Phantom Cardboard: Jackie Stalegum Lives!

Friday, May 31, 2019

Jackie Stalegum Lives!

I’m a sucker for mascots, logos and graphic design in general. There’s a few nostalgia clothing brands I follow online that I've really been influenced by with their character branding. I wanted to do something like that with my card brand. I wanted to establish a cool logo / mascot that could be instantly associated with Phantom Cardboard.

I came up with my first logo when I started to realize that making custom cards wasn't a passing fancy, but rather a passion to create and connect to childhood loves. I love branding and wanted to make something symbolic of my cards. My first attempt at this was a little cute ghost character. It kinda looked like a cross between that video game character Kirby and the ghosts found in the Mario Bros. castles. I sent that image to friends to get their takes on it. The response was just okay, and I wanted something better than that.

I was originally going to spell it Fantom Cardboard

I went back to the drawing board and took a bit of a more literal approach. A Phantom of the Opera style mask wearing a baseball hat was the new direction I took.

Version 1.0

Not too long after creating my logo I saw that Matthew Skiff had some openings for commissions. Matthew is a prolific graphic designer and has done some of the coolest nostalgia pieces that you can find on the internet. His stuff is epic and I’ve admired his talent for years, so I jumped at the chance to have him design something for the PCb. brand. This was back in September of 2017.

Basically I was looking to have my basic concept polished and refined by Matthew’s skill. He took and executed my ideas flawlessly, and was a pleasure to work with with each and every one of my little tweak requests. Needless to say I couldn’t have been happier with the results. He translated the vision I had perfectly.

He did an updated and cleaner version of my text logo and my Phantom head logo. There’s the standard version of the logo and one blowing a bubblegum bubble paying homage to the “stale gum” we all loved in our wax packs.

While he was at it I also had him expand the logo into a full mascot character. He got that 100% how I requested too. Thus Jackie Stalegum was born. "Jackie" a tribute to Jackie Robinson with the last name being a homage to Topps’ pink brittle premium at the bottom of a wax pack. I think Jackie has a fun Scooby-Doo villain vibe to him. I got the idea to add a cape to the presentation from an old Batman card.

1966 Topps Batman B Series

Matthew ran a few color schemes past me. The one I went with was the one that closely matched my vision mixed with his suggestion for the cape’s outer color. The color’s a little more towards teal where I had it a dark green which came off a bit Christmasy.

This rookie card was always one thing I wanted to do with the design. I also want to eventually use it clothing items but that’s something I’m really quite ignorant about so it’s on the back burner until I do a little more fact finding. So, why did this card take two years? Basically, I have not been able to take my attention away from the custom cards I make to devote time to creating this particular PCb. brand card.

Finally I just decided I’ve been sitting on this illustration for long enough and I wanted to make this a card.

my little slugger

I considered a number of different templates but decided to go with the one that started it all for me, the 1985 Topps baseball inspired design. In 2015 I was just messing around with my daughter’s little league pictures trying to make her a custom baseball card. That came out decent so I did it again this time with my other daughter’s cheerleading picture. I don't have a formal graphic design background but I’ve always been a creative type and these cards give me a great outlet for that side of me. From my daughters’ two cards it has snowballed into, hell, I don’t even know how many custom cards I’ve made to date. As when I collected cards growing up, I never stopped to count, just always wanted more. Trading cards have been a constant in my life as far back as I can remember. They’re something I’m sure I’ll always have a love for because I can use them at markers to simpler times. So many great memories for me can be tied to collecting cards.

At first I was just recycling the ‘85 design and using it to make cards of all the things I wish had been made into trading cards when I was growing up. The design was easily customizable. I would sometimes leave the team name nameplate blank because I thought it would make for a cool autograph box when I sent my customs out in hopes of getting them signed by celeb types. From there I would experiment with other designs wanting to match the year of what I was making a card for to a card design produced from the same year. I just like tying those two things together. It makes the cards more “real” to me.

Jackie’s card originally had "Phantom Cardboard" inside of the team name nameplate, but then it dawned on me that that rectangle kind of resembles a wax pack gum stick. That is my favorite part of the card. Well, that and of course Matthew’s gnarly design.

After making my daughter’s cards my sole reason for making my custom cards initially was to see if I could get them autographed through-the-mail. It became a fun little nerdy hobby for me. So I thought what about this Stalegum card coming full circle with that 1985 design and an autograph? While corresponding back and forth with Matthew about another project I asked if he’d mind signing a few of these cards for me to offer in a Jackie Stalegum RC Phan Pack to which he graciously obliged.

Now I that I had the Phan Pack’s centerpiece I wanted to surround it by some rad Jackie Stalegum swag.

So, without further long-windedness here’s what’s included in the aforementioned Phan Pack:

Jackie Stalegum autographed rookie card. This card has a glossier “Tiffany” finish and is sealed in a 55 pt. Ultra Pro one-touch case. The backside is signed by Matthew Skiff in Stalegum Pink and limited to 12 hand-numbered copies.
Jackie Stalegum regular rookie card. Standard vintage finish, limited to 50 hand-numbered copies.