Layer Tennis Season 3 So Far

In Perspective

Two photographers in two cities shooting and posting a photographic dialogue live while a musician creates a sound track. That was Week #3's Exhibition Match #3 of live Layer Tennis. Man, that was some fun. Here's the back story from the shooters. Match #2 was amazing, two expert typographers created and modified a new typeface in real time. Check Mark Simonson's recap, Beneath the Volley of the Fonts. The Season Opener was Khoi Vinh and Nicholas Felton with comments by John Nack and the guys have posted a terrific recap of what they did during the game, and why. It should be required reading for future players.

The Museum of Online Museums

Collections Department

We're getting The Spring Exhibitions ready. In the meantime take a last look through Winter at The Museum of Online Museums. Enjoy the collected collections and then please consider joining the Museum Board of Directors and receive some nice swag, including a DVD of our soon-to-be-released MoOMumentary, The Curators, and also that warm, smug feeling that comes with knowing you're much more generous than your low-rent friends.

The Museum of Online Museums has been featured on All Things Considered, in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune and Time Magazine and was discussed at length on an episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful!

2010 Tournament of Books

Book in Brackets

The 6th Annual Morning News Tournament of Books kicks off this week with a great field and lots of interesting match-ups. Our Field Notes Brand is proud to be the presenting sponsor for this year's edition and we're making a special offer for ToB readers that will also help out underprivileged kids. Thanks to Marshall Sokoloff for the photo above.

A Very Short Attention Span

Passing Fancy

Are you better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them? Pay attention.

John Hughes Noted

A Place of Honor

A photo accompanying an article in this month's Vanity Fair about director John Hughes finds our Field Notes Memo Books in a real place of honor.

The Field Tested Books Book

I Read That Somewhere

We had this notion that somehow through experimentation we could identify how our perception of a book is affected by the place where we read it. Or maybe the other way around. Maybe it's possible to determine how a book colors the way we feel about the place where we experience it. The result is Field Tested Books. Check hundreds of reports online or better yet, for portability and typographic excellence (Linotype Electra!) you can't beat paperback Field Tested Books Book which is available now for just nine bucks.

A Little Rework For Hire

The Kids in the Hall

A couple of months back, our office mates at 37signals asked us to help them put together a series of promotional short films to announce their new book, REWORK. All the concepts had to somehow incorporate the crumpled ball of paper from the cover, some form of office drudgery, and using said crumpled ball as an allegory for sticking it to said drudgery. We decided on three ideas and figured, if we planned it well, we could shoot them all in a day: "Staying Late," "Hallway," and "Conference Call." We borrowed some offices, hired the great Sandy Marshall to act in one and provide his voice for another, brought on DP Ryan Taylor, and spent nearly every break crumpling balls of paper (all of which was recycled). We'd been dying to try one out, so we shot everything on a Canon 5D, which was both great (beautiful footage) and so-so (difficult and weird video codec), but we learned a lot in seeing how it worked out in the wild. We're plenty pleased with the results and happy to lend a hand in promoting the 37s' new must-have read.

Shift Option Rinse

Shift Option Rinse

Can you really clean your computer keyboard in the dishwasher? With the help of the RinseCam 9000, Michele created a short film to find out.

It All Started In the Washroom

Horton Hears a Hoobastank

A while ago we hosted a quick contest called Booking Bands in which we asked people to combine the name of a book with the name of a band. We received thousands of entries, posted a ton of them and then randomly selected three and sent those people the book and a CD from the band that they mashed together. The process of coming up with funny or unexpected associations in this contest became a central part of JC's presentation at SXSW, A General Theory of Creative Relativity.

A CP Film In Five Parts

Laboratory Conditions

RIP Ed Grothus who we met while we were in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We were looking for locations for one film project and we discovered a lot more about the town and its people than we bargained for. So we made a different film and called it Laboratory Conditions. It's being shown here in five pieces and is also available on DVD.

March Guest CDR / Motherbrand

Northernly Neighbours

It would be one thing to try and put together a collection of a single favorite designer's work, but assembling a mass from all the great designers in an entire country? Such is the monumental task the brave souls at the Canadian Design Resource (cdr) have set for themselves. If it's design and it's Canadian, they've likely either already cataloged it or it's on their to-do list. The Resource itself is an offshoot of their wider umbrella, Motherbrand, which consists of Todd Falkowsky, Michael Erdmann and John Ryan who describe the firm as "a creative studio with broad expertise in content, experience and brand design," which between the lines means "they do a lot of different stuff," much of it intent on showing just how cool Canadian design is. So expect a lot of great links from north of the border as all three step in as our Guest Editors for March.

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

Silence Television, illustrations and prints by Gianmarco Magnani. Sweet lines and machines. Love the "Forgotten Monarchy" series. Via Netdiver. jc-today

Naz and Sam Peeling Back the Layers on last Friday's amazing photographic and musical live Layer Tennis Match. No Tennis this week by the way, we'll be back live on the 19th. jc-today

Gruber just posted this great piece of historical nerdery by Tandy Trower, "The Secret Origin of Windows," which lead me to hunt for the tale of IBM's TopView and the complete OS/2 timeline. I'm going to stop now before the rest of my afternoon is consumed with something like AmigaOS. sd-today

The history of proposals for moving sidewalks in New York from around the turn of the last century. sd-today

Everything is Terrible announces their pick for World's Most Action Packed Action Movie, 1987's Deadly Prey. sd-today

Here's what was going on in Italy in 1979: Stefania Rotolo Goldrake Live Appearance. sd-today

The commercial work of director Joachim Back, who just won an Oscar for his short film The New Tenants. Scroll down and start with "Milkman." sd-today

The NESynth in action. Via Peachfuzz. sd-today

Real doctors review each episode of the medical drama tv show House. ms-today

James Patrick Gibson's New Type York, a daily archive of images of typographic artifacts. Via @H_FJ. jc-today

Just in time for spring, bike lanes on Google Maps. dw-today

At Last- the full story on how Facebook was founded. Via MeFi. ms-today

Related to the last, Restoring Modernism, a video interview with Ron Krueck, lead architect on the project. jc-today

Mies van der Rohe's 860-880 Lake Shore Drive refurbishment by Krueck & Sexton, a spectacular job, nicely photographed and presented by Dezeen. Via a guy who has lives there, Edward Lifson. jc-today

I'm so ready for Friday, the new Apple product looks totally amazing. jc-today

For those heading to Austin for SXSW, Sarah Hepola took an extensive breakfast-taco tour. jc-today

Ditoria, a sweet short film about letterpress. Via The Casual Optimist. jc-today

In the tradition of our Booking Bands project, welcome to the Indie-Rock Delicatessen. I'll have the Will Old Ham with a side of Calexicole Slaw and wrap it up so it's OK to Go. Thanks Matthew G. jc-today

Southern Depictions, an exquisite set of black and white portraits by Donna Pinckley. jc-today

A couple of Field Notes notes, Poppytalk customized some FN for a swag bag at a screening of Handmade Nation. Brandon McLean included FN in a collage called Source Material Installation at a Urban Outfitters in Ybor City. Spring comes early today for FN mail subscribers. jc-today

So you know, Dan Shepelavy found out how to draw 50 aircraft and spacecraft. jc-today

Visible Storage, samples from the collection of The Computer History Museum. jc-today

Road to the Stars, a 1957 Russian film by Pavel Klushantsev notable for its composite and model shots and heroic tone. Subtitles would be nice, but are not really necessary. jc-today

Katerina Orlikova's Kaleidoscopes made from type. jc-yesterday

Tron: Legacy trailer. jc-yesterday

Satellites: A User's Manual, a terrific series of seven animated films by This is Real Art in London. Johnny Ball is perfectly cast as the voice-over. Via The DDC. jc-yesterday

Awesome, a graph showing water consumption in Edmonton during the Olympic Gold Medal hockey game. ms-yesterday

"The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man," Julia Turner's piece on emergency exit indicators around the world and why we maybe don't have it quite right here in the US. Part of Turner's great six-part series on signs. sd-yesterday

Cameron's Colosseo Letterpress Poster is epic. jc-yesterday

"I think of it not only as a thing; in a year; in a place. I think of it with the wariness I allow a person." Josh Kimball sends in his Field-Tested Books memory of reading Ulysses in transit. Have your own story of a certain book in a certain place? Send it in! sd-yesterday

Good Lord, those are some scary Easter Bunnies. ms-yesterday

FotA Wakiza Gamez (also known as "The Spaniard" around CP), has created this bit of madness, which has reduced both myself and BB to tears of glee: Loud n Clear Commercial (Remix). sd-yesterday

Rework, the new book from our officemates at 37signal is in stores today. We had a blast helping out by making a series of video trailers for the book. Take a photo of Rework in the wild and you could win an iPad. jc-yesterday

"By reducing the amount of information, and rendering the oceans in white and landmasses in black, the corona globe highlights the reliefs of islands and coastlines." Fab. Via Minimalissimo. dw-yesterday

Page Two Redo. jc-yesterday

Page Two contains the previous 35 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.

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One Hundred Forty

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The Producers

Christopher Ebmeyer
Claire Zulkey
Howard Mann
Carlos Parrilla
Damien Newman
Drew Myler
Grant Hutchinson
Skipintro
R.BIRD
Karen Labenz
Andrew Figgins
Mark Powell
Mike Keen
Chet Yeary II
Greg Storey
Matt Lee
Jeremy Quinn
Grant Unrau
Debbie Millman
David Demaree
Charles Adler
Paul Joyce
S.J. Barlament
Stephen Vance
Sam Potts
John Tolva
Cameron Moll
J. Thomas Lowell
Hillman Curtis
Gridiron Software
Loyd Boldman
Heidi J Nyburg
William Dampier
Mario Van der Meulen
Simon Angling
Colin Scroggins
Inline Studio
Witold Riedel
Alan Hawkins
Marko Dugonjic
Chris Bernard
Matt Mullenweg
Alexander Muse
Dan Rubin
Thomas Mackechney
Dan Cederholm
Eric Mersmann
Ben Edwards
Brian Seethaler
Lightburn
Matt Haughey
Bill Keaggy
Pierre Mai
Kevin Hamm
Andre Torrez
Greg Hoy
Issa Breibish
Drew Stauffer
Abby Urban
Jeffrey Rutzky
Robert D. Whitson
Hunter Weeks
Christopher Cennon
Josh Williams

Your Name Here

the pitch

You can be an Executive Producer of our new short feature film, 72°. If you've always wanted to be a hotshot Hollywood player, or you just want to lend a hand to the project here's your chance.

A Thing We Made:
Field Notes

Field Notes Brand memo Books and more. "I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now." A CP/DDC joint.

Some Other Things We Made:

We hated the options available for custom packaging DVDs and CDs so we created a brand that gives creative professionals and hobbyists the tools to make great stuff. Here's a bit from the latest Jewelboxing weblog entry:

"If you want something that isn't available or doesn't exist, there's no reason not to just make it yourself." Read the entire post.

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

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