It’s not easy to come up with a new trading card design. Just ask Upper Deck Lead Designer Michael Jue.

“There’s a lot that goes into designing trading cards for me,” said Jue. “Being a sports fan myself, I try to think about what other fans would like to see. Then I take into account the sport itself, the team, even the attitude of the player. We also need to be cognizant of history and heritage of our products. They need to have a similar look as people collect certain sets each year because of that aspect, but we need to make improvements and updates to make it unique. It can be really difficult.”

Trading card fans gave it their all this week when Upper Deck announced a “Custom Card” contest on the company blog. And the submissions just poured in as fans reveled in the opportunity to show off their custom cards for the Upper Deck team.

“It is really inspiring for the design team here at Upper Deck to see all the submissions we have received on Facebook over the last week for the custom NHL card contest,” said Mike Eggleston, director of Creative Services at Upper Deck. “Most of our design team got their starts early on and team members are very passionate about their craft. We have all worked to hone our talents in school, but also on our own looking for ways to develop our own style. I would encourage anyone who is serious about graphic design to take classes, join online communities with other graphic designers and stick with it! It is unbelievably rewarding to see your creations in the hands of happy collectors. Based on the impressive work submitted by some of you, that is a feeling you may experience one day.”

Congratulations to Yvon Miller who was randomly selected to receive the grand prize of a Tyler Seguin autographed full size stick! Give it a good home, Yvon!

Check out a variety of the submissions we received below along with one additional tip from Jue.

“One of the things that helps me get better is to spend some time each week looking at different designs and trying to think about what I would do to improve upon those designs,” he said. “Give it a try and hopefully you’ll find that in time you create a style all your own by improving on other designs.”

Yvon Miller was randomly selected from all the entries to receive the Tyler Seguin autographed stick. Congrats Yvon!

Tim Anstine's submission

Shaun Wang's submission

Scott Ingersoll's submission

Ryan Churchwood's submission

Ricky Woo's submission

Paul Pickett's submission

Mike Large's submission

Mike Levine's submission

Michael Yeung's submission

Luke Vermeer's submission

Mathieu St. Laurent's submission

Marty Maerten's submission

Kevin Ransom's submission

Kevin Osimitz's submission

Justin Resnick's submission

NHL Jr Icehits' submission

Jon Cendrowski's submission

James Arthur's submission

Issal Goodeman's submission

Dorrey Kimber's submission

Dithakorn Kho's submission

Danielle Francoeur's submission

Cole Mohr's submission

Chris Lynch's submission

Chris LaCroix's submission

Andrew Gronich's submission

Andrew Austin's submission

Adrian Speyer's submission

Zapp Brannigan's submission