Local Note Chicago Will Call

Order anything we sell using coupon code "WILLCALL" and pick it up here from Jen at 400 North May Street.

CP vs. Your Spam Filter

Infrequently

Our Infrequent Mailings are sent about once a month and #55 is scheduled to go out on Tuesday and will contain a screed about the vacuous nature of political discourse in America a bunch of news and a brand new subscriber-only contest too. Just add your email address here. We won't ever abuse the privilege.

Museum Of Online Museums

Collections Collected

Tons of new listings and exhibits have been posted for the summer 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.

No Game No Plot

The Breeders’
“Walk it Off”

After stumbling into a lifetime-dream-fulfilling chance to direct a music video for indie-rock legends The Breeders, SD and BB came up with a concept for the song "Walk It Off" from the band's fantastic new album Mountain Battles. But wanting to make things extra-complicated, they decided to turn a fairly simple plot into an interactive, multiple-perspective, experimental experience.

The Field-Tested Books Book

Location, Location, Location

Announcing our biggest, best edition of Field-Tested Books yet. We looked over the shoulders of lots of smart people while they read lots of interesting books in lots of familiar and unfamiliar places and now you can too. All the Field Tests from this new collection and previous years are online. Plus, we've created a sweet, new, limited-edition poster with Spike Press and we're totally excited to say that the first-edition of The Field-Tested Books Book, a paperback containing 143 selected reviews, is also available for purchase. We'll be making a donation to First Book for every one we sell, so order a book for yourself and help us buy a truckload of new books for underprivileged kids. The First-Editions are shipping now. Buy one today we'll ship it today.

News: Thanks to everyone who came to our recent live Field-Tested Readings, in Chicago and New York City.

Made In the U.S. of A. Field Notes

In Good Company

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. The notebooks are showing up in lots of interesting places, including in a recent issue of Lego Magazine!

Grey Skies Are Gonna Clear Up

Tips For Tough Times

As a public service, Steve Delahoyde and our pals from Schadenfreude present a new series of handy tips for Surviving The New Depression. Get happy.

Films About Hand-Made Posters

Screening Documentaries

The Beginning and End Are Up To You, is our mini-documentary about John Solimine who created the limited-edition poster for Field Tested Books 2008.

For our first summer reading feature we asked Jay Ryan of The Bird Machine to design and hand-screen a limited run of posters. We visited Jay and Mat Daly at the Bird Machine Shop and we can tell you that the whole thing is refreshingly analog and deliciously slow. Check 6 Colors, 1,800 Pulls and 2 Dogs. The next Field-Tested Poster was created by Dan and Mike of Aesthetic Apparatus. Steve buzzed up to The Twin Cities for a visit and that resulted in Found & Reused.

A CP Film In Five Parts

Laboratory Conditions

While we were in Los Alamos, New Mexico, looking for locations for one film project, 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.

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 about words, pictures and bravery, Copy Goes Here. In case you missed it, here's what our home page looked like when we debuted the movie.

An SD Film Regrets

Passing Fancy

From JC's talk at Seed Conference 3. 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.

Sept Guest Editor Aegir Hallmundur

Prime Minister

Our Guest Editor for August is Aegir Hallmundur (ahl) who serves the public as the Chief Executive of The Ministry of Type. We've been watching Aegir closely for the last year and half, and we love the way he takes a specific piece of design and/or type and examines it closely, often going so far as to redraw it, in order to uncover its very soul. The Ministry is a mandatory bookmark for type geeks.

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

Trailer for an Erich Weiss/House Industries film about Ed Rondthaler, proponent of simplified American spelling. Charming. jc-today

I always say, "if you want authentic-looking typewriter type, type it on a typewriter and scan it," but Trixie HD just raised the bar for digital typewriter typefaces. bb-today

Our Guest Editor for August is Aegir Hallmundur (ahl) who serves the public as the Chief Executive of the excellent Ministry of Type. For more about Aegir and all the other smart people who have helped us out over the years, check our guest book. jc-today

Great gallery of images from the FIETS exposition of bicycles at the Designhuis in Eindhoven. se-today

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot annotated via hypertext. Awesome. jc-today

Stylish fellows. Heather is the new black. jc-today

Where they took that photo on the album cover, mapped. Via The Morning News. jc-today

"Sheep To People. Top 7 National Flocks." Now that is a perfect note for Field Notes. Found in Dave's Mechanical Pencils: Field Notes Notebook Review. Thanks Trevor. jc-today

Well, it will either be the shortest broadcast ever or pretty interesting. Either way, tune in to watch the very first test of the Large Hadron Collider in a live broadcast on September 10th here. ms-today

Take a look at the backs of quarters and guess which state they represent. Good luck. ms-today

"Photographer Laura Peters went behind the scenes at mortuaries, funeral parlours and crematoria to find out about the 'death industry'" in her series Behind the Last Closed Door. ms-today

Hey, spies need friends too. ms-09.06

So you know, 10 homes that defy gravity. ms-09.06

Dude, get your favorite band's touring schedule and get ready to hit the road. ms-09.06

FotA Amy Krouse Rosenthal's The Beckoning of Lovely. cp-09.05

Tiny Showcase just emailed: "Not to belabor a point here but this is, arguably, the greatest collaborative group show and music festival BBQ block party that will occur in our lifetimes." bb-09.05

Unique package design for wine in a can. se-09.05

2016 Logos for the remaining seven cities. dw-09.05

Some images of London from above, at night, by photographer Jason Hawkes. se-09.05

Weather geek? Better get one of these. ms-09.05

Styrobot. ms-09.05

Fab, the Usborne Book of the Future from 1979. Via DRB. ms-09.05

If you could do anything tomorrow, what would it be? I'd love to go into space, certainly. And I'd certainly spend a day saving Freehand. Via the DDC. se-09.05

So you know, the folks at Materialicious have launched a new blog, Workalicious. ms-09.05

How Star Wars changed the world. Brilliant. Via Slash Film. ms-09.05

It's Friday, what'll ya have? We're buying. jc-09.05

Amor Montes de Oca has agreed to serve on the almost prestigious Board of Directors of our Museum on Online Museums. Thanks for that. jc-09.05

"A snake charmer, a wine buff and a welder go into a bar - the rest is history." So cool, the chain wine bottle holder. ms-09.05

"The animated story of one man's epic journey, created entirely from public domain symbols. In other words, an airport story told in the language of airport infographics." Airport. ms-09.05

Our Field Notes Brand is mighty proud to share the stage with a fearsome T-Rex for Day 47 of the 365 Toy Project. jc-09.05

We love flipping through books with Grain Edit. Today it's the fab 1967 Design Coordination and Corporate Image by FHK Henrion and Alan Parkin. jc-09.05

"If you can get Morgan Freeman's and Ashley Judd's heads floating together, God help you." An interview with the designer behind Hollywood's most famous floating head movie posters. sd-09.05

A Friday Drink Link and the song/video of the moment: Dancing, by The Walking Man. sd-09.05

Eric Etheridge's Breach of Peace. Mugshots of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders set against current photos and interviews. Heroic. jc-09.05

PingMag talks to designer Tom Hingston about visualizing music. jc-09.05

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

French | German | Italian
Japanese | Spanish | Portuguese

15 Minutes

Carlos Salazar [?]

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
Robert D. Whitson

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:

"It finally struck us that we should be making it easier for our customers to know that they can easily swing by and pick up their orders. So we've just added this option to the shopping cart." 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.