When Topps inserted themselves into the baseball card market in 1951, no one knew exactly how important a company they would become, both for the baseball card industry and for the sports card hobby overall.
Immediately upon arrival into the market, Topps put pressure on Bowman, the industry leader at the time. In only a few short years, Topps was selling more baseball cards (and, of course, bubble gum) than Bowman. This despite entering the market as an underdog and battling against all the competitive advantages held by Bowman: exclusive player contracts, connections in professional baseball, and manufacturing resources. By 1954, Topps was outselling Bowman nearly two to one and quickly pulling away as the industry leader.
Then, in 1955, Sy Berger and the design team at Topps made an interesting design change to their flagship product: rotating the orientation of their baseball card.
It was a change so innovative and so simple, and it would impact the baseball card hobby forever.
Between 1952 and 1954, Topps designed their baseball cards in a “portrait” orientation on their 3-¾” tall by 2-⅝” wide cards. Topps cards were actually larger than Bowman’s baseball cards at the time and they were all oriented with the player’s portrait positioned straight up and down the length of the card.
If you bought baseball cards as a kid between 1952 and 1954, this is what you expected to see:
Portrait orientation was the standard baseball card design at the time, but Topps made it even better by adding key information to the front of the card that Bowman elected to leave out. Because of the work Berger and his team spent on designing each and every set, Topps quickly became the most popular brand among baseball card customers (i.e., kids).
Topps grew in popularity partly due to their beautiful and innovative card designs. While Bowman relied on stunning photography and color balance to make their cards “pop”, Topps gave customers more information and detail about the player on the card. By including the player name, position, team logo, action shot, a facsimile autograph print, as well as painstaking detail about the player on the card back, Topps quickly established a brand identity with their customers.
Kids buying baseball cards in 1955 knew that Topps cards included the most statistical and biographical information about each player. This made Topps cards slightly more appealing. Plus, by including six cards in a pack, compared to five cards in a Bowman pack, going with Topps also made economical sense for kids. Making Topps packs worth every nickel spent was key to Berger’s strategy in the early 1950’s.
Not one to disappoint the kids and lose out on their many nickels, Topps released the 1955 design with its crucial orientation change and changed the hobby forever.
A simple 90 degree change of photo orientation created a whole new perspective on the baseball card for Topps and its customers. By moving from “portrait’ to “landscape” (to use modern terms), this simple orientation change accomplished several things at once.
First of all, it created more room for the superimposed action shots, something Topps had integrated into their design the previous year. The athletic poses of baseball’s most decorated athletes were no longer upstaged by their smiling faces in the background.
This change also improved the visual balance of the card. The player and team information at the bottom of the card was on one line instead of multiple lines. The team logos were enlarged slightly and allowed a bit more room to breathe on their own, instead of being cropped to fit such a small space on the portrait design.
While Bowman was working to get the very best photography onto their baseball cards, Topps was getting the most out of the photos they had. Collectors and baseball card fanatics everywhere took notice, with Topps outselling Bowman for the third consecutive year. Eventually, Topps would take over as the sole manufacturer of baseball cards for the next 25 years.
It’s important to point out that baseball card designers had tried “landscape” orientation before. In fact, Bowman had several players in previous designs in a horizontal orientation.
But never before had an entire card set been designed this way. It was innovative and unique, and it gave baseball card collectors a new perspective on the way baseball cards could look or be displayed.
Today, most Topps baseball card sets include a handful of players with their photos in “landscape” orientation, though the vast majority of cards are in “portrait” orientation. We probably won’t ever see a full set in “landscape” orientation again, but the 1955 Topps set should go down as one of the most influential sets in baseball card history because of the design change that Sy Berger was willing to attempt.