I’ve been working with Amanda Melwiki over the past few years on her Team MVP Tour Series discs. Her pup Charlie would now be the center of focus and Amanda and I welcomed the change-up. The theme for a few years prior has been “Robokitty” and initial thoughts were how to make the larger than life hound, half robot. Amanda was great to send me videos and photos of Charlie. What really sealed the deal to keep it full pet was a video of Charlie playing in & around a sprinkler.

Dealing with a hound type of pup, I wanted to accentuate the ears and jowls. That in combination with that “zoom” effect that dogs get where they run around expelling a ton of energy. They look at you daring you to take the toy from them with a wide-eyed look.

Once the design was in vector, a few hurdles arose that I didn’t see would be a problem in the rough. One instance was where I planned for the center sprue point of the disc to land. This template requires that center area to be clear of any art. The right side just under the nose was going to be that landing area. Doing so in the template left the design to be smaller than desired. To combat that, I had to clear out the left side detail just a bit and compromise on the dynamic overlap of the outer stamp & move the Team MVP seal toward the bottom.

Overall, I think Charlie got the real estate she deserved. Allocating a foil behind Charlie gave the disc color a chance to shine through the pup and evened out the 3 different foil types. In closing, I’m very grateful that Amanda reached out again this year to ask for my help. Her trust and instincts in these designs are really what makes this project fun every year. What did you think? Did I succeed in the playful nature of Charlie? Please comment, like, and share!

MVP Cosmic Neutron plastic creates some epic swirl patterns that you wouldn’t think would be possible in plastic manufacturing. This plastic was so awesome that MVP Disc Sports created a new plastic line and needed a stock stamp produced for all of it’s models. It was my job to research, design and implement it into MVP’s lineup.

The first design decision was an easy one: MVP’s standard Neutron plastic has this nice center alignment from Zachary Kelbaugh’s original and “New”tron stamp designs. I wanted to continue that nod into Cosmic Neutron. The second idea played off of the center plastic induction sprue. It’s the center of where all of these patterns meet. It felt fitting to hit that concept and start thinking of ways I could create a stamp that would rest in harmony with the beauty of the plastic. This idea sort of camouflages the radiating rays but bolds out the Disc name/ flight numbers/ MVP Orbit logo. This design nearly made it to final. The design was submitted and the die was sent off and created. We stamped Cosmic Neutron Volts and Entropy’s and let it sit and marinate within the team.

In the end, the earlier mock-ups (based on the zoom/swirl pattern) felt too forced and did the exact opposite of what this stamp needed to be. It needed to be bold enough to stand on its own against the Cosmic Neutron swirl but also open enough to let the plastic shine. So with that in mind, I feel very strongly about the concept of our solar system with a modern look/ feel to it. What I liked most is it's based on our solar systems ecliptic plane. The bold lines indicating when the planets are below the sun. It very well fits the Cosmic narrative and gives the stamp substance and reasoning. I would compare stock stamps like creating a company logo. You want something classic that will stick for a long time without updating. Even though the costs are much smaller for a changeover; that’s not really something I’m thinking about when designing.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this deep dive into MVP’s Cosmic Neutron design process. I want to thank the people and MVP staff who gave me some honest and informative feedback through this process. Without that; I don’t think it would’ve turned out as it did.

What do you all think? Did the project reset improve the overall quality of the stamp?