It really should have looked much better. 2/5

Top left Half the photo has no relevance as it's a building and the bus is minus the back.
Top right Another badly cropped photo, the bus could have been larger.

Bottom left The photo hasn't been cropped to make the bus upright.

Bottom left The photo could be cropped to remove either side to make the buses larger.
Bottom right No attempt to lighten a very grey photo and the buses could have been larger.

Top right A rather tedious-looking photo of the back of some buses.

To left Why is the Strachans sign angled? Maybe to fill some space.

Bottom left The bus area of the photo is way too small, obviously it has not been cropped.

Top left Was it really worth using this badly taken photo? It hasn't been cropped to
reduce the grass and remove the lady with the ice cream.

Bottom left. A very tedious photo that tells the reader very little.

Top left Who wants to see part of a bus on the right? It should have been cropped out
to make the Leyland National larger.

Top left. I guess this was only used to fill a bit of page space. It's much too large.

Top Another poorly cropped photo. Where is the rest of the bus? 

Was this photo really worth using? 

A blank inside back cover, just the place for the publisher to

plug some other transport titles.

I'm a publication designer and live in the Southampton area and I sometimes use the buses so I thought I would find out about the history of transport services in the city. The book is a typical example of the transport press; it's very amateur looking. This type of publication suffers from an inherent problem: it exclusively relies on amateur snaps for the visual content. There are just over two hundred photos in the book and they have just been dropped onto the pages. No cropping to get the best focal point, no lightening of very grey photos, no real editorial selection to reject photos that just aren't worth including and tell the reader very little. Page after page of two photos, one on top of the other. It's also rather pricey.

However, even with this poor visual material, the book could have been designed to give the pages some sparkle, with big and small photos and some worthwhile typography for the title, imprint and intro pages. A missed opportunity to produce a book that a reader could enjoy.