[longhornjunkie]

SA-GE has announced the winner of the 2008 Design A Card Contest!

Being rewarded again for his great work is Kasey Moody (username KM-03), who has won for the 2nd year in a row for his "Saturday Colors" design.

I have copied the e-mail from Tom Geideman, president of SA-GE Collectibles, word-for-word below. He has given us the judges' feedback on all of the 14 semi-finalist designs. As you will see, they were very pleased with many of the designs and had some tough choices.

Thanks again to all our members for supporting the contest, to all our entrants, and a huge thanks to SA-GE for allowing us to host the contest. My personal thanks to Tom for being patient and gracious during a couple of technical difficulties we encountered in the process. Hope to see everyone back for the 2009 contest - as Tom says, start working now, and I agree as the competition will probably be even tougher next year!


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Here is the final rankings of the designs… We were going to separate out finalists from the semi-finalists, but since we reviewed all 14 together in the final round it seemed more appropriate to provide comments on all 14 equally… They are listed in the final order of voting by our 7-person panel though (14th to 1st):



We’d like to thank again everyone who submitted an entry into the 3rd annual traderretreat.com design-a-card contest. There are obviously very talented people out there and this year was once again evidence of that. The final 14 were selected for various reasons, but it really wasn’t a full testament to some other strong concepts that were submitted. For example, the Level Up name seems like a great one, and I think had NFL bound been selected as our final design (it finished just out of the top spot) we likely would have used the Level Up name (as we don’t hold a license with the NFL, but instead with CLC – Collegiate Licensing Company). We encourage everyone to start working on next year’s contest whenever they have a chance. Some ideas may just need to be refined, and other great concepts may strike you in February and inspire your work. The designs submitted and used in our first two years have been well received & we plan on continuing to tap the vast talents of our SAGE collectors in the future. Thanks again for your efforts. Here is a review of the final fourteen designs as commented by our 7-person panel.



Entry 11 – Inked

We really like the innovative nature of this design which is why it was selected as one of the final 14 to judge from. Ultimately though the panel thought that this design, though interesting on its own, wouldn’t hold up as a complete 20-card insert series. It was felt that the 3rd time you pulled this from a box it would have worn-out it’s welcome. Maybe if it used some of the design elements in conjunction with a 4-color photograph it would help add color & keep the innovations that made it a finalist.



Entry 06 – Rite of Passage

This design was clean, simple & attractive. However, I believe our panel thought that it was similar to the Xtreme design (entry 14) which ultimately ranked higher in the final vote.



Entry 05 – Vitamin O/Vitamin D

This is a very clean design, but two things were against it being chosen as the winner. One it focuses more on the defense (whom collectors view as giving up the TD and losing the game, versus scoring the final TD and winning the game – ultimately making them less collectible) and some believe it was a lawsuit waiting to happen if we used this Vitamin Water design.



Entry 08 – Down & Dirty

I really liked how the title was incorporated into the photo area and the rip effect on the left hand side of the design as well. It seems like it was well-constructed. It’s downfall may have been the inability to read the title on any given card (being placed on two lines instead of one like most magazine headlines would appear) as well as the strength of the other entries submitted this year.



Entry 07 – TECHnique

Some really liked this design. I know I was very impressed on how this design was to be modified to create different versions (autographed, jersey, etc.). One negative though was the largeness of the TECHnique silver foil area. Some thought it was so large that it distracted from the photo area (the elements that change from specific player to specific player card).



Entry 10 – Under The Helmet

I still really like this concept. I know I had it a lot higher on my final list than most panelists. Last year this was our runner-up design & we went back in forth for days it seemed as to which one would ultimately be the winner. I know some panelists asked ‘isn’t this the card from last year?’ which may have hurt it’s final ranking. I still believe this is a very creative concept and I’m still a big fan. If it gets submitted next year as well I’d work on refining some of the finer touches on the design. The idea may be clever, but the final execution isn’t nearly as polished as the other designs that ranked ahead of it (last year or this year). Some judges want to see a more finished product that they can easily imagine being in the product they open.



Entry 13 – Big Time

Very clean design. I imagine, without reviewing the people who submitted the designs, that this was submitted by the same person who submitted Bowl Bound. Since they were similar & Bowl Bound was better received this design just missed.



Entry 09 – Retro

If you watch American Idol you hear the judges constantly stating to be original, to stop trying to imitate popular singers & to ‘make it your own’. This design does that. It isn’t like any of the others that were submitted. It’s attractive and different which are the positives. It may not have caught the fancy of the designs that all ranked ahead of it in the end, but the only real negative I heard was that Retro didn’t describe the card. Perhaps if it had a different, more generic, name that comment would have gone away, though I doubt it made a real difference in the end. I think the judges just liked the other finalists better.



Entry 02 – Playbook

Clean, attractive design utilizing actual plays was a cool concept. However, the biggest negative we heard about this design (which ranked very low on some lists, strictly because of this next comment, & otherwise high on other lists) was that it was too similar to last year’s winner. While last year’s Playmakers had the same circle and lines on the final design it resembled a play, and those who ranked it low couldn’t see following up last year’s design with one so similar in make-up.



Entry 01 – Heroes

This is very clean & attractive. While some immediately struck against Vitamin D for its similarity to Vitamin Water not as many voted against this one for it’s closeness to the TV series for whatever reason. The glows & shadow added to the player image were really well-done. This was obviously one of the most polished designs (pick it up and put it in packs today) which must have ultimately led to such a high final ranking.



Entry 04 – NFL Bound

This design was one of my personal top three entries this year. The name bar is really the main focus of this design & it’s really nicely done. It added team logo, name, color, pop, etc. to an overall attractive design. There were many other designs that used a name bar or other element in front of the player image which may have prevented them from becoming finalists. However, this design didn’t suffer from that. It seems the color, pop & uniqueness of the name bar added to the final design and didn’t take away. That may possibly be due to the fact that most of the cards used in the final insert would have different logos & team colors. Some panelists mentioned right off that we couldn’t use the name NFL Bound. While that shouldn’t have prevented this from winning (because we would have changed the insert name) it may have knocked it lower on some people’s rankings which may have pushed it lower on the final ranking than it should have been.



Entry 14 – Xtreme

At least one person ranked this as his favorite submission this year, while others had it consistently high-ranked. I know one person thought it was similar to the Under Armor logo, but I don’t see that at all. The design was clean, but nearly everyone wanted to tweak it a little here and there (for example, panelists wanted to see the player’s limbs outlined & placed over the large X in the design). Perhaps if it had some of those final tweaks done it may have ranked even higher. Everyone saw great things in this design though obviously as it was very close to ranking 2nd overall in this year’s contest.



Entry 12 – Bowl Bound

I really liked this design and in fact had it ranked #1 on my personal list. I thought it was very clean, very attractive & innovative. I loved how the stadium shot was incorporated in the Bowl Bound logo. It seemed to fit right into our product line-up (focusing on college and the bowl games) too. Some thought we should use different stadium shots for each design, but I disagreed. I believe one negative for the design was the ‘distressed’ texturing of the player’s name. We had a similar design-effect in HIT 2007 Football on the base cards & received several complaints from collectors who claimed all their cards were screwed-up by the printer. When there are so many strong entries one negative perception may end-up pushing some designs ahead of others. I believe that happened here. I really saw this design being modified with little issue & being used immediately.



Entry 03 – Saturday Colors

Congratulations to Kasey Moody on once again having his design selected as the #1 choice. This design was very clean & ranked as the top choice by most of our seven panelists. And, those who didn’t have it ranked #1 did have it very close to the top. The 2nd and 3rd place finishers were very close to each other in the final tally of scores by our panelists, but there was a large gap between those strong finishers & Saturday Colors. The name Saturday Colors worked well with the concept and the design (even though some teams don’t play all their games on Saturday). All in all it was just a very well thought through concept and design, and it all tied together beautifully. The only knock on this design was that we weren’t going to use it as a jersey card (though it worked great as one). However, our panelists were able to see, even with that in mind, that this was just the strongest overall concept & presentation.



Congratulations again to all the finalists and especially to Kasey Moody again for Saturday Colors being selected as the winner of the 3rd annual traderretreat.com design-a-card contest. Please be on the lookout for Kasey’s design in HIT 2008 Football. Saturday Colors will be a 20-card insert that will also have an autographed version produced. HIT 2008 Football will be live the week of April 25, 2008 before the NFL draft on the 26th & 27th.

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