Topps’ ambitious Project 2020 finishes its marathon run today. The set was fantastically inventive and gave rise to the strange and fruitful possibilities of mixing sports cards and art. Beyond the artists included in the set, it provided inspiration for countless others (myself included) to play in that world. I don’t know that we will ever see a project just like it again, but I do believe we will be seeing spin-offs and a strong art influence in the trading card world for a long time to come. I am excited to see the set’s influence play out.
I have followed the set closely and will miss checking out new cards every week-day! To celebrate the set, I have chosen 20 of my favorite cards below and written some brief comments for each.
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Coming so early on in the set, this is a prime example of a card that seemed so strange at first as most of us were trying and failing to wrap our heads around what this project was all about. I was half-way intrigued and half-way dismissive of it at the time, but as I adjusted to the set and saw more cards from the artist, Ermsy ended up being one of my favorites. Blake Jamieson has said that seeing this card before he had turned in any of his final designs inspired him to “raise his game.”
1990 Topps might be the prime example of “so bad it’s good” design. And it came out when I was 10, so it is right in my nostalgia wheelhouse. Tyson Beck celebrates the gaudiness and overproduction with the all-over repetition of elements.
There were not a lot of Don C cards that resonated with me, but Tony Gwynn’s 1984 card re-cast in the lovely wood grain of a Louisville Slugger is perfection.
Ben Baller’s style and mine rarely matched up, but this Jackie Robinson card is a stunner. The look of determination on Jackie’s face is powerful and feels so right, in stark contrast to the delightful but possibly misleading carefree smile seen on Jackie’s original 1952 card.
As a general rule, my favorite Project 2020 cards maintained a recognizable connection to the original card while simultaneously exploding it into something much different. Ermsy was the master of that difficult balancing act.
Here’s an example of a card I loved that seems to bear no connection to the original card. I’m noticing now it is the only one on my list I could say that about. Not maintaining some spirit from the original card was almost always a barrier to me fully connecting with a card, but this one is just that good.
There is nothing more visually interesting to me than a human face, and Fucci’s stubborn omission of any facial features throughout the set was a bold choice. It also made many of his cards fall flat for me. This Rickey was an exception, partly because Rickey’s face is not a major focal point of the original card, but mostly because the coloring, background, and lettering all work together so well.
Blake Jamieson neatly touches on that intersection of sports and art here with a Jean-Michel Basquiat style crown atop Roberto Clemente’s head. Like Clemente, Basquiat was of Puerto Rican descent. Jamieson has cited Basquiat as a major influence, and—how cool is this?—Basquiat was making art out of Topps cards 40 years ago.
Keith Shore wrapped up his 20 card run in delightful fashion by sticking the 19 other players from the set in the stands cheering on Nolan Ryan.
Some of the original cards celebrated in the set provided more fruitful jumping off points than others. (No cards for Mattingly, Koufax, Griffey, Ripken, Mays, Jeter, or Rivera are on this list.) The Ted Williams 1954 card, with its brilliant yellow background, delightful Red Sox logo, action shot and portrait, inspired lots of killer interpretations.
Keith Shore’s playful, somewhat child-like style is in stark contrast to anything I’ve ever seen on a sports card before, and I find most of his cards charming. On his Rickey, the beautiful A’s colors, that great 1980 Topps design, and Shore’s simple but effective way of capturing Rickey’s speed all add up to an amazing card.
Surprisingly, the artists almost never looked to the back of the original cards to provide some inspiration. I remember Blake Jamieson showing one of the dummy cards that Topps supplied the artists for reference and noticing that the back was blank, which might have contributed to the artists usually ignoring backs. Tyson Beck was an exception and subtly and effectively included back elements into some of his cards.
Once again those great A’s colors make for a top-notch card, and Grotesk’s elephants presenting Rickey to us are just awesome.
I’m a Kansas City native and a Royals fan, so I was especially interested in all of the George Brett Project 2020 cards, and that no doubt plays a role in three Brett cards appearing on my list. Even without that bias though, the colors and design of the 1975 Topps Brett are brilliant ingredients for interpretation. The Mr. Royal character and snooping mystery figure looking on in the background make me smile.
My Kansas City roots are also at play in my admiration for this card thanks to Efdot’s clever inclusion of a Kansas City Monarchs logo in Jackie’s name. (Jackie’s stint with the Monarchs is perhaps the most intriguing story in baseball history for me.) But that isn’t all this card has going for it. It’s an excellent composition with plenty of small details to reward closer inspection.
Tyson Beck strikes again with repetition to echo the mass-produced, product element of trading cards and some subtle inclusions from the back of the card.
My homer-ism might be at play here again, but Ermsy’s George Brett is my favorite card from maybe my favorite artist of the set. I especially enjojy the pink Royals lettering traveling down from the top of the card to interact with Brett and the smiley-faced bat.
I’m a sucker for pink, a sucker for the 1959 Topps design, and a sucker for that smile on Shore’s Bob Gibson.
I’m surprised to only find one Gregory Siff card on my list as he is one of my favorite artists from the set. His cards might generally be better appreciated in the context of his full set as opposed to looking at them individually, but this Brett stands out for me as the point in the set where my thoughts on Project 2020 started to turn the corner from skepticism and confusion to excitement and appreciation. (I strongly considered buying it for my PC when it was first available, but $20 still sounded outrageous at that point in time. Of course now you’d be lucky to get one for under $400!)
Those great colors from the Williams card are at it again, and I especially admire Jamieson’s use of negative space on this card. Carving out a prominent role for negative space on a 2.5″ x 3.5″ card is no easy task, and very few cards in the set attempted it. Jamieson pulls off a perfect balance with this composition, and the yellow border bleeding off the top of the card à la the original is the cherry on top of what I consider the best looking card from the set.
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