Having a difficult time reading more and more of these - wearing glasses.
The print seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
It has to be an economic decision.
Anyone else in the same boat?
Any tips or online sites where one could read them in magnified form?
Graham
No answer, but I feel your pain Graham - I obsessively read liners & often bellyache that if they just ditched a photo or two to allow space to boost font size a point or two....
Same with back covers, trying to read tiny cue titles & tinier timings with plenty of free space to go up a point or two. My biggest frustration, bugger broken cases or delayed shipping!!!
Is it a copyright infringement to transcribe liner notes onto a blog for educational purposes? I've often wanted to read the liner notes to scores that I don't have. I feel like if you credited the author and original source, it wouldn't be terrible? But I don't know enough about copyright law to say one way or another...
I have trouble with small print as well, but I scan CD graphics at high-res anyway to preserve them, and for easy access, but also so I can read them on screen much larger than actual size.
CD packaging text got smaller under the influence of the new text aesthetic that has been ushered in by HD TV shows. HD TV makes smaller, finer fonts legible, and graphic artists have come to see that as what looks cool today. Just look at the Act 1 credits in any episode of LAND OF THE GIANTS (ca. 1968) and compare it to some recent drama made for HD TV. The lines of a letter look about 60 times thicker in the vintage show. Small text is au courant.
Informative liner notes in booklets are one of the reasons I buy CDs and Blu-ray's etc as opposed to the prevailing trend towards downloads and streaming, so yes, as I have gotten older (especially over the last year or two) I have found it increasingly difficult to read them. Which is doubly infuriating.
One thing I do appreciate, and it is rare, is when Varese, for instance, include a second, larger booklet in the case (like the single-disc edition of Spartacus or their Dracula release). At least that allows more space and a larger typeface.
Oh the joys of getting older! It'll be my ears next. Nevermind reading liner notes, I won't be able to hear all the music.
Having a difficult time reading more and more of these - wearing glasses.
The print seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
It has to be an economic decision.
Anyone else in the same boat?
Any tips or online sites where one could read them in magnified form?
Graham
Fortunately, since my cataract operation a few years ago, I no longer have a problem with small size text! Nevertheless, it would help if labels ensured for readability that liner note booklets are printed whenever possible with black text against a white background. I dislike white text against a black background but far worse is colored text against a colored background. As much as I love the mini-books which SAE provide, they are amongst the worst offenders with their liking for colored backgrounds; e.g beige text against a grey background ("Champion")
