Transforming meh into a legend

Watch out, Bobby! The aliens are landing!

I’ve long considered the design for 1970-71 hockey to be one of the weakest out there. There’s no real sizzle to it. The image is a simple rectangle, the text is black on white, there’s a hint of colour in the team name and then there’s that background that looks vaguely like a the landing lights of some kind of space craft. Most of the pictures are just posed head shots. It’s really not that great.

The question is whether there’s anything that could be done with it. Of all the cards in the set, the Orr always seems to be to be the closest to working, and even though this particular example isn’t in the best of shape, it’s the one I happen to have scanned, so it wins.

Now, what do you do with a design like this?

Sometimes, back in school, I’d flip a design upside down to see whether it still worked, or I’d see something new in it. Let’s try that, keeping Bobby in place:

That's a start

Now, obviously the text looks kind of silly that way. Better fix it.

Actually, I like this better already

You know, this works a little better already. Shame about the colour scheme, though.

Maybe if it were inverted….

Now we're cooking with gas!

Now, all things being equal, I’d rather keep the Bruins team name in red, but all in all, I can’t say I mind this. You know, Topps/OPC should have done exactly this and put out a set. Everyone would love it!

Waitaminnit – they did:

Not apparent, but it's OPC.

Clever of them, wasn’t it? 🙂