Official photo cards and lomo cards are two cards that have a photo or image of an artist. They’re usually collected by fans.
Although both official photo cards and lomo cards have pictures of an artist, there are a few things that make them different from each other.
Quick Answer: An Official Photo Card is made by the artist or the company only and it can’t be copied. While lomo cards have unofficial pictures made by fans.
In this article, I’ll tell you what are the differences between an official photo card and lomo card.
Let’s begin.
What’s an Offical Photo Card?
Official photo cards are cards which has a picture of the artist. Official photo cards are usually made by the artist of the official company. They have a label on them which makes them official cards and these cards can’t be copied.
Official photo cards are usually collected by fans of the artist. These cards aren’t available in the market and one has to sign up as an official fan club member or buy CD or join in some sort of promotional effort event and win a card in a lottery-type of arrangement to get an official photo card.
If a fan wants to obtain an official photo card, he needs to make some effort since getting an official photo card is not really easy. Moreover, the management also keeps an eye on those cards that show up on online auction sites. Therefore, it’s not that easy for people to sell those and make quick bucks.
Official photo cards are also quite expensive and have only official and exclusive photos on them. Collection of official photo cards can be quite difficult since they are not available on the market, and you can only get them through the set or you have to sign up to get them.
What’s a Lomo Card?
Lomo cards are unofficial cards made by a fan and can be copied and found on Google. Fans usually get the photo of their favorite artist through google and print out the picture and make it into cards. It’s usually cheap.
Lomo cards are typically referred to as some small paper card items with pictures, illustrations, and others with fairly dubious copyright/trademark status, items with mostly Chinese origin where such things are not properly protected.
Lomo cards are quite famous among the fans of K-pop and are also known as K-pop cards. Lomo cards are often referred to as small paper items with typically unauthorized graphics. Unofficial images and photos of the artist have been printed on these cards and people sell them to make money.
K-pop is quite famous in China and elsewhere, so they are making a lot of K-Pop items rather than more obscure niche images printed on cards and making money by selling them online through websites.
Lomo cards are easily available on many websites and stores, you can get a lomo card quite easily compared to an official photo card. The quality of lomo cards is not that great, but they’re good for collecting the photos of your favorite artist and covering up your wall.
What’s the Difference Between Official Photo Cards and Lomo Cards?
One of the differences between an official photo card and lomo cards is how they are produced. Official photo cards are produced by the company itself or by the artist with other official merchandise such as albums or DVD sets. Whereas, lomo cards are made by the fans. Fans produced look cards and they are unofficial.
One more difference between these cards is which photo is being used on the card. On official photo cards, only official pictures can be used. Official photocards only include exclusive pictures which are official.
On the other hand, one can use any picture on lomo card. Photos from fan sites, news websites, official photos, or even artists’ selca in their SNS can be used in lomo card.
Moreover, photo cards are not available everywhere. You can only get official photocards from the original stores, like Weverse. Photo cards usually come with the album or DVD on the set. Whereas, lomo cards are easily available from any marketplace and you can buy them from any store.
The prices of these cards are also different. Official photo cards are quite expensive compared to Lomo cards. Lomo cards are cheap and you can get them at affordable prices. The quality of these cards is also different.
Official photo cards come in great quality, not so glossy and there are dots on each side of the cards. Meanwhile, lomo cards are glossy and the photo looks a little bit zoomed in, and there’s no dot on each side of the cards.
The sizes of these cards are not the same. The standard size of an official photo card is 55 x 85 mm, but lomo card size is 58 x 89 mm. Moreover, photo cards come with round edges, while lomo cards have clean lines.
Conclusion
Official photo cards and lomo cards are two different cards. They are usually collected by the fans of the artist. People get official photo cards and lomo cards of their favorite artists to build their collection.
Although both of these cards have pictures of the artist, there are a few things that make them different from each other. An official photo card is only made by the artist or the company, it can’t be copied and a fan can’t make them. It only has exclusive and official photos on them.
Photo cards are also not easily available and you can’t sell them. One can only get photo cards by signing up for the fan club. Official photo cards are also available on the sets but they are pretty expensive.
On the other hand, lomo cards are made by the fans. People usually get the picture of the artist through google or from unofficial pages and print them out on a card. Lomo cards aren’t official and are sold at the stores and online.
Lomo cards are a great and cheap way of collecting photos of your favorite artist or singer, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a lomo card from your favorite artist and you can start building up your collection. However, they don’t have great quality compared to official photo cards.