It's part of the world we live in today. Many more things use sans serif than serif, and even when a serif font is used, it's more often Garamond, etc., with TNR just used as an example. The greater use of sans serif makes it more familiar, even when serifs make reading less tiring.
Of course, it's a personal preference - but overall, serif fonts (of which TNR is only one example) are considered to be easier on the eyes when reading. Because of eye-guiding serifs. Anyway... I'm wondering what to do now. Should I re-sell my N4 books, if I can't read them? Invest in page magnifiers, which might not prove the best solution? Hmmm. I guess if writing an official complaint to CB would make them do something. Or, maybe, I should post a 1-star review in their official shop, with the warning: "Don't buy this book, it can't be read"...
I hate to say it, but i think you're in the small minority here man - if i were you i would just get a book magnifying glass, your eyes might be headed in that direction on a more general level anyway and less strain on them in any way now may slow the process.
Get a set of reading glasses. Problem solved. Biased because I wear glasses anyway. Multifocals (3 zone) and the lower part handles the text just fine for me. I have astigmatism and myopia in one eye (but my hobby of assembling and painting mandollies has slowed the inevitable degradation of vision that comes with age.)
That's not a solution to poor layout and DTP practices. Especially not when people with glasses are still having issues with the text in these books.
on the topic of terrible formatting and unreadable books - the painting pamphlet I got in my package along with my army painter order is like the gift that keeps on giving. It is absolutely unbelievable how this little booklet passed any sort of editorial review. below is a little snippet of 2 paragraphs side by side spaced in a way that you may just keep reading from one line over to the next.
And it is worth remembering that, at the end of the day, they’ll make the choice that fits all of their criteria the best. Size of font, type of font, spacing, how long of a book can we have, how to arrange the various sections, etc. That, coupled with the fact that the book is intended to be living, with the majority of its use being as a digital book that can be magnified, set different parameters that will leave some folks less than happy.
Ah Arial, Microsoft's idea of a Helvetica-esque font. Personally, I like the Century Gothic and Souvenir fonts. Nostalgia. There are plenty of very attractive fonts out there, although neither Comic Sans nor Caslon Antique is one of them :P, but readability is more important that prettiness when dealing with more than a line or two of text. Quickest solution is a pair of reading glasses. Start with 1.50x. You'll find that you can use them for painting. I use 2.50x and 3.00x for painting minis.
IMO it is not good for the task (small, lots of text to be read). Also some fonts are not simply scaled, they are adjusted to some sizes, changing the proportions or eliminiating things to match the size (hey, just like miniatures, 90 vs 32 mm scultps). Duh, forgot about looking into the PDF. With that info, I think Alegreya Sans (sounds like Happyalready) is more targeted at titles and other big things, too many subtle details (yep, W stroke ends are there, not camera trick). I also notice why the error in computation, l (lower case L) goes higher than A and Q goes lower than p, for example. And I forgot about Á, etc. Hmmm, I was comparing the books and PDFs to get a general idea*, checking if line spacing was the same (it seems to be that way), and this called my attention: rules page 103, Example 2, Cuervo Goldstein not aligned like the rest, or like Example 1. In Spanish, page 91 (alphabetic order changes things) all names have same identation, but in p90 they do not. I hope they are not doing everything by hand. This is related to the fluff book because I learned the name of no indentation that requires blank lines as hint, "sangía moderna / alemana" (also used as adjective to describe the paragraphs in that style). Rule book/PDF sometimes does that, sometimes not, using neither indentation nor blank. Probably less common in English (page 12) and more common in Spanish to compensate the longer texts. Such look is not recommened for handicapped readers... IOW worse for reading, even worse with no blank (that is not "párrafo alemán", that is ... dunno). *: Small font, heavy bullet points (squares or triangles), sometimes so many it looks silly (instead of numbers, and variation of style, not triangles for first, second and third levels), black text on gray blocks, repeated things (p24 top, why two columns about template?) or not very useful (p25 picture should be about relative sizes... as is, it just repeats table numbers and gives bad idea of how the templates relate to each other). It's like self inflicted problems. Take pictures of the book, read that on screen. AKA poor man PDF. Edit: "smart" editor and fontsize tag not being nice, fixed.
All right. Will CB refund the glasses I'd need to purchase to read their book? A new pair of glasses would cost me over $100. Not to mention, they wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. And honestly, what kind of answer is that? I'm getting tired of the assumption that people with vision problems don't have the right to complain about poor readability of books etc. I'd have thought that, in this day and age, product accessability would be something a company takes into consideration... True, but the problem is: the corebook has no digital version. You can either try reading it in the printed version, or forget about reading it at all. Hm. I could also scan the book and make a CBR file out of it...
Yes, those are solutions to the problem that CB's typesetter created. Since it's unreasonable to demand a re-print and since it looks like Varsovian is providing feedback rather than making demands, we can only hope that their typesetter can take this feedback to heart and use industry best-practice for their next pieces. I hate to say it, but i think you're in the small min- Ah fuckit, you know how that paragraph goes.
You have every right to complain, but odds are the company did take accessibility into consideration and found that making their book one-fifth longer to accomodate larger type just wasn't financially viable. It is also ultimately a hobby, and not held to the same standards as a government service, for example- making something accessible to everyone is incredibly difficult and expensive, and only required for the most essential services, else most businesses would go broke from the extra costs. Definitely make your complaints, let others provide their feedback, and maybe next book they'll kick out a picture for some better spacing if you're not alone, but you may have to be equally prepared for nothing to change, as it's very possible your purchases aren't worth an extra 10,000 A3 sheets to CB over the course of the printing run.
The amount of space they waste with the layout and poorly applied white space begs to differ. The book could just as well have the same page count and be in a font 2 pts larger. Every single page seethes with wasted space. The text is not justified. The paragraph spacing is extreme. The line spacing is too large. The columns end randomly, leaving sometimes even 1/4th of a column blank - on almost every single page! I mean, come on. It's held to the standards of a premium cost product. When I'm paying almost 300 PLN for two books, they better have top notch DTP and editing. And hiring a competent DTP specialist is not "incredibly difficult and expensive".
Well, the core book is a ship that has sailed, so nothing to be done with it specifically. Your concerns might be able to be incorporated into future books, but as noted, the measures needed might not be feasible in CB’s calculus. As such... well, all we have left are dance moves.
I don't see why CB can't put the core book in a pdf and let people download it. That would alleviate one aspect of Varosovian's problem. He'd have access to the fluff. Maybe CB thinks that not offering the core for download increases sales of the book. Maybe they could make an exception just for him.
Ooo, now you're dipping into CB's financial model. The fluff is the main driver behind the physical book's sales and releasing it all digitally for free will risk not only cutting profits, but also risks making the physical book financially unviable I would think (some 300 people buying it for collector's value probably isn't enough to justify the cost).
Yeah, I suppose. Do we really know their sales figures on anything? I'm new so I don't know if this kind of thing is widely known in the community. So let's say that the fluff book is the primary driver of sales for any infinity book set. How much of CB profit do book sales represent? How wedded are they to this business model? How much would it really hurt them if they gave the fluff away for free? Just asking questions as a thought experiment. I don't expect any of us to know the answers. Back to Varsovian's dilemma. I think CB should strongly consider making an effort to get him a digital copy of the fluff book at least. If they're suspicious at all, they could ask for a medical note to validate his impairment, confirmation that he owns the physical copy and watermark the file or ask him to sign something like an NDA. I think he's sincere. CB should at least take a look at the situation.
Both books are a travesty and the people responsible for the layout and font choices need to be sent back to school to retake their remedial Graphic Design course, after a swift smack to the back of the head. Then another round of smacks to those who approved such a horrendous design. You simply don't use fonts that small for the main body of text. It's absolutely ridiculous anyone thought that was a good idea. And everyone knows Palatino is the best serif font family.
