LUXE: a great form-factor for handy reference
Posted by: Michael Slater in UncategorizedAlthough they’re the dominant travel guide series, we’ve never been huge fans of Lonely Planet. They’re geared too much to the ‘thrify backpacker’ vector — cheap hotels, lots of tedious exhibits and museums, and surprisingly shabby maps. Granted, LP guides differ. For instance the Lonely Planet Outback Australia guide was fairly good, especially in its maps and sights. Others are not so good. But one common trait they all share: absolutely horrendous food guides. You cannot do worse for yourself than to follow their “where to eat” sections. Appalling.
Anyway, on our recent vacations to Vietnam, we entirely dropped the Lonely Planet guides in favor of modest reference card published by “Luxe” city guides. Their by-line is “Best of the Best.” Although stricken with way-too-cool-for-you prose, they do manage to list out a good collection of restaurants, bars, cafes, good hotels, shopping, and a few sites all the in the span of front/back of nine folded 7.5×15cm pages. Easy to carry in a back pocket (as opposed to a 400page lump of LP) It’s really a city guide, not a country guide anyway, but it definitely serves our needs far better than LP.
Anyway, that was an aside. What I really wanted to say was the 7.5×15cm 8-fold form factor (on a waxed, heavy stock) is a terrific way to keep data. It’s easy to carry, easy to scan, and can pack a lot of data onto its sheets. Their font selection is a bit weird, and fairly small, but still somehow readable. Chosen more for style it seems, I think I could do better with a different font if I was writing one of these cards out for myself. The only problem now is how to find a way to print on such heavy stock which is resistant to dog-earing and paper fatigue.
[posted with ecto]
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