Because of the massive successes that have recently released from Topps, I have to believe that Panini is more than a little concerned as to the reaction that collectors will have to their biggest sets of the year. Certified has always been a popular release, as it is one of the oldest and most continuous brands that Panini has in their aresenal. However, over the last few years it has become stale and unoriginal, much like many of the brands that their team has refused to update since the Donruss takeover.

This year, Certified is getting a little bit of an upgrade. The biggest upgrade is the on card autographs for the box hit freshman fabric cards, which is definitely something that needed to happen. The biggest problem is that the design isnt even close to the level that we have seen on Topps’ cards, and it has to do with weird choices in lines and borders, as well their approach to orientation of the cards. From the recent previews, we can see that parts of their composition are significantly questionable.

I took their preview of what would happen if Kevin Durant had a Football card to illustrate how I would have done these cards. First, that hideous inch long nameplate, that runs top to bottom on the right side, needs to go. I get that it ties these cards to the overall set, but it looks terrible due to it only working on a vertically oriented card. I would have instead put the nameplate in a much different and more fitting spot to help the card look 100 times better:

Moving onto the jumbo patch parallel of this style of card, I really have no idea why it is designed the way it is. As I mentioned above, the entire card loses an inch of space that could be used for better composed content. Instead, there isnt enough room for a piece of memorabilia that is the size they used on the jumbos. It intrudes into the border of the card, which looks awkward to say the least – ESPECIALLY with a straight line border that runs the length of the vertical edge.

In terms of the other insert sets that they previewed, the hometown heroes set looks pretty awesome. Full game photos and a nicely positioned border looks great. Full bleed photography is lost on some products like this, and its great to see that there will be cards that feature it. However, 99% of these cards wont fetch more than five bucks, and as a patch hit in a 100 dollar box like this, it makes no sense. Panini refuses to update configurations on the EIGHT different sets that all are structured the same, and that is beyond dumb. Absolute featured up to THREE hits in a 160 dollar box that were not going to break the 10 dollar floor, and this product will be worse. Too many crap jersey cards that should be reserved for products like Prestige, if it were only costing 50 bucks a box.

Panini needs to understand that the jersey card is dead in this hobby, especially when they overuse it as much as they do. No matter how many publicity posts they put on their blog, it wont make a difference. They can hide all the criticism on their site, but it seeps into places like message boards and the few remaining card shops that they are so keen on helping.

Where Topps is taking products that have needed makeovers and made them favorites again, Panini is taking products that were once favorites and making them in need of makeovers.

Here are a few more cards from the preview: