ONE SHEET, ONE SET - 2009/10 Trilogy

This set was an eye-catcher for me right off the hop for a couple reasons. First - no Linden card in the set, so it's a design I wasn't too familiar with.

The second - I'll let the picture do the talking.

2009/10 Upper Deck Trilogy

Not your traditional off-white card border now is it. Trilogy is a mid-range release that consists of a base set of only 100 cards and some short print inserts and rookies to round the total set out at 170.

A more bold design some would say than other products, the first impression these cards had on me were striking.


The front of the card begins and ends with a strong template. A gold background really catches your eye - and no, it's not some special parallel. These cards are from the regular base set.

The curved design of the white bands give a great negative space to the gold positive. The most outside band of grey draws your eye to the bottom left where the player's jersey number is placed. Again, in gold.

The blue gradient band more in the foreground is nicely fit for the player's name and position. I like the font style; the boldness adds to the strong card design.

The final band on the left is the textured team color band that acts as a highlight for the Trilogy logo. A bit of a miss here for two reasons. First, it's team color based (which is good) but not every card's colors show very well. On top of that, the Trilogy text seems somewhat off-center to the design. But if you look at the text in relation to the card itself, it's centered properly. It's a tad confusing.

A silver foil Upper Deck logo in the top left is nice, but the same silver foil team logo at the bottom is a little less clean. Looking at it from certain angles, it does the job, but at other angles it just looks like a blob of silver.

A very subtle halftone (lines) effect in the background has me trying to figure out the rhyme and reason for it. It appears in some areas, but not others. It also isn't consistent from card to card. This leads me to believe that it's based on what is a very - VERY faint background photo.

Speaking of the photo, the player photos are decent choices. Not all of them are simple left or right hand turns. Some have a feeling of movement to them, but it's hard when your stuck with the parameters of a full body shot.

Notice anything about all nine cards shown? It appears that you need to be photographed with your mouth open in order to make the cut for this set.

The faux-dropshadow is a little hokey, but I can live with it. Same can be said of the glowing white orb immediately behind each of the player's heads. Nice.


The back of the card carries the design elements from the front nicely. In fact, it's one of the better combinations I've seen.

Gold is more of a foreground color with an odd blue acting as the background color. The halftone (lines) pattern is back, but is now consistent from card to card. Same too are the curved bands. A nice gradient mix of the three curves gives a good flow to the card back.

I like how the player name is in the tab above the stats section. The team color is a little easier to see, but not by much with some cards. I also like the non-foil team logo. Not too overpowering, but still predominant.

The card number uses the same font style as the player name and I like the choice. Again, bold, but not lame.

The top right is a well-framed player head shot. And a different photo is used for these. Bonus points to the designers. Thank you.

A good tidbit about the player sits just below the position and jersey number info giving a tidy design to the top half of the card back.

The stats at the bottom are pretty nice. easy to read with the white glow-type background help. Sadly, only five years of stats regardless of how long you've played. It should be a lot easier to get this aspect of card designing down. It's either too much extra space, or running out of it.

The product name - which is a given these days - acts as a header for the parade of logos. Surprisingly, these logos don't catch my eye at all. I think it has to do with the well designed background. I'm not drawn to it at all.

Overall, these cards look pretty nice and when flipping through a box of singles should be super easy to track down. An interesting player selection as well. Not just your superstars. I like that.

If you happen to find some, grab 'em. Especially if they're cheap. Some of the star players are booking at a few bucks a piece. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you could land some of them for pennies....after all, they're base cards.

3.5 out of 5