Talking Baseball cards and more with Keith Shore

Keith Shore is a local artist and illustrator known for his work with Topps baseball cards and Danish beer brand Mikkeler. Our team sat down with Keith to ask him a little about his process, his love of baseball cards, and his new bar in New Hope. 

You've drawn for Topps and designed beer labels for Mikkeller. How do you usually describe yourself and your art style?
I'm a Pennsylvania artist. I work out of my backyard studio in the burbs. I'm the Creative Director at Schilling Beer Co. in New Hampshire, a partner at a hobby shop / beer bar in New Hope called Doubles (w/ Human Robot), and I’ll be relaunching the Danish art brand Mikkeller Editions this Fall.

Were you a baseball card kid growing up, or did that come later? 
Absolutely. I started collecting when I was young. The first set I remember having was 1986 Topps baseball.

What's the first piece of sports memorabilia you remember looking at as a piece of art?
I’m a big hockey fan. Definitely goalie masks. Andy Moog’s bear mask & Brian Hayward’s shark mask were a couple of early favorites of mine.

Walk us through what it's actually like to reimagine a player like Griffey or Judge. Do you start from an original card, from photos, or from memory of watching them play?
My first job with Topps was as a featured artist in a set called Project 2020. All 20 artists were asked to redesign Topps most iconic rookie cards. So we all started with the same reference but could reimagine it however we saw fit. I chose to keep the designs very similar to the original cards but I drew the athletes in the character style I created for the Danish beer brand, Mikkeller.

Which of your cards got the biggest reaction, and did you see it coming?
My Griffey Jr. card actually holds the print run record from the Project 2020 set, with over 99k sold. Print runs were around 1-2k in the beginning, and then the set’s popularity just exploded midway through. None of us artists, or even Topps, saw that coming. It was wild. So exciting.

Where did the idea for Doubles come from? Was a bar always somewhere you saw yourself ending up?
I started Doubles with my friend Jake Atkinson—he’s a partner at the Philly brewery Human Robot. We connected through the beer scene, but we also both had an interest in the hobby so we thought bringing the two worlds together could be fun. I’ve been working in the creative side of the beer industry for over fifteen years now. I also helped open up Meetinghouse in Philly—I did all of their branding and interior design.

Baseball shows up a lot in your work, the cards, and now the bar. What is it about baseball, as opposed to any other sport, that you think keeps ending up in what you make?
Baseball was big in my life as a kid. Both playing and collecting the cards. Being involved with Topps got me back into collecting, and we take great pride in our vintage pack inventory at Doubles. I love talking to customers about cards from my youth, and having beers while opening packs is pretty darn fun too.