Diamond Scorecard Designs by Liz

When I designed my first scorebook, it was a completely personal project. I loved keeping score, but struggled to find a book that met all my wants and needs. The book I liked the best was designed to also be used in recreational leagues having space for 12 players in the batting lineup and spaces for things that were unnecessary for me.I found so many that just didn’t have what I needed, not enough extra inning space, blank boxes, or a clunky layout. I had been using InDesign at this point for over a decade and figured, I can make my own. Over the course of a few weeks, I stared at a computer screen, making sure all my tiny lines were perfectly lined up and uniform. I played around with the page space to utilize what I could for what I was looking for. When I was finally satisfied with what I had it was towards the end of the 2023 season, I wasn’t quite ready to get a book printed, so for a few games, I would print out a copy on some cardstock, and use a clipboard to write on. With a few test runs under its belt, the design did what I wanted so that offseason I got to planning how I want it printed. Using a printing service on the campus of the university I worked at, I got a spiral bound, 50 game scorebook, even made a cute cover just because I could. Of course, mostly students staff this office, so I wasn’t that upset when the first copy came out all messed up, the pdf got completely distorted and was basically useless, so it got printed again and it was perfect. Inspired by someone on twitter, I got myself some stickers to decorate and posted some pictures just to show it off, I was so proud. Not long after I hit post, did I have people commenting asking where they can get one. I never had the intention to sell or create a business, I just wanted a scorebook that worked for me. After a few twitter polls, I set up a pre-order and started calculating costs and shipping. The on campus service I had used for my own book was not economical for bulk printing, so I started researching online options. After pre-orders started to come in, I decided on how many I wanted to order for inventory and I was in business. The friendship bracelets happened because I was already making them for Orioles games so I thought, “why not?” I wasn’t advertising outside of posting on my personal social media, so things were slow, not that I was expecting much. But after looking at some other designs, I was already working on a new one. Having spent time in the Orioles press box and worked for MASN, I knew that my design wasn’t ideal for the media, inspired by other books, I worked with the layout and tried to maximize the space on the page to provide as much detail as possible. Even now, I am still playing around with other layouts and designs. I am so grateful for all the amazing support I have gotten since I got started and especially as I worked toward building this into a real business. It’s going to be a business of one for a while, but if I am lucky I hope I can truly grow alongside the game of baseball.