To Every SEason

3 packs of our Field Notes limited-edition for Spring, The National Crop Edition are selling fast. Did you know you can get them as a part of a COLORS subscription? Each season we produce a special short-run of notebooks in different colors and styles. Subscribe today and make sure you don't miss Summer, Fall, and Winter. You are so going to want Summer. Yes you will.

I Think I Read That Somewhere

A Certain Place

If, like us, your spring and summer vacations are about reading, then here's a place to start. We've collected hundreds of books and had them Field-Tested online, including entries from George Saunders, Jonathan Eig, Jessa Crispin, Steven Heller, Lori Andrews, Michael Bierut, and many more. Or, buy the Field Tested Books Book which is available now for just nine bucks.

Stuff About Stanley Kubrick

I Am Putting Myself
to the Fullest Possible Use, Which Is All I Think That Any Conscious Entity Can Ever Hope To Do

For over ten years we've been collecting links and tossing them into various categories. As you probably have noticed, we're a bit of obsessed with a certain film director. Check our big, messy "Stuff About Stanley Kubrick" archive.

Field Notes Limited Edition

Cultivated

For Field Notes' 14th seasonal release we've gone back to our roots with a box set celebrating America's farmers and the crops they grow. "The National Crop Edition" includes six colored memo books, a souvenir poster and an embroidered patch, all in a custom box. They're available for sale individually and as part of a year-long Colors Subscription.

Plus, Co-Founder Aaron Draplin talks about where Field Notes comes from in a short film, From Seed, and his large collection of agricultural themed memo books from the last 100 years are now online at the Field Notes site.

An occasional series Face Time

Classic Display Faces That Deserve Props

Chauncey H. Griffith's Bodoni Poster Black was developed for Mergenthaler in 1929 and features strong verticals and shallow descenders. It's regularly employed for era-specific "Appearing Nightly at the Copacabana" lobby-card-ish announcements and by and large it's serviceable, if not particularly interesting. But, just in case you find yourself in need of a two skinny chicks whispering near the coke mirror, late 70's, Los Angeles sort of vibe, set it tight in all-caps with almost no line spacing. Suggested pairing: Univers Light Extra Condensed.

A Very Short Attention Span

Regrets, I Have a Few

Are you better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them? Are you easily distracted? Do you find it hard to concentrate on any one thing when there are so many other things to check out? Yeah, us too.

To Every Season

Blind Faith

Legends of the Fall, a film we made high above north central Wisconsin in October. The "Fire Spotter" Edition of Field Notes sold out almost immediately but if you trust us to keep making fun, new editions (and the Spring release that's going to be announced in a week or two is plenty fun and completely new) you can sign up for a Colors Subscription now based on blind faith. That way you'll save a few bucks and be sure to get the next four releases, starting with Spring and extra goodies too. Afraid of commitment? Make sure you're on the Field Notes mail list, folks there always get first crack at new products.

Verse By Voice

Poetry After the Beep

On a whim, we asked people to read their favorite short poems into our answering machine for a project we called Verse By Voice. And they did, creating maybe the first-ever poetry meme. To get the idea, make sure to listen to novelist Zadie Smith reading Frank O'Hara's Animals.

Note: we didn't include what is surely not Christopher Walken reading EE Cummings, but that's worth a listen too. Jim talked about this project during his appearance on Public Radio's Hello Beautiful! and the photos are courtesy of Sam Javanrouh's unstoppable Daily Dose of Imagery.

Search Different

For Sale:
1 Billion Dollars

While it's only a couple years old, it's social power and technical innovation makes it a bargain for any cash-rich tech company looking to expand their reach and ecosystem. For a quick billion dollars your company can own the jewel of the next generation of search and change the way people find things on The Internet. "Never Not Find What You’re Looking For Again" with E-Z-Fynd. Secret Himalayan headquarters included, plus Peppermints! From CP Labs, the folks that brought you The RinseCam 9000™, so you know it's good. Serious inquiries only please.

JC at Creative Mornings

What Are You
Afraid Of?

Here's Jim's recent presentation from the inaugural edition of Chicago Creative Mornings. Thanks to Tina, Mig, Gravity Tank and everyone who showed up.

Who Owns The Fish

Hey Buddy, Is This Your Sander Vitreus?

Every year since 2004, we have done our part to encourage acrimony and hard feelings at family gatherings. Face it, you'll probably fight about something at your next get-together, it might as well be something important, like whether or not you're in the two percent of the world's population that Albert Einstein purportedly claimed could solve this puzzle. So... Who Owns The Fish?

May Guests Sonnenzimmer

Making It Up
As They Go

Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi (nn) first met while interning at Punk Planet Magazine and The Bird Machine, two of Chicago's most beloved cultural institutions. Following their work there, they decided to open a studio together in 2006, naming it Sonnenzimmer. It's there that Nadine realized she really just wanted to make posters with no type on them, despite years of typography education in her native Switzerland. Nick, who studied graphic design, found that he just wanted to make paintings. Their firm now merges typography, printmaking, graphic design and fine art to create hand-crafted posters, books, and music packaging for a wide array of projects and clients. They're particularly proud of their work with Chicago's bustling free jazz and improvised music community, finding a place where experimentation and abstraction are both respected and demanded. That said, we're expecting lots of interesting and varied links as Nick and Nadine step in as our Guest Editors for May.

A list of all the brilliant people who have helped us by guest editing Fresh Signals can be found here.

Other recent features are listed on Page Two.

Fresh Signals

Re-link, the fantastic Le Mans Classic 2010. ms-yesterday

The Raw Magazine rejection form letter. Efficient. Via This Isn't Hapiness. jc-yesterday

Artist Brad Litwin's MechaniCards. "Miniature, hand-operated, kinetic sculptures." Via Doobybrain. sd-yesterday

Keith Wright will backpack across Europe this summer. He's 95. dw-yesterday

"Elektro-L is a Russian weather satellite currently sitting in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km above the Indian Ocean. This video represents almost one week of images as observed from that satellite, one shot every half hour." —Joe Hanson. It's very high-def and made of single images as opposed to composites stitched together. But more than anything else, it's simply beautiful. jc-yesterday

"If you thought Field Notes, the now famous 48-page memo book, was just another Futura-fueled riff on retro design, you obviously never read the statement on the back flap." From Perrin Brumm at Core77. Thanks for that too. jc-yesterday

"One thing I've noticed about many of the people whose creativity inspires me is that they seem to be obsessed with something." Yeah, we noticed the same thing Nathan. Thanks for that. jc-yesterday

"From singing shops to water mules." This weekend, filmmakers, The Quay Brothers, will take over the city of Leeds for OverWorlds & UnderWorlds. More info here. sd-yesterday

"The result is less success or failure than cautionary tale." Christopher Hawthorne's review of the new Barnes Foundation museum, which opens this weekend after years of controversy. Highly recommended viewing about all of it: The Art of the Steal. sd-yesterday

The DP Reel of Anson Fogel, who shot the gorgeous Colorado tourism campaign that's currently running. A behind the scenes on those spots here. Via Denver Egotist. sd-yesterday

Great collection of interviews and sounds from some of the architects of Chicago house music. Rad local web-zine/archive, Gridface. nn-yesterday

"Each artwork comes with a funny or facty Twitter-sized write-up. If it's a sunny day you might share in Constable's appreciation of the great British landscape, or the rain might coax 'The Snail' by Matisse out of his shell. At lunch time you might find out why fat, and felt, are so important in Beuys's work, or a noisy after work drink might lead to Georg Baselitz explaining why he made a piece with a chainsaw." The Magic Tater Ball app. Via Creative Review ms-yesterday

I'd often heard the story that William Faulkner wanted to publish The Sound and the Fury using colored inks to signify the time of various sections of Benjy's narrative. Well, what do you know? The Folio Society has done it. Wow. jc-yesterday

Anatomy of an excellent Sunday NYT crossword puzzle by its constructor, Kevin Der. jc-yesterday

(Eyes closed, heels clicking) I wish I was here... I wish I was here... I wish I was here. ms-yesterday

As Jim says, "possibly the most important American photograph ever taken." The earliest surviving photo of any American city, the magnificent Cincinnati. Yowza. jc-05.16

Terrific spot from Droga5 Australia and director Matt Devine: "Moreing." sd-05.16

A fun read/watch: Aaron Sorkin's commencement speech at Syracuse last Friday. sd-05.16

Codex 99 on The Esquire Pin-Up Calendar. Not safe for work if you boss disapproves of girls in their underwear with umbrellas near a pot-belly stove. jc-05.16

For BB: camera cookie cutters. dw-05.16

Field Notes in action, and with two different people at Chicago's Field Museum. jc-05.16

Vladimir Nabokov, John Philip Sousa and Andy Warhol, together at last, on the surface of Mercury. sd-05.16

Corn too beautiful to eat, thanks to good ol' genetics! bb-05.16

Director James Winters' tribute to MCA: Sabotage starring kids. sd-05.16

Definitely the most entertaining documentary you'll watch all week, if not month/year: A Brief History of John Baldessari, narrated by Tom Waits. sd-05.16

How Parisians Mess with New Zealanders. sd-05.16

Some help with the last link: some CB lingo bb-05.16

From my new favorite blog: MO'C's CB Calling Cards (NSFW). bb-05.16

Amazing hyper-graphic screen prints by Leo Maranz, the founder of Tastee Freeze. nn-05.16

Relink for Coop. The funniest thing a parent will ever read. "Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass." Ian Frazier's Laws Concerning Food and Drink. kg-05.16

Tangentially related to the last. The trailer for Ryan Woodward's animated graphic novel Bottom of the Ninth looks amazing. More about this ambitious project here. jc-05.16

Fourteen sketches of Major League ballparks by Gene Mack for The Sporting News, 1946-47. What ever happened to this sort of editorial cartooning? So great. jc-05.16

Statement from McSweeney's Chairman Regarding Recent Losses, by Ben Greenman. jc-05.16

"Make yourself suffer, you swine." Jedermann bike races in Germany. jc-05.16

On the shore of an idyllic white sanded beach in New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula rests an elegant hut. dw-05.15

Very cool. Ditto uses 3D imaging to help you shop for sunglasses. Via Ryan Singer. jc-05.15

Most of Man Ray's work is locked up at an auto body shop on Long Island. Can I borrow $20 million? bb-05.15

Bird vs. Snake, Human saves both. Via Book of Joe. ms-05.15

29% Blue, 1% Checked. dw-05.15

Collider reports Terrence Malick's next film has been titled To the Wonder. jc-05.15

Page Two contains the previous 40 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.

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