1991-92 Bowman Hockey: A Redesign

Here's the word of the day at Nine Pockets:

gradient (noun): change in the value of a quantity (such as temperature, pressure, or concentration) with change in a given variable and especially per unit distance in a specified direction. 

 

From a design perspective, that "change in the value of a quantity . . . in a specified direction" also applies to color. 

 

It's interesting and science-y enough, but this is a trading card blog. So what in the world does it have to do with trading cards? And the 1991-92 Bowman hockey set?

 

Well, by the time the 1991-92 sporting season came along, the trading card industry was quite familiar with color gradients. Have a look at these three examples.

 

 

1987 Fleer, 1989 Donruss, and 1992 Fleer show their color gradient chops, vertically and horizontally

 

So it shouldn't be a surprise that the Bowman brand took their shot at it, too. Look here.

 

 

That dark purple-to-light-purple fade across the bottom is peculiar enough. But then you add the orange and light blue border around the rest of card, and it feels like maybe Bowman was borrowing from the popular southwestern design motifs of the early '90s. 

 

 

You could totally display some 1991-92 Bowman cards in a room like that.

 

And all of the cards in the set feature that same border design and color combination. It's not what I'd expect for a hockey card, but then again, if there was any era to find odd color combinations on cards, the early '90s was it. In fact, Bowman thought so much of the design that they used it for their baseball and football sets that year, too!

 

All that being said, when I was looking through the cards in Bowman's hockey set a few months ago, I paused for some reflection. As fitting as those colors were for the early '90s (and although there is something nice about having a set of cards with the same border design across the entire set), I thought the cards could use an update. So I got to work. 

 

Now I'm ready to show the results.

 

As I've done with other set redesigns, I selected one card from each team to work with. The choices were based on the photograph—it had to contain something that represented the sport well, or showed the uniform and team logo clearly.

 

Here we go, in alphabetical order, by city.

 

To go into more detail:

 

(1) Most teams have two main colors (aside from white and black), so I decided to use those team colors for the gradient bar and borders. I had to tinker with some teams more than others, but I like the result. For teams like Detroit and Toronto, which only have one main color, I added a neutral gray.

 

(2) In general, I like it when card fronts feature the player's position, or at least an abbreviation for the position. That little space on the left side of the gradient bar seemed like a perfect location to add the G, D, C, LW, or RW designation—almost like the folks at Bowman designed it that way. So I made use of the space.

(3) I went back and forth on adding a team logo to the card. First I tried placing the logo in a white circle, but it felt like way too many other card sets—even a couple from the same 1991-92 season, like O-Pee-Chee and Pro Set. Eventually I settled on a triangular "shield" type of shape. The downward-pointing direction matched up well with the upward-pointing triangle at the bottom left of the card. But in the end, I scrapped it altogether. The logo felt distracting.

 

And besides, that same year, Parkhurst only had a player name on the front. Stadium Club only had a player name on the front. And Pro Set Platinum didn't have anything on the front. No player name. No team logo. Just a full-bleed image and the Pro Set Platinum logo. So the lack of a team logo is fine here.

 

But wait, there's more.

 

In 1991, the San Jose Sharks became the first expansion team since the WHA–NHL merger in 1979. And although there weren't any official Sharks cards in the 1991-92 Bowman set, the company did add a "Now with Sharks" note to the cards of a few players who'd been claimed by San Jose in the expansion draft or traded to the team during the season. For some bonus content, I found one of those cards, did a little bit of airbrushing, and removed the "Now with Sharks" note.

 

 

This was the only Sharks card in the set that featured a headshot, and I'm thankful for that. Airbrushing a player's full uniform, or even their jersey, was something I didn't want to do. The collar of the jersey was enough.

But wait, there's still more.

Because this Bowman set is numbered and organized by team, I wanted to see how a 9-pocket page would look in the new design. I thought the Hartford redesign looked pretty nifty, and made that my experiment.

First, here are 9 of the team's cards in their original design.

 

 

It's really not so bad when you see it in the familiar 9-card layout. But I love those Hartford jerseys and colors. I needed to see the 9 cards in the new design. Here they are.

 

 

Ahh. That's the stuff.

 

And that 9-pocket page looked so sharp, I decided to do another team. Here's Vancouver in the original design.

Again, not bad by any means. But get a load of them in the new design.

I think that yellow-orange-black gradient is pretty sweet.

So that's the redesign. I had fun with this one, for sure. I think Vancouver, Hartford, Los Angeles, and Calgary are my favorites at the moment.

What are your thoughts? Which team looks the best? 

 

Do you think hockey card collectors would have opened more Bowman packs in 1991-92 if the cards were color matched like the ones above? 

Let me know in the comment section. And thanks for reading, as always.