It’s been so cool to see how many people on e4 are professional graphic designers. I thought it would be fun to do a label design contest, or at least show off label concepts. Here’s my take on an updated CGC label that has immediate eye appeal and is more attention grabbing, let me know what you think! The LED lights are intended to illuminate the card at all times.
How the hell is anyone supposed to follow up to that, you won.
That’s pretty cool! Only critique would be to make the label a bit smaller. I like the balance between the card and PSA label; I’m drawn to the card first and the label second.
The LED lights are an interesting touch, but that will be one hella expensive grading service 
I’d like to see this become a real contest with a longer period to submit designs, as making one will take me longer than just 5 minutes.
Could you please add a built in disco ball?
the heat scale is hilarious lol
I think prioritizing the card over the label is an outdated view point. Today’s kids don’t want psa or BGS 10 regular, they want BLACK LABEL because the label stands out. With built in LED lights, you could have a shifting pattern rainbow neon holo effect on the label for CGS 10 cards. It would fit perfectly with rainbow rares.
Why illuminate the card at all when you can just illuminate the label?
I typed this up in Docs for fun just to see how much information “has” to be on a label. I’ve now come to the conclusion that this is for obvious reasons an art. And it would be super stressful to design one everyone is happy with.
The big LEDs on the side are for multi color for the label. The small ones top and bottom are to illuminate the card in the dark like for an aquarium.
Does the label glow in the dark too? Please say it glows in the dark
No, don’t want to over complicate things
Here’s my crack at a grading label. Graphic design is (not) my passion so forgive me on this if the image isn’t too appealing. Some things I think would be essential if I were designing a label from the ground up:
The grade should be immediately apparent and should be the first thing you see. The number grade should be larger than the text to clearly indicate even to uninformed individuals the card quality.
The card name should be the second most prominent item. Variants should be recognized and placed immediately below the card name, and should follow community naming standards. For example, Crystal Charizard should be referred to as such and not just Charizard - Holo from Skyridge. Variants like Base 2000, Delta Species, no rarity, no symbol Jungle, and prominent errors such as no damage Ninetales, no holo Dragonite, etc. are indicated here as well.
Holographic cards do not need to be labeled as such unless there is a holographic and non-holographic version of the same card in the same set.
Label text should be prioritized from most to least important in terms of card identification: card name, any applicable variants, set name and card number, and finally year and card game.
There should be two short sentences of flavor text which give information on the card’s pedigree and importance within the card game. Stuff like Base Set 1st Charizard should mention on the label how important it is to the hobby, things like trophy and SNAP cards should mention estimated distribution numbers, just something that gives people some more information.
+1 for this. Great job.
I would be open to sub-grades on PSA cards if they were not in intervals of .5
These designs look great!
I like your label a lot! My only complaint is the same as what people have mentioned for the CGC label. I enjoy seeing the serial number on the front of the label as well as the back to be certain of what card back you’re actually seeing in a photo.
@fourthstartcg, I really like the idea of flavor text! It would be cool to have that on the back of the label.
This is such a creative thread idea 
thanks qwachansey
if LEDs are possible, there’s an obvious improvement we could make
