Last week, Panini released their preview for 2011 Contenders to a collective vomit from the collecting public. Instead of building on 2010’s winning look, they instead went with a horizontal abomination that showed how little success their design team has been having lately. The busy and boxy look, with the player trapped in the corner instead of being the focus of the design, was a virtual visual abortion. I would have rather watched the scene in 127 hours, where he severs his arm with a pocket knife, instead of continuing to look at the horrid excuse for contenders this year.

Chad Kinzel, a reader and obvious Packers fan, decided to take it into his own hands. With some basic requests from me, and his own keen design eye, he did an ABSOLUTELY amazing job showing what these cards COULD and SHOULD have looked like if there was any effort by Panini’s team. Remember, the goal should have been to wow, not to just do it just to do it.

When you see how much success the designers like Chad and Matt Lange, as well as Sergio from Bustingpacks.com have had, it makes me wonder who is doing the designs over Panini. These guys DO NOT design cards for a living. However, they make the people that do design the cards for a living look like they are at my level, not someone like has been at Topps and Upper Deck over the last few years.

Here are Chad’s designs, you can see what I mean with a simple glance: