Custom Cuts - Legendary Nicknames and Diamond Classic Signatures

Here are two on my latest styles of custom autograph cut baseball cards. While these are the Photoshop mock-ups, the actual cards are very similar - only about 110pt thick (about the thickness of a patch card).

The Stan Musial, Cool Papa Bell and Hank Aaron (not shown) are being created for someone on special order, while the the Diamond Classic Signatures are for my personal collection. 

The Diamond Classic Signatures "set" has approximately 20 different players currently and it is continually growing as I acquire more and more 3x5 cuts.

Some of the players include: Riggs Stephenson, Babe Herman, Dick Porter, Hank Bauer, Stan Hack, Bucky Walters, Bill Nicholson, Wally Berger, Frank Saucier, Doc Cramer, Ed Bailey, etc.

One of the great things about doing custom cards of players from the past...it's a great way to learn more about baseball's history and some of its forgotten stars.

Of note, all of my custom card cards have full fronts and backs with brief bio information and career stats.

Long Beach Armada - Jose Canseco

Yes, that's right, Jose Canseco playing independent league baseball a few years back for the Long Beach Armada of hte Golden Baseball League.

The photo used for this card was a picture I shot, obviously with the help of Jose making sure he was looking.

The layout is simple, allowing the photo to run a full bleed, while giving a subtle light hairline box to tighten up the card.

Jose didn't have much of a season that year...and was more interested in showing off his knuckleball than anything else. It was fairly amazing to see a guy like him with his long MLB background just struggle at the plate against a bunch of players just trying to get a crack at the affiliated leagues.

I believe that the team photographer for the Armada produced a team set at some point during that season but I do not know what the cards actually looked like. Anyone out there with a scan?

Disco Stews Custom Baseball Cards

Yes, I still collect baseball cards.

No, I'm not a kid.

So it seems funny enough to in my 30's and creating a blog about baseball cards, but this blog should showcase two hobbies of mine - graphic design and baseball.

Over the past few years I have been creating custom baseball cards for my personal collection after being fairly bored with the content of the various current baseball card manufacturers. I was tired of getting the "same old" players on the same old boring designs and layouts so I opened up Photoshop and started working.

Hopefully from this blog you'll be able to take a look as some of the custom cards that I have done, how I've done them and then see the final finished, printed and built cards.

Consider this...blog entry numero uno.

- Mike