Sports Design Blog

Old School Design: 1970's Hostess Baseball Cards

Continuing with our theme from yesterday, we take a look at another food related baseball treasure in today's Old School Design. These 1970's baseball classics came from the bottom of your favorite Hostess snack box in the 1970's. Each box of your favorite cream filled snack featured three cards of the tops stars from Major League Baseball.

The cards all had a thin dashed outline around them so you could cut them out and trade them with your friends. Of course, cutting them out completely ruined any collector value they had, but as a kid in the 1970's, were you really thinking about such things?

The cards were simple in design, definitely not filled with any graphic bells and whistles. Each year the designs evolved a bit but never really explored any creative innovations. The Hostess cards were a great showcase for the pre-Photoshop airbrushing skills of the time, as seen in these examples of Buddy Bell and Dennis Eckersley and the Catfish Hunter card above.

These cards were another great example of baseball card collecting in the 1970's and the crazy ways kids from that era had to use to acquire the best card collection in town. I'm sure I consumed more Hostess snack cakes than I really needed to in order to get my hands on these baseball gems.

Old School Design: Kellogg's 3-D Baseball Cards

How many of you are old enough to remember the feeling you got when you rushed downstairs in the morning to open up your new box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, with one of these outstanding gems inside? There was nothing quite like the feeling of shaking the box around and spilling it everywhere in the quest to see which Major League Baseball superstar was waiting for you inside on the 3-D card!

The Kellogg's 3-D Super Stars series featured the top players in Major League Baseball at the time, on a 3-D styled lenticular baseball card. For the 1970's, this technology was way out there and produced a card like no other at the time. These cards were also loaded with awesome 1970's style sports graphics.

I'll never forget when I pulled this Jim Palmer card out of the box. For some reason, after I found this card waiting for me in my morning cereal, I adopted Jim Palmer as my favorite player at the time and became a big Orioles fan. There was no rhyme or reason as to why this happened, the card just affected me that way! I know I've heard stories of others who had similar experiences.

The Kellogg's 3-D Superstars cards bring back some great childhood memories and will always hold a special place in my sports design history heart.

Old School Design: Pony City Wings

Everyone remembers the year that Michael Jordan introduced us to the first Air Jordan. That shoe would change an entire industry and set the sales of basketball shoes on fire. The colorful look of the original Air Jordan was like nothing ever seen before and set the basketball shoe industry into a frenzy.

To capitalize on the success of the Air Jordan and its unique look, other shoe companies brought out their version of the colorful shoe. One of the most notable was the Converse Weapons that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson wore in their famous dueling advertisements.

There is one more shoe from that era that tried to capitalize on the Air Jordan color craze that many may have forgotten, the Pony City Wing. The City Wing was a shoe that was very similar in design to the Air Jordan 1, but featured Pony's trademark chevron down the side. If you take a close look, the similarities are apparent. The City Wing came in several color combinations, but was best known for the red, white and black versions.

The most noteworthy Pony endorser was none other than Anthony "Spud" Webb. Spud Webb wore the low cut version of his City Wings during the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Competition. Spud elevated in his City Wings to capture the Slam Dunk Championship over teammate Dominique Wilkins that night. For one night, the City Wing ruled the basketball shoe world! Another Pony City Wing wearer was Orlando Woolridge of the Chicago Bulls.

The City Wing rode the wave created by the Air Jordan and is one of the more obscure members of the basketball shoe craze of the 1980's.

Logo Evolution: Philadelphia 76ers

The best logo news to come out in quite a while is the news that the Philadelphia 76ers are going to return to their classic logo and color scheme for the 2009-10 NBA season. The new look will be a return to an old, more familiar look for the 76ers. The return to their classic logo and color roots should help fans reconnect with the great 76ers teams of the past that featured greats like Dr. J, Moses Malone, Maurice Cheeks and many others.

Let's take a quick look at the evolution of the Philadelphia 76ers logo over the years.

The 76ers original look featured the number 76 with a ring of stars over top. The logo portrayed the image of Philadelphia being the birthplace of the United States, and the red, white and blue color scheme reinforced that image. The logo and uniforms were true American classics and their was no doubt what the team was about. The 76ers used this logo from the early 1960's until the mid 1970's.

For the 1978-79 season, the team evolved the logo a bit and added in the "ers" to say 76ers. The logo was also now framed by a basketball. This is the logo that brings back the most memories of the Julius "Dr. J" Erving years and the team's NBA Championship season. In the pre-Michael Jordan era, the 76ers, Celtics and Lakers dominated the game and Dr. J and his Sixers were one of the most entertaining teams to watch. The team used this logo until the end of the 1996-97 season.

The 1997-98 season saw the 76ers make, in my opinion, one of the worst logo and color scheme changes ever. In a rush to be like every other team in the 1990's that added black to their colors, the team went away from their traditional look and introduced this logo that added black and gold to the team's color scheme. The logo was a drastic departure from the team's classic look. This look came to be symbolic of the Allen Iverson era in Philadelphia. Thankfully, this look has gone away with the end of the 2008-09 season, lasting about 9 years longer than it should have.

The 76ers have just announced that they will be returning to their great look of the past for the 2009-10 NBA season. Finally the team will abandon the black and gold and give fans of the Sixers back the classic look the team had in its glory years, with some slight modifications. I know many may think that going back to the simpler more classic look is a step backward, but I for one think this is a great move. I loved the 76ers growing up and Dr. J was by far my favorite player in the pre-Michael Jordan era. When the team switched to the black and gold, I found it hard to keep my affection for the team going. Remember, I'm a logo guy, so this stuff means a lot to me! Returning to the classic 76ers theme is a move I applaud, and it makes me look forward to supporting this favorite team from my past again. From everything you hear, the team will also return to a uniform style similar to those worn back in the day and I can't wait to see those unveiled.

Congratulation to the 76ers for this move, it will at least get one more old school fan to take notice of the team again!

The XFL

Was there ever a league that completely epitomized the design styles of its time more than the XFL? The XFL was a professional football league that played one season in 2001. The league was founded by owner of the World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon. Unlike the USFL who tried to go head to head with the NFL, the XFL was intended to be a major professional sports league to complement the NFL during the offseason, but failed to find an audience and folded after its first season. The idea behind the league was to bring some wrestling excitement to the game. Roughing penalties were few, the players could celebrate on the field and television coverage feature some really original camera angles.

The league also provided some seriously entertaining team logos. The league featured eight teams in its one and only season, and each had a logo that was filled with the popular sports design styles of the time. Here are a few of my favorites. The Birmingham Thunderbolts featured a lightning logo that was used in a very unique way on the team's helmets.

The Orlando Rage had a very unique look as well. The team's mascot was an angry, red faced man who looked like he was suffering from a serious headache! The word Rage is an extremely hard one to create a visual image for, but this one gets the job done. The helmet featured more unique striping that was different than the type of striping seen in the NFL.

The Chicago Enforcers had another great look. The logo featured a simple stylized C with a fist punching out of it. The logo looked great on the Enforcers' black helmets. The look was very simple, but effective. The colors worked great together and created a great look.

The XFL was a league that wasn't around very long, but made a big impact on logo design and how we thought about football as an entertainment product. The concept may have been a bit crazy, and the football wasn't quite up to NFL standards, but who can forget characters like "He Hate Me"? The XFL definitely has its small place in sports logo history.

NBA Logo News: Philadelphia 76ers

I couldn't let the day go by without commenting on the wise choice the Philadelphia 76ers have made by returning to their classic red, white and blue colors and old school logo. The return of this logo signals the end of the use of black and gold, which was way overdue. As a huge fan of the Doctor, Julius Erving, I can't wait to see the 76ers return to the look they had when he was tearing up the NBA.

NASCAR Design: What happened to Dale Earnhardt's Taz car?

Today I wanted to take the readers of Sports Design Blog along for a ride on a design project I was involved in when I worked for Hasbro toys, designing NASCAR related products. This project involved some great creative ideas and the hard work of one of the greatest creative teams ever assembled. I thought you might enjoy some insight into this project. If you look closely at the image of the car and the Hasbro team, you may find a certain sports design blogger in there somewhere!

For the 2000 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt took to the track in a special #3 car featuring the famous Looney Tunes character Taz. The Taz character was part of a GM Goodwrench advertising campaign at the time. The car featured a red paint scheme with Taz on the hood. The number 3 on the roof was day-glo red, indicating Dale's inclusion in the Winston million dollar promotion. Dale ran well all day in this car but was involved in a late race incident that left him in the 21st position.

After the race, you would think that this car might end up in a museum or on display somewhere. Surely the car's shell would be immortalized in someone's collection? Well, at first, that was not the case. This photo shows the shell of the Taz car behind the race shops of Richard Childress Racing. The car's shell was not sitting in a museum, but was sitting in some tall grass outside the race shop.

That year, the design team at Hasbro was looking for a unique product idea that would bring a part of the race to the fans. The idea was to bring a piece of the actual race car and deliver it to the collectors of Winner's Circle products. The team found out about this piece of NASCAR history wasting away behind the RCR shop and decided to purchase it. The team had the body of the car shipped to its facility in the Cincinnati area and began a process to deliver pieces of the car to the fans. The product was eventually called the Team Authentics Series.

The car was shipped with the entire body in place. No chassis or motor, just the shell, windows and all. The Winner's Circle team disassembled the car and began a complicated process that would divide the sheetmetal into 1 inch squares that would be placed inside Winner's Circle product. The hood, windows, nose, rear and roof flaps were removed and the remaining sheetmetal was used to create the squares. The squares were then placed inside a plastic container and were included with a 1/64th scale diecast with the Taz car paint scheme.

The Team Authentics product was randomly inserted into packages of regular Winner's Circle product in 2001. The series also included other drivers and in addition to sheetmetal, there was a set that included swatches of drivers' uniforms as well. Of all of the Team Authentics pieces, none had more history than the Dale Earnhardt Taz car set. In a way, the Taz car no longer exists, but in another way, it lives on because it is now in the hands of Dale Earnhardt fans everywhere.

More Old School Bengals

Today I came across some more classic Cincinnati Bengals memorabilia I wanted to share. I'm sure you have all figured out by now that I am a big fan of old Bengals stuff. These cups from the 1980's feature some great design work and feature some of the Bengals best players from that era. The cups are very small and feature a head shot of the player, an action illustration with the player's signature and an image of the Bengals striped helmet, which was still new at the time. Check out the old school Anthony Munoz!
The set includes cups for six Bengals players, Ken Anderson, Pete Johnson, Jim LeClair, Reggie Williams, Dan Ross and Anthony Munoz. If you click on the photo, you can get a good look at the action illustrations of each player. If you look closely, you will see that the designer who did the final production work on the Dan Ross cup put the number in upside down, giving Dan the number 68 instead of his correct number 89.

This cup set is loaded with graphic goodness and captures some great NFL imagery from the early 1980's.

Old School Design: MC Hammer Style!

In the early 1990's, Pro Set was setting the standard in trading cards. They had taken a once forgotten NFL card market and tried to give it new life. In addition to their official NFL set, they also produced cards for the NHL and even the PGA Tour. Most of those cards come to mind when we think of Pro Set, but this one might not be so familiar. I know this subject isn't exactly sports related, but since it is Pro Set related, I thought it would qualify.

In 1990, Pro Set was handing out these prototype cards at the Atlanta Sporting Goods Show. The cards are called the Pro Set Super Stars Musicards.The cards featured top stars from popular music of the day, and some classic stars as well. The card pack that was being handed out at the show featured rock legend Jimi Hendrix, and the man who ruled the world in the early 1990's, MC Hammer. Who had more influence on early 1990's fashion style than the Hammer?

The MC Hammer card features our friend Stanley Burrel in a slick music note adorned jacket, wearing his famous glasses and classic neckwear ensemble. Unfortunately there is not a shot of his signature pants. The back of the card provides us with all of Hammer's vital statistics. These cards are sports related, as the back tells the story of how Mr. Burrel got the name Hammer from the Oakland A's baseball team. There are other facts about his top selling music and his future plans that were to include a movie career. No mention of bankruptcy and a comeback.

These cards are an unusual set that has been long forgotten. They feature classic late 80's/early90's design styles and one of the most famous popular music stars of the time, who is marginally sports related. I'm not sure how these Musicards faired in the marketplace, but they provide a fun look back at the music business in what seemed like a much simpler time.

Guest Columnists Strike Again!

I've taken the career risk once again of handing over control of the blog to another guest columnist! Today's column is written by Marc Swanson, who is one of our most prolific commenters. I know you will enjoy Marc's wit and humor, as well as his sports design knowledge.

By Marc Swanson,

First off, a big thanks to Jim for letting me contribute to the Sports Design Blog. This is my first writing gig, so be gentle with me. I’ve been a regular reader of the SDB for forty-seven years now and Jim’s finally giving me the keys to the kingdom, so thanks dude, I’ll try not to break anything.

Anyway… the topic today is pennants. My taste in design runs more toward classic, so I’d like to compare old vs. new. OK, maybe it’s more like “I like old pennants. The new ones, not so much.”

IMHO, there’s a lack of charm in most newer pennants. Sure the graphics are slick and some even incorporate full color photos, but the old-school graphics had more personality and the designers seemed to have a better feel for the media. Newer pennants frequently suffer from the “more is more” design philosophy in which negative space is eschewed for graphics for the sake of graphics. I can’t help but feel a pennant today has to go cross the desk of the CEO of Amalgamated Pennant Co. for approval before having a stick shoved up its pennant-hole prior to shipping. Old school pennants had that certain something that made you want to take it home and create a humongous pennant pizza-pie on your bedroom wall. Ah, good times…

Let’s start with the new-school. Check out the Atlanta Braves’ pennant. Sure, it’s got all your classic baseball imagery… a baseball, cap, glove (what’s with the Rawlings logo?), Braves logo, and… do I see... no it can’t be… a pennant? On a pennant? Wha?! It’s like looking into a felt infinity mirror. This pennant is… ummmmmm… not good. Not good at all.

More new school silliness -- likely from the 80s -- this San Diego Padres pennant is the embodiment of eschewing negative space for unnecessary crud. Sure it’s got a lot going on besides a logo and wordmark, but c’mon… it’s butter-knife dull.

The player pennant is one I can’t get into. I can see why others would like them (particularly kids), but I – like Jerry Seinfeld said – root for laundry. I can’t imagine rooting for teams other than my hometown Browns, Indians and Cavs. As much as I’ve loved players like Bernie Kosar, Omar Vizquel, Mark Price and, of course, LeBron James, I can’t picture myself ever feeling the need to purchase a pennant featuring any of their likenesses (no offense, guys). I’m all about the team. That plus these things make all the players appear to have the same proportions as Roger from “American Dad.”

OK, on to the good stuff. Dig that Milwaukee Braves pennant from the 50s! My brother had one just like it. Despite its deplorable depiction of Native Americans, I love this pennant in design terms. The character looks fierce as hell and the scroll graphic border featuring player names is a timeless element. I have to admit that as a kid, this pennant scared the bejeezus out of me.

I had a dream one night when I was about 5 years old that the lil’guy jumped off the pennant and chased me around the house waving his tomahawk while “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream played in the background. Yikes. Either someone slipped some acid in my milk or it was the same night my brother jumped out of the closet in our darkened bedroom shoving one of those coconut pirate-head things in my shrieking face leaving me with a lifelong fear of coconut pirates. I’m digressing…

Check out the Brooklyn Dodgers’ pennant. I love how they play off the team nickname “Da Bums.” The simple graphic is nice and I kind of like the unofficial typeface. Odd that it’s green, but whatever. There’s a cleanness graphically that just isn’t found in today’s flags… plus today you couldn’t give away a pennant featuring a homeless guy with the ol’ doo-rag-on-a-stick thing carried by only the most discriminating bums of the 40s.

The College All-Stars flag is another that my brother once had. This was and is my favorite pennant ever. Dynamite colors, stars on the helmet and shoulders, cool fonts, and a dude that looks like he’s about to bust out of that pennant and bowl you over on the way to the end zone. There’s a bunch of stars on that pennant which could very easily have gotten out of hand, but the designer knew when to apply the brakes. Very nice.

In all fairness, I shouldn’t trash all modern pennants just as I shouldn’t over-romanticize the old ones.  A lot of new pennants incorporate classic design as well as the old ones did and really look great. Add to that, there’s a bunch of really cool new retro-styled pennants floating around now as well. All in all, “less is more” is definitely the philosophy that should apply to pennants. Thanks for taking the time to read my inane ramblings

Old School Design: George "The Iceman" Gervin

In today's Old School Design, I wanted to take a look at one of my all-time favorite sports posters. The poster I'm talking about is a Nike poster featuring George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs. This classic poster is titled "Iceman" in honor of Gervin's on court nickname. The poster features Gervin in a silver Nike satin sweatsuit sitting on an icy throne. The Iceman is holding two frozen silver basketballs in each hand.

The Iceman is posed in his trademark cool style and is sporting a great pair of classic Nike basketball shoes. The jacket carries the monogram "ICE". George Gervin's smooth on-court playing style and his famous finger roll made him one of the true innovators of modern basketball. His career with the San Antonio Spurs began in the ABA and continued on with the team after they joined the NBA. The Iceman was a one of a kind superstar with a unique style and personality. This classic poster captures the spirit of the Iceman and his Hall-of-Fame style.