I don’t know what it about Panini lately, but they just cant get it together. Whether it’s the poorly designed and conceived products that are paraded out on a weekly basis, or the inability to build upon the small amount of success from last year, 2011 is the year of Topps. Contenders, last year, was one of the better sets that Panini managed to release. Regardless of the typical overuse of rainbow foil on their amazing white focused ticket design, as well as the hideous subsets like “rookie ink,” it was a big win. This year we see a complete disregard of everything that made last year’s set successful, thus leading to a lot of collectors scratching their heads. They, as well as myself, cannot understand how a company can put such little effort into their most popular product, especially when it was a nice little surprise last year.
Starting with the Ticket design, I have already commented extensively on how horrid it looks, which is pretty amazing considering how good the rookie inks look. Even though it isn’t what it could be, like was displayed by Chad and his reimagining of the contenders design, it should have been the base ticket design, no doubt. These cards were so bad last year, that I actually laughed. They looked like bad rehashes of propaganda posters from the 1940’s, and that isn’t a good thing. This year, they look much better.
Check out last year’s visual diarrhea:
Rob Gronkowski Rookie Ink Auto
The golden tickets look better too, as last year the design was goofy as hell. They actually kept it very straight forward, and not oddly proportioned, which should make a difference in the rookie versions as well. There isn’t much you can work with when printing on gold, but don’t you think they wouldn’t have thought of that to begin with?
When you see the Super Bowl ticket design, everything looks okay until you see Panini’s new girlfriend making her return appearance in ANOTHER set. The big white box around the sticker makes absolutely no sense. Rather than blurring lines or building the sticker into another part of the card, they just slapped a perfect rectangle over the player’s picture. I don’t get this practice, because it goes to show just how lazy the Panini design team is. YOU KNOW YOU WILL NEED TO PUT A STICKER ON THIS CARD, WHY DIDN’T YOU DESIGN IT THAT WAY TO START? Its like they did the entire design for the card, and then were shocked when they had to fit a sticker in, too. “Yeah man, just slap a big white box on top of Rodgers, I totally forgot about where the sticker is going.”
They were awesome last year:
Jack Lambert Super Bowl Ticket Auto
Santonio Holmes Super Bowl Ticket Auto
In fact, the big white box has been and will be in so many sets, that I think I am not the only one who is getting annoyed with complete disregard for design and content. So far we have big white boxes in Crown Royale, Gold Standard, Contenders, Elite, Absolute, and that is only based on previews. Who knows what will happen when things actually hit shelves.
Lastly, I hate double sided cards. Why are you creating a card that obviously can only be displayed with half showing? Booklet cards have been everywhere for at least a few years, I cannot understand why they would do a double sided piece of crap when that method is also available. Its not like the card looks all that awesome to begin with, which is laughable to say the least.
So, based on these extended previews, we can see that Panini has pretty much McNabbed at least 2 of the 4 most popular sets of the year, with Elite, Contenders and even possibly Certified being complete disasters (yes, I turned Donovan McNabb into a verb). Its obvious to everyone but Panini themselves, the lack of time spent on making football what it could be has directly resulted in Topps’ overwhelming success. Topps has taken the ball and run over Panini at every turn, like Adrian Peterson during last week’s THREE TDs in one quarter. The tide of collector approval has shifted so drastically, that even the most pro-Panini message boards have gone rogue. Even though it wont stop people from buying, much to my chagrin, it will catch up with them eventually. Trust me.
Panini couldn’t design a fart after lunch at Taco Bell.
I don’t know what it is with Panini. Have they always been this clueless? I’m not as critical as the G-Man is, but I DO see his point on most of his criticisms… My biggest mistake this year (My first collecting again in a LONG time) was buying more than a box or two of Elite. I will NOT do that again with a Panini product!
i agree panini need to do a better job with contenders. The McNabb joke is funny, although he gets way to much hate. But panini need to do less busy, for content designs that highlight the auto and not all those busy designs that they have.
Rumour has it the NFL license is up for renewal after this season. If the PA were to ask the fans which two companies they’d like to see making cards, i’d be very nervous if i’m Panini…
Darren i disagree, i would be nervous for those of us with good taste, its amazing how many people like the garbage panini puts out……..
On the Panini Blog, post dated 14 Oct; eleven comments are posted by Panini Groupies (probably soliciting for free stuff), while one is not so favored, due to the lack of filling redemptions from prior year products, the others absolutely love this product. I have noticed also, if Panini sponsors your blog, Panini can about guarantee kudos.
I wonder how many unfavorable comments Panini sends to the recycle bin. It is a shame; I used to look forward to Contenders along with SP Authentic… one product going down the drain fast while the other without NFL licensing.
I really miss the Donruss era.
They absolutely censor there. I had posted specific non-rude criticisms there before and none of them make it to the real website.