Our Aviation titles get a new lick of paint - ACE and COM updated

Aircraft of the Aces and Combat Aircraft are getting a bit of an update - a brand-new paint scheme so to speak.

It is something we have been meaning to do for a while, especially as neither series has seen a significant overhaul in the 20 years they have been taxiing onto bookshelves the world over. Back when we overhauled our other key series in 2008, both ACE and COM flew under the radar and missed out.

But the time has come to update the look and feel of both series, to give them a fresh new look that will  step away from the slightly 'retro' look both series have worn over the last couple of years - and help to draw in a new audience of fans who may have been put off by the old-fashioned look.

The design brief was pretty straightforward... but not exactly an easy one to fulfill.

We didn't want to move too far away from the full-colour artwork that has so defined both series over the last two decades, and quite frankly still looks brilliant. But at the same time we wanted a fresher feel to the covers. So, having restricted our designers with a brief that screamed - 'Don't change it too much, but change it completely' we then followed up with more design provisos. The book needed to 'pop' in a physical bookstore - standing out for customers browsing. Whilst maintaining its own identity we wanted to create a synergy within the series structure of the rest of our publications. We wanted the ACE and COM series to retain their similarities to each other and at the same time have a distinct personality. And we needed the books to look ace on a webpage.

With a long suffering sigh - and glance towards the heavens our design team bravely took on the impossible brief we had delivered - and we think they have come up with some pretty stunning designs that will bring our two key aviation series right up to date. Have a look at some of the mocked up covers that they have created and let us know what you think of them!

Combat Aircraft

These designs are all simply mocked up covers using assets that we already had in our archives, so you probably recognize some of the art!

The inner pages are in the midst of their redesign too - so that the internal pages match the covers more closely, but the one thing that won't change is the quality of the coverage, research and material that has come to define both the Aircraft of the Aces and Combat Aircraft series! Once he have some mocked up layouts that we are happy with, we will share them with all of you!

Fancy a peek at the Aircraft of the Aces covers now?

Aircraft of the Aces

PS. It is a bit of a busy month on the Osprey blog for the Aircraft of the Aces and Combat Aircraft series - as they also feature in our final 'What subjects should we revisit' blog - don't forget to have your say!