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I was in NYC earlier this week visiting my wife's family for Easter. As I have mentioned before, my brother in law is going to have a card in A&G this year. What I did not mention is that they offered to show him around if he was interested. Well, long story short, he and I were in Manhattan this week and he took Topps up on the offer and I tagged along.
Before you read on, if you are a Topps hater you will not like this post. The people I met were passionate about what they did - from design through packaging - and, from what I saw, committed to the customer experience. I asked some pretty direct questions about things like the recent Tribute recall and the Mike Piazza (HOFer versus prospect) auto snafu, among other items. The answers I got were direct and reasonable (in that the answer matched the bits and pieces I "knew" about the issues). Most of all, I saw a cool place to work that was filled with people who really were enjoying their work. That is pretty tough to beat.
Anyway, on to the tour...
We started off in the lobby where they have a display area for most of their brands. Here is what the main wall looks like:
Here is the coffee table in the lobby. Feel free to thumb through the cards while you wait...
Off to the side is a main conference room. I loved the decor...
We then toured through the work areas where I got to see lots of the "work in progress" items. The best part is that there were tons of uncut sheets getting proofed for the upcoming releases. Here are some of the pics from that:
Here is some upcoming Bowman...
These are wave refractors. The cards are not orange, the backing was.
And, how about some Bowman supers? Sadly I was not allowed to take any home...
Cards and sheets are posted throughout the office as art - and they really are art. Here is an uncut sheet of GQ minis framed on the wall..
Of course Topps is more than Baseball (or so I have been told). Here are some UFC cards that are similar to the Touched by Greatness baseball inserts. Apparently the UFC cards were first. These are "fist" cards. Very cool. Unfortunately my flash overexposed these, but you get the idea:
Finally, here is my brother in law viewing a wall of cards in the hall.
I had a great time and got to see some really cool cards/art. I certainly learned about their process and met some nice people.
Thanks for the read.
Before you read on, if you are a Topps hater you will not like this post. The people I met were passionate about what they did - from design through packaging - and, from what I saw, committed to the customer experience. I asked some pretty direct questions about things like the recent Tribute recall and the Mike Piazza (HOFer versus prospect) auto snafu, among other items. The answers I got were direct and reasonable (in that the answer matched the bits and pieces I "knew" about the issues). Most of all, I saw a cool place to work that was filled with people who really were enjoying their work. That is pretty tough to beat.
Anyway, on to the tour...
We started off in the lobby where they have a display area for most of their brands. Here is what the main wall looks like:
Here is the coffee table in the lobby. Feel free to thumb through the cards while you wait...
Off to the side is a main conference room. I loved the decor...
We then toured through the work areas where I got to see lots of the "work in progress" items. The best part is that there were tons of uncut sheets getting proofed for the upcoming releases. Here are some of the pics from that:
Here is some upcoming Bowman...
These are wave refractors. The cards are not orange, the backing was.
And, how about some Bowman supers? Sadly I was not allowed to take any home...
Cards and sheets are posted throughout the office as art - and they really are art. Here is an uncut sheet of GQ minis framed on the wall..
Of course Topps is more than Baseball (or so I have been told). Here are some UFC cards that are similar to the Touched by Greatness baseball inserts. Apparently the UFC cards were first. These are "fist" cards. Very cool. Unfortunately my flash overexposed these, but you get the idea:
Finally, here is my brother in law viewing a wall of cards in the hall.
I had a great time and got to see some really cool cards/art. I certainly learned about their process and met some nice people.
Thanks for the read.
