Win a Year's Worth of Rotosound 's New Guitar Strings

RickLucas

I like Roto pure nickels on my Telecaster, 10-46 please!

merlin

earwighoney said:

Seziertisch said:

I prefer the old packaging  This is like when Marathon became Snickers all over again …

The worst was when Opal Fruits became Starburst. 

For me, the worst was when the Labour Party became The Conservative Party. 

lustycourtier

They look great, way more modern than the old style. 

dhaywood67

I've not actually tried Rotos, so it'd be an ideal opportunity to convert me from Ernie's!

The new pack designs look great by the way.

digitalscream

merlin said:

earwighoney said:

Seziertisch said:

I prefer the old packaging  This is like when Marathon became Snickers all over again …

The worst was when Opal Fruits became Starburst. 

For me, the worst was when the Labour Party became The Conservative Party. 

No politics, please...this is an on-topic thread for a specific promotion, and obviously moving it to P&E isn't on the cards, so...any derailments will be removed.

Rotosound

Thanks folks. Very great to see such engagement straight away! TheFretboard is an excellent community!

A few points have arisen that I'll address here...

fretmeister said:

Leisceoir said:

Really like the different colour packaging. How many packets is a year’s worth exactly?

It says 12.

No mention of bass strings which is very odd as it was bass strings that made them famous in the first place.

 The winner gets 12 sets of our new-look electric guitar strings. We chose these as the prize because to better highlight the news that they've had a makeover.

We are, indeed, well known for our bass strings, but our guitar strings are just as good! They're made in the same UK factory as the bass strings, use the same materials, and follow the same lineage of the bass sets. We started making guitar strings at the same time as bass strings back in the very early '60s.

Jonathangus said:

I like it!  The only thing I would say, though, is that the greens could be more - er - green.  They look a bit close to the yellows in that pic.

Anyway, 9-46, if you please.  

The Greens and Yellows are easier to tell apart in real life 

 Philly_Q said:

Kittyfrisk said:

Philly_Q said:

Yorkie said:

I like that we're getting a complete Union Jack now. Are you using British steel too? If so, perhaps this is something you would like to feature prominently on the packaging. 

I know guitar players are 'special' but have any of you being keeping in touch with the general news regarding the UK's lack of industrial ability to produce steel recently...? Sheesh! or, FFS as you young'uns say 

I think there was a comment in a Rotosound video posted on another thread that the steel is mostly imported from the US...

We get as much materials from the UK as we can but the supply is limited. We currently use phosphor bronze and nickel-plated steel from a UK wire supplier.

Rocker said:

I like the Yellow packaging, yellow as a colour has an important significance in our home. 

Does this post count as the competition entry or have I to enter someplace else?

Yes, it counts! We'll use a random number generator to select a post # that wins the sets. We'll disregard multiple

crunchman said:

Schnozz said:

Been using yellows for 20 years so I miss the lion, but the subsequent packaging colours have been much more bold.

Never do away with the extra high E! Helps beginners and clumsy folk like me.

I haven't broken a string in years.  I'd just wind up with an accumulation of 50 high E strings sat around doing nothing.  It adds to the cost for me, and it adds to the environmental cost as well.

The free extra E string is a bit Marmite-y, but overall players seems to value having it. We don't actually factor it into the cost of each set, so it is "free" (if we stopped including it, the set would cost the same to the customer).

roberty

YorkGhost said:

crunchman said:

Schnozz said:

Been using yellows for 20 years so I miss the lion, but the subsequent packaging colours have been much more bold.

Never do away with the extra high E! Helps beginners and clumsy folk like me.

I haven't broken a string in years.  I'd just wind up with an accumulation of 50 high E strings sat around doing nothing.  It adds to the cost for me, and it adds to the environmental cost as well.

I agree with this to be honest, I'd rather cheaper packs with no extra.

How about each pack comes with a seventh string but it's a random one

Philly_Q

EricTheWeary said:

I think the old design with the guitarist figure was a bit cluttered. It did, however, have the gauge in big numbers and for those of us who who don’t buy Rotosound regularly that’s more useful than the colour system. It’s maybe a bit too small on the new design and barely legible on the orange. In that photo (and could just be my screen) the green looks more like a different shade of yellow. 
There is an inconsistency between the yellows and reds having base colour plus black whilst the others have light and dark versions of the base colour. I presume this is for clarity (two versions of yellow probably wouldn’t work) but I wonder if black over base would have worked for all of them. I don’t like the orange on orange (again might just be a photo/screen thing)and wonder if that at least could have been black over base. 

Overall it’s a smarter design but I’d like some tweaks on the colour contrasts. 

BillDL said:

The outgoing packaging had the size eg. "10" very clearly displayed and the guaged sizes of each string were larger than they are now.  They are still easy enough to read, but the "w" designating a wound string has been removed.  Grouping the size, string gauges and string composition in a grid at the top right is a good design choice, but only if it is uniform across the range.  I notice that on the packaging for the electric strings it says eg. "nickel on steel" in this grid, whereas for 80/20 Tru Bronze it says "acoustic" instead of string composition and the "80/20 bronze" only appears further down the packaging.

These are good points, and since comment has been invited I've been looking more closely at the packaging pictures. 

Now that I've seen it, it is hard to ignore the black-on-colour design of some packs versus the colour-on-colour design of others.  You could have lighter shades of blue, pink and orange as base colours (and a slightly greener shade of green), all with black printing, and I think they'd be more legible than the packs with two shades of the same colour. 

As it stands, only the yellow packaging is entirely successful in the sense that you could read it from six or eight feet away behind a counter (in the unlikely event that we were buying strings in a music shop...).  It looks much better than the others.

As for the size and gauges information at top right of the packaging, maybe that would be better in a white box on all colours, so it stands out more?  That might make printing more complicated, but you've already got the three-colour flag and free-extra-string boxes, and white boxes on the backs of the packs, so there's already some white on there.

Not moaning, just observing...

SteveRobinson

I just think that identifying gauge by colour limits the range you can offer. 

Maybe it's a conscious decision to only offer the most popular sets but it does restrict future additions.

Dodge

I quite like the new design - it's clear and obvious what you're buying, but then I didn't mind the previous design either.  I applaud you for using less packaging and keeping the contents airtight.

I confess I don't currently use Rotosound strings although I always used to.  I move to pure nickel strings and settled for Pyramids offerings and Fender 150s depending on the guitar.  I don't actually recall trying your pure nickels - I must try them....

BillDL

SteveRobinson said:

I just think that identifying gauge by colour limits the range you can offer. 
Maybe it's a conscious decision to only offer the most popular sets but it does restrict future additions.

Philly_Q said:

......You could have lighter shades of blue, pink and orange as base colours (and a slightly greener shade of green), all with black printing, and I think they'd be more legible than the packs with two shades of the same colour. 
As it stands, only the yellow packaging is entirely successful in the sense that you could read it from six or eight feet away behind a counter ......

Out of curiosity I grabbed the image of the new packs all together and subjected it to an Ishihara Chart simulation (colour-blindness chart) using the two most common types of partial colour blindness, namely Protanomaly (weak red perception) and Deuteranomaly (weak green perception) shown respectively in order at a reduced size below the original image.  There are of course other types of colour blindness, for example weak blue perception (Tritanomaly) and also the less common "blindness" to red, green or blue (Protanopia, Deuteranopia and Tritanopia) as well as "50 shades of grey" (ooh, err) referred to as Achromatopsia.

Original:

Protanomaly (weak red perception) - Yellow and green almost indistinguishable.

Deuteranomaly (weak green perception) - red and orange confusable if seen in isolation.

That's my far from scientific observation 

Greggypoos

dhaywood67 said:

I've not actually tried Rotos, so it'd be an ideal opportunity to convert me from Ernie's!

The new pack designs look great by the way.

They are much less bright than new EB, but last FAR longer. Much better value to me.

Cowboyyeehaa1

Greggypoos said:

dhaywood67 said:

I've not actually tried Rotos, so it'd be an ideal opportunity to convert me from Ernie's!

The new pack designs look great by the way.

They are much less bright than new EB, but last FAR longer. Much better value to me.

Like theyve already been on the guitar a good few weeks before youve even started? Ive tried them, a bit flat and uninspiring.

Ended up going with d'addarios after being a long time ernie ball user. not sure what happended with the ernie balls - im sure they go dead a lot quicker than they used to.

the packaging looks far too busy. = an assault on the eyes whilst trying to scan for the information you actually need.

Offset

Cowboyyeehaa1 said:

the packaging looks far too busy. = an assault on the eyes whilst trying to scan for the information you actually need.

I don't need to read the small print - Pink = 9-42.  And less fussy than the old labelling.  Of course ultimately the packaging is superfluous, but it does represent a nice refresh to the brand in my view.

roberty

@BillDL to their credit they've also printed the name of the colour on the pack

PLOP

I like the new design a lot more than the old one, it’s definitely a more modern and up to date look. 

susbemol

Thinking about reducing packaging for environmental (and obviously cost-saving!) reasons while keeping the traditional vibe that customers are used to make total sense. Well done!

If chosen, I'd love 10-46 sets, please!

BillDL

roberty said:

@BillDL to their credit they've also printed the name of the colour on the pack

I know, but it really needs the silhouette of a miniature hand pointing to that 

(Rotosound to note: the small hand thing is an in-joke)

EricTheWeary

roberty said:

@BillDL to their credit they've also printed the name of the colour on the pack

I think it's interesting in terms of contrast/legibility and the ones that are already slightly poor (red and orange) get even worse. If these were mass market products I don't think they would hit the shelves. Probably for guitar strings people tend to know what they want so maybe it's not such an issue. 

Offset

BillDL said:

roberty said:

@BillDL to their credit they've also printed the name of the colour on the pack

I know, but it really needs the silhouette of a miniature hand pointing to that 

Trump's?