One Day Conference In Chicago

The third edition of our one-day conference on design, entrepreneurship and inspiration is set for Friday, June 6th and includes a fantastic new venue in Chicago, a modified and more ambitious format and some very smart guest presenters. Details have been posted and registration is open.

The Spring Collections Collected

The MoOM

Lots of new listings and exhibits have been posted for the spring at our Museum of Online Museums. The MoOM was featured on All Things Considered and in the NY Times. It was also selected as one of Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites and was discussed on a recent episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful! Consider joining our Museum Board, a subscription comes with a coffee mug but none of the snootiness so often associated with the patronage of cultural institutions.

Made In the US of A Field Notes

Writing It Down To Remember It Now

Our newest brand was created in combination with the unstoppable Draplin Design Company of Portland Oregon. The first offering from Field Notes Brand is a super durable made-in-the-USA memo book inspired by vintage farmers' planting books and other practical, historic, mostly-midwestern American design. If you'd like to carry Field Notes in your store, drop us a line through the Field Notes site.

Layer Tennis The Final Fiasco

Forth and Back

It's super Monday here at Layer Tennis HQ, and we're happy to declare winners in a tightly-contested pair of Layer Tennis finals. Shaun Inman's message of change was more popular than Chris Glass' message of change, and Inman won the first match. We're just getting word that the polls are closed and Jason Koxvold narrowly edged out the 17-0 James Hutchinson in the last period of second match.

It was a long, fun Layer Tennis Season, relive it here while we start planning the next one. The matches were presented by Adobe® Creative Suite® 3, the weapon of choice for creative people and Layer Tennis players everywhere.

It Started In the Washroom

Pop Will Eat Shoots
and Leaves

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 recent presentation at SXSW, A General Theory of Creative Relativity.

a short film that seems longer

Long Day’s Journey Out of Iowa

Our Steve Delahoyde is a man with an iron will. An iron will, a subcompact, a girlfriend and an idea on how to make a regular drive more, er, interesting. SD was interviewed on BBC5 last night about the experiment.

CP Infrequently

Puzzled

Einstein's Fish, Booking Bands, Which Porn Star Ate The Most Hot Dogs? and Cover Me all started as contests in one of our Infrequent Mailings, which go out about once a month. #52 is scheduled to go out later today or tomorrow and includes a new contest and some other stuff too. Just add your email address here to join the list. We won't ever abuse the privilege.

The Deck Ad Network

All Hands On

Starting right now The Deck, our advertising network targeting web, design and creative professionals, is bigger, smarter and better looking with the addiition of Chip Kidd's Good Is Dead, Dean Allen's Textism, the various projects of Mr. Ze Frank and the new suite of rich internet applications geared for artists, Aviary. We had planned on writing a lot more but as usual, Jeffrey has said it all, and perfectly. Thanks to Naz for permission to use the alley above.

An SD Film Regrets

Passing Fancy

If you're at all like us and are better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them, you ought to pay attention to the fifth film in Steve's "Regrets" series, Hobbies.

How Do You Spell Courage?

Inaction Heroes

For the proper effect, check the trailer first and then please take a few minutes (eleven actually) to watch our short feature film, Copy Goes Here. In case you missed it, here's what our home page looked like when we debuted the movie.

72° A Film Project

Plus a Share of
the Glory, If Ever
There Is Any

EMILY: Nothing exciting will happen, I suppose. There aren't any bells or whistles or fireworks. It'll just happen and... there aren't bells and whistles or fireworks, are there? ALAN: No.

The first draft of the script for our film project, 72° has gone out to our Producers. As with Copy Goes Here, we're posting about the film as we go along and also looking for a title sponsor and a roster of Executive Producers. Unlike CGH, this time we really started at the beginning. When we began, all we had was an archival photo for inspiration and a lot of enthusiasm. Check the weblog here and scroll down to see the very first entry for details. We're forever in debt to those who are coming along for the ride, like the most recent additions to our Executive Producer credits, Pierre Mai, Kevin Hamm and Andre Torrez.

May Guest Editor Naz Hamid

All In The Family

Our Guest Editor for May is Naz Hamid, (nh) one of our favorite web designers anywhere. We have a lot in common with Naz. Most notably, his wife, Jen Schuetz, helps us out at CP on a number of projects. Naz's personal site NZRN and his business site, Weightshift are but two examples of the attention to detail and consummate good taste his work always demonstrates. He's also a founder of the Chicago site, Gapers Block and we hear he's wicked-fast on two wheels too.

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

Original theatrical trailer for John Boorman's 1967 Point Blank starring Lee Marvin. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Via Rashomon. jc-today

The Journal of Cartoon Over-Analyzations. Like it sounds. Via Cartoon Brew. jc-today

"A helmet-like balloon that is connected with the seat can be tilted over the heads of the two people seated. Their heads thus are enclosed a narrow cylindrical space that is covered by a glass-clear plastic dome above which a transparent balloon hovers." jc-today

Mmm, 香果珍珠水晶冰! bb-today

Neat four story home that's just eight feet wide. dw-today

This is what a £23,000 ($44,800) shirt looks like. dw-today

Not so much a drink as it is a booze novelty. Beer soap. Via Modern Materialist. jsz-today

ROJO TV, videos by artist-filmmakers. Via CH. dw-today

Potentially NSFW but hey, it's nature. Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno. dw-today

Infrequent Mailing #52 is on the way and includes a cool new contest. You can still get in on it by subscribing under "Puzzled" in the left column. jc-today

The single most-requested Friday Drink Link. "I quickly met my second wife, a brilliant graduate student who liked to brag that she had never met a man who could drink her under the table. Then she met me." Liquor and Lit, by Charles Deemer. jc-today

John Bowers learns a lesson from Spirograph. jc-today

Soviet Union Russia labels. ms-today

Michael Gillette painted 14 covers for the fabulous new Penguin Books' James Bond series of hardcovers. Sold. Via Daring Fireball. jc-today

Love this, the Tubes Tea Light. ms-today

Open source can apply to storage design too. Via Materialicious. ms-today

Taj gets my vote for person of the week. ms-today

Great addition to the MoOM, a fantastic collection of Latvian poster designs. ms-today

2 million people lost their homes to build the Three Gorges Dam. Waiting for this to get to Chicago, trailer for the documentary Up the Yangtze. ms-today

Did you know that one of the guys from the rock band Queen got his doctorate in astrophysics and wrote a book on the history of the universe? Now you do. ms-today

"So this is how it works: Zak draws something. Shawn draws something that will fight it. Zak draws his thing fighting back. Shawn draws his thing fighting back and maybe tripping over a statue. Then maybe Zak's thing kills Shawn's with the statue's head. Then Shawn draws a new thing. Zak's surviving thing attacks it. And so on." On the road of knives... Via twenty2woblog. dw-yesterday

What A Clockwork Orange might have been, including Mick Jagger as Alex. jc-yesterday

BB, camping this weekend would be so much better if you had one of these. ms-yesterday

"Nothing wrong with the little recreational grammar." Comma sutra. ms-yesterday

Media buyer's revenge. ms-yesterday

Mr. Squirrel assembles a Real Good chair. ms-yesterday

Whimsical photos by Robert Wechsler. ms-yesterday

Well, I guess it's one way to remember your address . ms-yesterday

Classic illustration by subject. Woah. Via the DDC. nh-yesterday

Posted without comment, Nice Try, Give Up. ms-yesterday

Meet Newton, SynPet. nh-yesterday

Free Readymech Pinhole Cameras from Corbis. Designed by Fwis in NYC. jc-yesterday

Andy Warhol's Photo Booth Self-Portrait. Linked as a hint to the new subscriber-only contest that's part of the Infrequent Mailing that goes out today. Not on the list? Give us your email address under "Puzzled" on the left. jc-yesterday

Comprehensive cover gallery of the French "Saint" novels. Mostly by Boirau and Regino Bernad. A great collection, most definitely MoOM-worthy. jc-yesterday

Lovely, The Gegenschein over Chile. ms-yesterday

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

Grab our blended RSS feed here.

Translate

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15 Minutes

Bernie Peng. [?]

The Producers

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 N. Kilarjian
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
Christopher Ebmeyer
Jeffrey Rutzky

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:
Jewelboxing

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:

"Being as Bryan is our resident Jewelboxing printing expert, and just because he's a generally pleasant person, it's an interview well worth your time." Read the entire post.

Some Other Things We Made:

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

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

Limited-edition, professionally mixed and mastered, custom-designed live performances on CD. That's The Show. With partners like The Pixies and Dead Can Dance. More news soon.

Lowercase Tee: For politically and otherwise active kids.

We actually do
stuff beside
updating this site.

Find out what.

infrequent mail

Our occasional mailings always contain a contest and a special offer or giveaway and usually some smart alecky commentary too. Enter your email to subscribe. We won't ever abuse the privilege. Period.