Made In The US of A

What's more American than than the crass commercialization of a national holiday? Not much really.

2008 Field-Tested Books

Books and
Their Places

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.

The MoOM Collections Collected

Who Needs Art
When You’ve Got
a Gallery of Woodies?

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 U.S. of A. Field Notes

Places Of Note

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!

Layer Tennis The Final Fiasco

Forth and Back

It was a long, amazing 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. The project has just been shortlisted for Cannes Lions in two categories, "Best Use of Internet/New Media" and "Business Products & Services." Winners are announced Wednesday.

It Started In the Washroom

The Lionel, the Richie and the Wardrobe

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.

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.

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.

I brake for quasi-religious symbols

Vehicle Identification System Update

We have word that recently two readers in New York, who followed our guidelines for updating their vehicle identification systems, pulled up alongside each other at a traffic light and celebrated their common bond by honking and pointing. Excellent. Our plot is beginning to take hold. Write for yours free today, but hurry, we only have tens of thousands left. Thanks to C for the pix above and here's his suggestion for adding a bike to the fleet.

Dear Cell Phone User

Shut Up Already

Can design ride to the rescue against obnoxious cell-phone users? CP and the incomparable Aaron Draplin think it can. As a public service, we introduce the reasonably polite SHHH, the Society for HandHeld Hushing. Downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and featured in Wired News, on Australian National Radio and dozens of other places. Get your very own copy free here. Then just print, trim and fight back.

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.

July Guest Editor Lincoln Cushing

The Power and
the Image

Our Guest Editor for July is Lincoln Cushing (lch) the force behind Docs Populi, that rare personal site that combines a serious mission with an infectious enthusiasm for the subject at hand. It's a huge categorized repository of posters and images created for a cause. Lincoln describes his aims as a commitment to "documenting, cataloging, and disseminating socially and politically significant graphic material which otherwise might be left behind in the digital revolution." Right on.

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

What we did last night with about a million other people. jc-today

Posted in the past, but never on such a fitting occasion, so it seemed appropriate: Doktor Kosmos' Holiday. sd-today

"If the mundane details of my life were to be transmuted into fiction, I wanted straw spun into gold. What I got was straw spun into more straw..." Randy Cohen is a Field Tester. Read his and lots more reviews online or in the book. jc-today

jc-today

Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season. Something about this feels sort of creepy. Creepy but good. Thanks LBD. jc-yesterday

Celebrate America's independence with made-in-the-U.S.A. FIELD NOTES. Buy four 3-packs and one is free! bb-yesterday

Starting with the Old Testament, in seven months without interruption, all 66 books of the Bible are written in calligraphy by a robot. Check the video. jc-yesterday

"There was no tone of thankfulness for having been spared to answer to their names, but rather a toll, and an unvoiced wish that they, too, had been among the missing." 145 years ago today. jc-yesterday

Boba Fett's Flashdance Audition. Via Cynical-C. sd-yesterday

The Han Solo in Carbonite Desk. Maybe a good place to sit and enjoy your Han Solo in Carbonite Chocolate Bar. sd-yesterday

Apropos of nothing. Doug and Tyler play Cripple Creek. Via Lonely Sandwich. jc-yesterday

"Some have called it a brilliant satire of Soviet totalitarianism. To me, it was a dependable companion on cold winter nights." Eric Spitznagel is a Field-Tester. Enjoy tons of other personal reviews online and please consider buying the book. jc-yesterday

Yellow Owl Workshop handmade stamp sets. Cha-ching. Via Ship Fever. jc-yesterday

The color of money. jc-yesterday

Related to the last. Everything Vermeer, all in one place, including the complete catalogue. jc-yesterday

Paper Cuts on a new book about Han van Meegeren, "a mediocre Dutch painter but a brilliant forger who, in the 1930s and early 1940s, painted six 'Vermeers.'" jc-yesterday

Excellent, I was just wondering this the other day. How Californians see America. dw-yesterday

Michael DiTullo, design director at Converse, sketches a new sneaker in 4:39. jc-yesterday

Field Notes in action. And in Good Magazine too, sort of. jc-yesterday

There's an old joke that if you can remember the 60's you weren't there. Truth is, there's an awful lot about our own history that we barely know, and one example is the iconic posters made in Paris during May-June 1968. Finally, some real research is available - see Gene Marie Tempest's essay here. lch-yesterday

Are you suffering from hidden talents? jc-07.02

Scrap chairs. dw-07.02

A Richard Britt home in Scottsdale is up for sale. Sweet. dw-07.02

Blik's Super Mario Bros. Wall Graphics. sd-07.02

"It's my goal to wow my clients, not just meet their expectations." David at PixelatedImage lays out the benefits of our Jewelboxing system. sd-07.02

Stamps by land or by sea. Via d*s. dw-07.02

Christoph Niemann's boys and the subway. jc-07.02

So you know. How to create, cut and print from your own woodblocks. Via Glass. jc-07.02

A head start on the weekend from the MoOM. Light fuse and get away. A firework label art gallery and the explosive Crackerpacks. jc-07.02

The rookie and the veteran. jc-07.02

Auto-Rickshaw Mud Flap Customization. jc-07.02

"I've spent years cultivating the art of writing the way I talk, and you can't really 'speak' a semicolon out loud. (Maybe John Gielgud could, but I can't.)" Terry Teachout responds to Paul Collin's Death of the Semicolon piece. jc-07.02

"I just read your intro—great stuff, really. I just have a few minor changes/corrections. No big thing." jc-07.02

Highlights from our Field-Tested Books Book, three words at a time.
Spectacular childhood angst.
Beneath the skyscrapers.
With encyclopedic precision.
And also olives. jc-07.02

A pair of books, reviewed in the NYRB, attempt to figure out how jokes work. And, more importantly, how one joke works. jc-07.02

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.

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15 Minutes

Todd Barnes. [?]

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:

"I really like how the packaging system gives my designs a permanent presence. It definitely ensures the materials don't go unnoticed." 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

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