This week, I'm taking a look at another set that comes from the overproduced era that was the mid-90's. After putting the cards in the sheet, I was really drawn to the display.
1997/98 Score
The first thing you might think upon seeing these cards are "what league are these guys playing in"? There is some funky jersey action going on. The NHL was really pushing the "third jersey" look. Some retro, some new, some ugly. A definite sign of the times and although I shake my head at it, I do appreciate the capturing of a time period.
The photos are a wide range of action shots, crazy angles and closeups. I will give points out for the attempt at a unique and exciting photo selection. Take a look at the cards I selected. I think each one, say for the Mogilny, is a pretty good photo for a hockey card. That Canucks jersey alone is worthy of inclusion.
The front of the card utilizes a fairly simple design (considering the crazy photoshop creations some card designs had at the time).
A simple photo box for easy insertion of pictures, the team nickname at the bottom and the player name along one of the sides. The Score logo is at the top (and is really not a very good logo - definitely shows its age). The text font styles, although 3 different, do work together. The cheesy spraypainted look for the last name actually doesn't look too bad to this collector.
What does bother me is the quality of some of the photographs. A lot of them come off as blurry and grainy - a definite downside as I am a sucker for a quality photo. It's too bad because there could have been some gems in there.
The back of the card continues the theme set forth on the front. The text fonts, the header backgrounds and the spraypainted look are all here.
While there is a good amount of information, I find the back of the card a little messy. The additional Home, Away and Playoff stats to me are unnecessary and a sleeker design could have been made with this stuff outta here.
And what's with the collection of logos in the bottom right corner? Can you say overkill?
Ultimately, this set has a lot of high hopes and connects on occasion, but the misses are just too much to overlook.
The nice thing is that this is a real inexpensive set should you choose to pursue it. It's a simple 270 cards and could probably be found in a $5 bin somewhere.
2 masks out of 5
i haven't seen this set before, but, man, i gotta say, i kinda dig the back! i'm a sucker for complete stats and the home/away/playoffs is a nice bonus to me. i'd rather have that than a stupid headshot...i know what he looks like...i saw the front of the card! :-) just my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. To each his own.
ReplyDeleteThere definitely have been worse card backs.