or early A&G.

So, with that in mind… I came up with these.

First, what’s a card without a company, and what’s a company without a logo. Since I don’t feel like getting sued by Topps today, I created “Pastime Card Co.”

Represented on-card by their trademark banner and flag logos.

So, now that we have a completely fictional card company, what kinds of cards should it produce? Well, baseball, obviously. Of course, in this fictional world the MLB isn’t stupid enough to sign an exclusivity contract and we all enjoy the right to create cards for our national pastime. Pastime Cards focuses on more conceptual cards, with an artistic flare. The first series, printed on canvas, would have a more painterly look, while remaining somewhat modern…

Our second product hopes to capitalize on our exceptional photography. Using alternative photographic techniques and processes, cross processing, film light leaks and multiple exposures, we think it captures the game in a way never before seen. Part documentary, part art project, all sorts of awesome.

/end fake sales pitch.

I was just having some fun in Photoshop. I did make all those 2.5 x 3.5 @ 300dpi though, so if I ever get the itch to print them, I certainly can. If anyone is interested in learning how I put them together, feel free to ask away. Oh, and the first two pictures are just high-res I found floating around the net. These last two are actually my own.