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#1
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Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
And I am talking about colour profiles, I am talking about e.g. the armament diagram on page 26 in Dual volume 26 (Fw 190 vs. B-17). The back cover promises "unrivaled detail", yet e.g. that diagram is very much lacking in true detail. Original handbook drawings would have provided much better information and detail. The same applies to the really awful cutaways of the Air Vanguard series. Compared to a cutaway by e.g. Mike Badrocke, AV's cutaways look aimed for children. So far the Air Vanguard titles have been very lukewarm at best as the old Aircraft in Profiles managed to squeeze more technical information within 24 pages than AVs do in 64, in part thanks to a much better layout (minimum blank areas and tighter font).
So, the question is that are current readers so easy to fool with colourful eye candy?
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"No man, no problem." Josef Stalin possibly said...:-) |
#2
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
I think it is a matter of what the target market is for say an Osprey book. I have a small number of them and enjoy them for what they are. A broad stroke covering of a particular subject matter. While lightish, I do find them well written.
I am mostly commenting on the Aces series. Not familiar with the versus series other one of the tank volumes. |
#3
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
They could be considerably more detailed within the same page count very easily. E.g. the above mentioned Duel volume has about 3800 characters per full text page. E.g. an old Aircraft in Profile has over 7000 characters per page. But even Osprey has done better ocasionally. E.g. the Elite volume 38 (NVA and Viet Cong) hasd its pages properly filled with smallish print giving over 8000 characters per page.
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"No man, no problem." Josef Stalin possibly said...:-) |
#4
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
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#5
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
I don't buy that. Especially as a quite significant improvement would be possible by eliminating the wasted space (e.g. in the Duel series 30 % text per page). Besides, if one can't read "tiny" print, can he really build accurate models. And I would say that e.g. the Duel series is not primarily for modellers.
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"No man, no problem." Josef Stalin possibly said...:-) |
#6
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
Be serious. You can't have pages stuffed with text with margins of 1 cm!
Osprey is no fanzine. They publish commercial books for the general public. What you call "wasted space" is a layout to appeal to customers' eyes. |
#7
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
CJE: Are you saying that the old Profiles were non-commercial fanzines? Or Monogram Close Ups? Or JaPo books? Or 4+ series? Or Aerofax series? Thus far I have never met anyone who like wasted space in their books just for the sake of "appeal". In fact, negative comments on Osprey's wasted space are quite common on e.g. Amazon customer reviews. They would be even more common if the they were given a chance to have 90 % more text for the same price.
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"No man, no problem." Josef Stalin possibly said...:-) |
#8
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
I've been following this discussion with interest.
From the beginning it appears to be a case, to use a metaphor, of someone going into a vegan restaurant and being upset they can't get a nice steak. Osprey books are know for being shorter, illustration heavy, mostly introductory books. The illustrations are the main selling feature of most of their series as most of their regular customers realize. A quick glance at their website shows the importance of the illustrations to their business model. As to doing text heavy books, they have tried this. The old Battle Orders series was very text centred, with a layout similar to what the OP requested. The series was cancelled due to poor sales. It is apparent that Osprey is releasing their text heavy titles as part of their general history books, not part of their series which have a rather rigid design outline. Osprey has hit on a formula that obviously works for them so why would they change it? |
#9
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
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Do let us know how you get on. |
#10
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Re: Osprey's obsession on colour eye candy
Nick, I think only Osprey members can post on the forum.
I think the Battle Orders example is really poor as it was a series that catered for more specific readers.
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"No man, no problem." Josef Stalin possibly said...:-) |
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