2004 Topps Baseball Forum

I've started to accumulate quite a few of the cards for this set. I'm currently at 70% complete on my set build. Taking a close look at these cards, they are designed very well. One cool thing that caught my eye was the small figure next to the player's number. It's impressive how the foil figure mirrors the pose of the player in the photo. As a designer, creating each and every one of those unique drawings must have been a huge undertaking. The easy way out would have been to use generic figures for each position, but the use of a unique figure for each adds a nice touch to these cards. Also, since each figure is different in pose and stance and the amount space they take up makes the positioning of the player's number a challenge as well. Just a small detail on this set that I find, from a graphic designer's point of view, to be very interesting.

Agree, that was easily the coolest thing about that year’s design. One of the more unique elements they’ve done in ages 

I also like the inclusion of the players' uniform numbers.  Almost every card in Japan has that, but for some reason, American card producers almost never include uniform numbers for MLB sets.  It is fairly common among minor league team sets, but not the Topps sets.