Title: Panini Paints a Pretty Picture
The biggest complaint with Panini baseball products is the lack of team logos/names. However, this is no fault of Panini's. The blame falls on Major League Baseball. With 2016 Diamond Kings, Panini takes a creative approach to making you forget this is set is not licensed by the MLB. Even without the logos, these cards are not worth passing up.
The most striking aspect of this set is the feel and smell of the cards. Yes, I said smell. The cards are printed on canvas stock or what is supposed to be canvas. Either way, the cards feel like a canvas painting with a slightly rough texture. They also smell of canvas, too. Every time I pick up these cards I just have to smell them. I love the smell.
The reason behind the canvas aesthetic is the painting design of the cards. Featuring a borderless design, the card fronts feature a watercolor painting of each player. Because the player images are not photos, the lack of team logos is not easily noticeable. The paintings almost take on a retro feel, which works well given the inclusion of former players. The front also features a minimalist design with the player’s name and city taking up small portions of the top and bottom of the cards. The Diamond Kings logo is also unobtrusive at the bottom of the card. Panini does an excellent job of making sure that the main feature of the card, the paintings, are highlighted and not distracted by other elements.
I happen to have 2015 and 2016 DK cards right next to each other and the backs of these cards are a world of difference. The 2015 cards try to cram a lot of information onto the back but 2016 does away with all of the stats. Instead, the card features a good-sized portion of the front painting in an oval mirror frame. Below the name plate on the is a short blurb about the player. I think the back keeps up with the minimalist design on the front and is very pleasing to look at. And because every card needs to be color coded, there are a few splashes of paint (much like you would see on a canvas painting) that correspond to the team colors. My only complaint is that the back picture is the same as the front. These days it seems like that is standard for any Panini product.
Panini put a lot of thought into this design and the whole card flows together nicely. Team logos would have made this design perfect but in their absence, Panini did all it could.
Rating 9/10
Pros: Painting aesthetic; canvas stock; canvas smell
Cons: Lack of logos; repeating picture on the back
