Trading Cards
Creating a full set of team trading cards was the most time-consuming project of every season, but it was also always my favorite. I’ve outlined the whole process below.
The Team
Art & Copy: Megan Kim
Photography: Rebekah Bing
STEP 1: TEMPLATE LAYOUT
This is the fun part. There’s a lot of trial and error and agonizing over tiny details, but by the end I have a layout for both the front and the back of the trading card.
STEP 2: PHOTO SELECTION
Over the course of the season, I sorted and filed away photos by player, flagging any that I felt had potential for use on a trading card along the way.
STEP 3: ADD PHOTO TO FRONT OF CARD
After editing, cutting out, and placing the photo, I thought the background left something to be desired. A bit of fiddling and experimenting later, I landed on taking the same photo at a lower opacity and integrating it into the background graphics.
STEP 4: NOW FOR THE BACK
For the back of the card, I chose another photo of the player (preferably in a different jersey than seen on the front). Then I filled in the biographical information, the statistics, and wrote the copy for the blurb.
STEP 5: EXPORT
This step is self explanatory, right? After going through copyedits and a second and third pair of eyes, this guy is ready to head to print.
STEP 6: DO IT A BUNCH MORE TIMES!
There are around 25 standard player cards in a deck, so this process gets repeated until the roster has been finished. Once that’s done, each card gets placed on a sheet and sent off to the printer.