helpful and mostly polite

House Guests

Each month we ask someone to help us out posting to Fresh Signals and here are all the folks that have been good enough to pitch in. They all have their own individual talents and tastes but they all share one other thing, our undying gratitude.

this month's guest

Josh Berta (jbe) is the clever brain behind Pr*tty Sh*tty, a blog dedicated to sticking inspiring design right next to awe-inspiringly bad design to help illustrate the remarkable distance between the two. In his professional life, Josh himself knows only work of the good variety, spending his days as a Senior Designer at Piscatello Design Centre in New York. Before that, he worked for Michael Bierut at Pentagram. He's an active member of AIGA and SEGD, and because he's won a few awards for his work over the years, it seems perfectly fair to refer to him as our Award-Winning Guest Editor for February.

You know Rob Walker (rw) from at least one thing or another, but very likely more than just from a single source. You've most definitely bookmarked his popular, always entertaining blog Murketing, or caught his regular appearances as a contributor for the New York Times Magazine (including a piece he was nice enough to write about our Swap Meat project a couple years back). Or you've been enjoying his latest, curated project, Significant Objects, where he and co-editor Josh Glenn asked writers to create stories and give meaning to inexpensive items found at thrift stores or garage sales. There's also a good chance you've read one of his books, including Letters From New Orleans or his latest, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy And Who We Are (now in paperback). And remember the guy with all the best, funniest quotes in Objectified? Rob again. And now we're adding another outlet to where you'll know him from, as he steps in as our Guest Editor. January, 2010.

Instead of inviting a single Guest Editor for the month of December, we thought it might be fun to invite all the original ones back. Since the cold and the holidays are upon us, we've invited each of our former Guest Editors to submit their favorite winter and holiday-related links. Songs and videos they return to this time each year. Seasonal drinks for Friday Drink Links. Photosets that make those in warm climates pine for snow and those bundled up in ten layers just to walk a city block, just the opposite. We'll be labeling all our many guests (dec) for their contributed links and of course, letting you know who said what. December, 2009.

Antonio Carusone (ac) is more than a renaissance man, in that he knows far more than just a little about a lot of different things. A designer, typographer, and photographer all rolled into one, Carusone spends his days moving between all three in his role as an Associate Art Director at Ogilvy in New York. Whatever additional time he has left he dedicates to his other outlets, AisleOne, a great design blog you should bookmark immediately, and The Grid System, a very valuable compendium of all things grid (ditto on the bookmarking), both of which live under the banner of the Thinking for a Living Network, a collaborative group of design-focused sites. November, 2009.

Leonard Pierce (lp) is a writer who "wanders around Texas with no sleep or sense of direction." By day, he works for National Geographic's school publishing division, organizing wisdom about the world to give to America's children. His writing has appeared in Spin, URB, the Village Voice, Metal Edge, and everywhere in between. He's appeared publicly at literary and writing festivals across the country, as well as having served as a presenter for the last three years at the Experience Music Project's Pop Conference. Leonard's also a very regular contributor to The Onion's A.V. Club and will be included in their upcoming book Inventory. He can be found calmly discussing politics and angrily ranting about pop-culture almost every day at the Ludic Log. October, 2009.

Joanna Walsh (jow) is a writer and illustrator who lives in the UK, but spends lots of time in Paris. She's worked for dozens of media outlets from the Observer to the New York Times, as well as "everything from animation to press to brand design to adverts for for Absinthe." If that weren't enough, Joanna also writes and illustrates children's books, serves as an editor for Style Bible and blogs for Guardian Books. She also runs her own incredibly addictive site, Badaude, which chronicles life and fashion in Paris -- if you've ever been tempted to ditch your current life, pack your bags, and start anew in the City of Lights, this is probably the blog for you. Joanna will also be returning to her roots soon, as she's currently writing and illustrating a book for Tate (UK) about London. September, 2009.

Andy Ross (aro) is a New York-based writer and comedian. In front of a mic doing stand-up, he has appeared nearly everywhere in NYC and twice that many rooms in Chicago, with lots of college appearances in-between. He has written for the Onion News Network, Second City, and our very own Field-Tested Books. Andy was a founding member of the very popular weekly stand-up showcase, Chicago Underground Comedy, and the monthly variety show at the Playground Theater "The Demon Who Never Appeared." Currently, he's been writing and performing a series of monologues, some of which he recently grouped together for his one-man show Melancomedy, that just closed out a month-long, very well received run at the Peoples Improv Theater. And if all that weren't enough, Andy is also a heck of an illustrator and designer. August, 2009.

Henry Cline (hcl) is a Los Angeles-based director of photography and camera operator who has likely worked on at least one of your favorite films if not many. Among his lengthy IMDB listing, you'll note that he's worked with Errol Morris on Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Sam Raimi on Spider-Man 3, and on numerous films with David Mamet. And as if that weren't enough, he's also a heck of a nice guy whose great blog, Interactive Hank, you may have visited from our site due to the many vias we've attached to all the interesting links he's been kind enough to send us over the years. In the interest of cutting out the middle man in that process, at least for a month, Henry will be our Guest Editor. July, 2009.

Fuzzy Gerdes (fg) is a Chicago-based writer, director, improviser, and all around web-savvy character. A long-time friend of the agency, he's been a supporter of nearly every seat-of-our-pants idea we've tried out over the years (including a spot as a Layer Tennis competitor this season). A graphics technology specialist for a national magazine by day, among many other things, Fuzzy keeps a blog at FuzzyCo, is one-half of the improv group Bare, is a frequent contributor to Chicago Metblogs, and chronicles his daily alteration of signs for the benefit of juvenile-laugh seekers. June, 2009.

Ben Greenman (bg) is an editor at the New Yorker and the author of several acclaimed books of fiction, including Superbad, Superworse, and A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories About Human Love. He has also written for countless esteemed publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Paris Review. Around CP, you've likely seen him serve as both a Field-Tested Books contributor and one of the greatest commentators ever to grace the Layer Tennis playing fields. Most recently, he released Correspondences, a limited-edition handcrafted letterpress publication created by Hotel St. George Press and is on tour through June to support his latest well-received novel, Please Step Back, published by Melville House. He is also a regular contributor to the music and psychology blog Moistworks. May, 2009.

Remodelista (rm) delivers a daily dose of home design and architecture with unerring style. Named a "number one blog crush" by Dwell in 2008, Remodelista is written by four women who care (intensely) about design and who follow architecture and home design news as passionately as some people follow baseball. Out of their devotion comes Remodelista, a finely edited sourcebook for the considered home: fixtures, hardware, and furnishings from around the globe. It's regularly read by architects, design professionals, style-conscious devotees worldwide, and everyone here at CP. April, 2009

The Denver Egotist (de) should be one of the first reads of the day for any and all creatives in the greater Denver metropolitan area. From their news about the advertising industry, job listings and profiles of local firms' and freelancers' work, to their editorial rants, offering solutions on how to fix both Denver and the world as a whole in a myriad of different ways, the anonymously-run site is both a great resource and a regularly interesting batch of reading. What's more, so great and varied are their posts that you don't even need to be located anywhere near Denver to enjoy it. March, 2009.

Mister Jalopy (mj) is a builder, artist, writer, speaker, activist and business owner. His projects are (infrequently) updated at Hooptyrides, the going-ons at his Los Angeles-based idiosyncratic used bicycle, Mexican medicine and pocket knife store are (infrequently) detailed at Coco's Variety and inspired objects are (frequently) considered at Dinosaurs and Robots. Mister J owns eight cars, fifty bicycles, one coin laundry, three underwater camera rigs from the filming of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, is a contributing editor at Make: and is the visiting philosopher on Make: TV. February, 2009.

Alissa Walker (alw) is a freelance writer, design enthusiast, and social butterfly. She runs the site Gelatobaby which chronicles her travels through the design industry, writing pieces for magazines like Print, Fast Company, ReadyMade and nearly everything in between. This fall, Chronicle will release her book City Walks Architecture: New York City. When she isn't appearing as a panelist at events across the country, Alissa hosts a monthly-ish party for designers in called de LaB, is regularly featured as a "guest expert" on HGTV's Small Space, Big Style, and she is the one person in Los Angeles who doesn't drive a car. January, 2009.

Michael Surtees (mst) runs the great, aptly-titled design blog DesignNotes, which, like Michael himself, began in Canada and is now based in New York. By day, he is the Design Director of Daylife, which develops methods to help organize the world's news. He's also helps run the Ten:15 project which asks readers to send in photos of what they're looking at at 10:15am, publishes pieces in publications like New York magazine, and regularly walks around taking interesting photos. And this year, we were honored to have Michael contribute to Field-Tested Books as well. Whew. Keeps busy, doesn't he? December, 2008.

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. September 2008

Lincoln Cushing (lch) is 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. July, 2008

Dave Cuzner (dc) runs the excellent design blog Grain Edit which is about classic design work from the 50s, 60s and 70s and contemporary designers who draw inspiration from that time period. In addition to having impeccable taste, Dave knows his stuff cold. He also owns a book store specializing in rare graphic design books, kids books and type specimens. June, 2008

Naz Hamid (nh) is 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. May, 2008

Kevin Byrd (kvb) is a long-time friend of CP. We originally ran into Kevin at his blog, Byrdhouse, which we quickly bookmarked and return to often for things like his seasonal CHIRP mix and his films, including the immortal Cops on Bikes. Kevin is the Art Director at Armchair Media in Atlanta. February, 2008

Anne Ward (anw) of I Like is based in Glasgow and has a keen eye, great taste and and unstoppable enthusiasm for pop culture, kitsch and M. Saskek too. Here's Anne, peering out of a diner, in a Herald Magazine profile. Anne is also a contributor to Nothing To See Here. January, 2008

St. Nicholas of Bari (sn) is our December Guest Editor. He'll be highlighting items from the holiday wish lists of various designers, artists and writers from all over the world. December, 2007

Kirsten Sorton and Ana Reinert are Pica + Pixel, (pp) a webblog edited by two designers living and working 1200 miles apart. Pixel (Kirsten) is a web designer for Funny Garbage in New York while Pica (Ana) designs greeting cards for Shoebox Cards in Kansas City. They met at a cigarette-and-liquor marketing-design gig in Chicago in 1999 and bonded over Hello Kitty, fluffy bunnies and other woodland creatures. Instantly, they knew they were kindred spirits. BB (who also worked at said cigarette-and-liquor gig) has been stealing links from them for a couple months now, so we decided to cut out the middle man and invite them to post here. November, 2007

Our Guest Editor is the anonymous proprietor (bm) of the visual-blog Monoscope. Aside from his or her initials and his or her ability to consistently uncover great, tasteful, surprising images on a daily basis, we don't know really much about him or her. October, 2007

John Tolva (jt) is our Guest Editor for September. John runs Ascent Stage, a wide-ranging weblog that covers stuff like toys, travel and tech and he works as a Creative Director at IBM in Chicago on the application of technology to the field of cultural heritage. John is one of those people who seems to know a little about just about everything and a lot about particular things, like slasher films, pasta and virtual worlds. He's not without his faults however, for example, he's Cubs fan. September, 2007

The first question we asked when we decided to invite Cameron Moll (cm) to Guest Edit this month was, "Haven't we already done that?" You see, we've been reading and swiping links and design ideas from Cameron's Authentic Boredom for a long time and have also been keeping an eye on his other "Authentic" concept, a jobs board. The moral of the story is that we probably should have invited him much earlier, except that if we did, we couldn't plug his excellent book, Mobile Web Design. August, 2007

Todd Wescott (tw) entered a contest we had in our most recent Infrequent Mailings by submitting a few sample links as an audition to be our Guest Editor for July. Thanks to all the people who did likewise and welcome to Todd. He's an architect in Northeast Pennsylvania with a passion for design. Todd writes, "I have no website, no business of my own, nothing to sell. But maybe soon... I've picked up a little of everything everywhere I've gone and hope to be able to bring you all some interesting links." No doubt he will. July, 2007

Bill Keaggy (bk) is a tireless designer, writer and publisher. His personal site is jammed full of all manners of stuff and he also writes for the excellent xBlog, "the visual thinking weblog." Bill's latest big project is the new book, Milk Eggs Vodka, a compendium of found lists and wisecrackery. You should make a note to remind yourself to buy it. June, 2007

Vera Pilpoul (vp) writes one of our new favorite sites, Moon River. Vera llves and works in Tel-Aviv and describes herself as "an observer, a flâneur who seeks beauty, who tries to map whatever it is that is so tangible, that it cannot be grasped entirely." Her observations frequently touch on art history, maps, the visual arts and poetry and we're looking forward to her sharing some of her "aimless idling" during the month. May, 2007

Axel Albin and Josh Kamler are partners in the studio Language in Common (lc). We had been keeping an eye on their weblog, Tiny Gigantic for a while but when they sent us copies of their manifesto series including How To Clean Out Your Desk and How To Be a Better Lover we just had to invite them to post for us. Anybody who defines their role as "troublemakers" is our kind of people. April, 2007

Edward Lifson (el) is the host of the terrific Sunday Morning arts show on Chicago Public Radio entitled Hello Beautiful!. His passion for the arts and especially architecture is consisitently demonstrated there, as well as on his personal blog, The New Modernist. Edward shares with us a devotion to Tadao Ando, Louis Sullivan and Mies, as evidenced by where he has chosen to live. March, 2007

Will Freeborn (wf) Contributed the small in-line illustrations to our news feed during February. Will works at the BBC and maintains a beautiful sketchblog called Ghostschool. When Kevin Cornell did these in December he dubbed them "Signal Flares," a name that'll stick, and we're happy to have had Will launching them up for us. February, 2007

Kate Bingaman (ktb) draws pictures of the stuff she buys. She draws pictures of her credit card statements which are available to be purchased at a price equal to the minimum payment due. She does all this and more at Obsessive Consumption, which, according to the notes there, "is repulsed and grossly fascinated by the branding of consumer culture. It wants to eat the entire bag of candy and enjoy the sickness that it feels an hour later." Kate will be contributing Fresh Signals illustrations during January for you consume. January, 2007

You might not know his name but when you see one of his illustrations or cartoons you'll likely say "oh yeah, that guy." Kevin Cornell (kc), is the lord of the manor at the unstoppable Bearskinrug, a site practically bursting at the seams with art and nonsense. Check out his tees, prints and books, there is a lot of great stuff there. Kevin has agreed to guest edit for us during December, sometimes the old fashioned way, with words and occasionally in his native tounge, pictures. December, 2006

Melanie Orndorff (mo), is a freelance editor, working on projects at places like A&E, MTV, and CBS. She's also the owner of Daily Guilt, a site chronicling her attempt at getting through a list of 101 things she'd like to accomplish in just 1,001 days (a little under three years). We feel a little guilty ourselves, taking her away from her list to help us out, but maybe she can replace #18, "Play tuba in a Dixieland jazz band" with "Guest edit for a design shop in Chicago." November, 2006

Jaime Morrison (jm) is the proprietor of The Nonist, a razor-sharp daily journal of short commentaries and thoughtful observations. By its own definition, The Nonist "assumes little and is guided by reason." We're down with that so long as you don't get the impression that the site is overly academic or dry. A whiff of cynicism pervades the place and often results in posts that make us actually laugh, right out loud. Oh, and it's just about our favorite-looking weblog anywhere too. October, 2006

Whoops. With vacations, holidays and all we forgot to sign up a Guest Editor for this September. So let's open it right up. Send suggested Fresh Signals links to info at coudal dot com with the words "you can count on me" in the subject line. We'll attribute them to "all" and make sure to include your web address so if we publish your suggestion we can give you a link back. September 2006

Anthony Vitagliano (av) has had two tours of duty with us, the first as an intern and the second as a designer. Both times he left to become a hip, super-successful motion graphics ace and the second time it seems to have actually worked out. You can see his creations all over the tv and find him making them at Digital Kitchen. August, 2006

Jill Brassil (jlb) and Paul McAleer (pm) won a web scavenger hunt we organized in one of our Infrequent Mailings and as part of their prize package they were invited to write links for Fresh Signals for a month. Thanks to Paul and Jill for agreeing to help out. July, 2006

Chris Glass (cg). Our Guest Editor for June is a designer, photographer and writer from Southwestern Ohio. Chris is a reliable and observant filter of all things interesting on the web and other places. But that's not why we asked him to come aboard for the month. Basically it's that we can't resist anyone who makes a video of himself lip-syching Janeane Garofalo's interpretation of Fiona Apple from the 1997 MTV Video Awards. June, 2006

Geoff Manaugh (gm). Architectural conjecture. Urban speculation. Landscape futures. That's how Geoff describes his always great BldgBlog. He recently finished writing his first novel about surveillance and architecture in London and is shopping for an agent. So if you is one, you might want to give him a buzz. If he writes as well in long-form as he does in blog-form, it's bound to be great. May, 2006

Greg Storey (gs). Once in a while you find a personal weblog that demonstrates a confident style, a clear voice and a sense of humor and taste and then wraps them all up in a beautiful design. When you find such a site it's ususally almost as good as Greg Storey's Airbag. We've been pinching links from Greg (gs) for so long we thought we ought to let him steal them from himself for a change and we're glad he's agreed drive the Fresh Signals guest editing bus. April, 2006

Peacay (pk). Given the amount of deliciousness that Peacay posts every day at BibliOdyssey, we were sort of surprised he agreed to write links for us during March but we're sure glad he did. It took us a little while to find his blog, but once we did we became immediately hooked on his insightful comments about various historical and visual artifacts and the great scans too. March, 2006

Kevin Broome (kb) of Industrial Brand Creative in Vancouver helped out in February. Conspiracy theorists might think it more than a little coincidental that we him shortly after he placed CP number one in his poll of 'best design sites for 2005.' We figure that at least he has good taste. But really, if we were just kissing up to him, we would have given him a longer month, don't you think? February, 2006

Rosecrans Baldwin & Andrew Womack (tmn) are long-time co-conspirators, writers and editors of The Morning News. On virtually any list of literate web destinations, you'll find TMN near the top by virtue of its daily news summary and compelling feature writing and interviews. The second annual TMN Tournament of Books is just around the corner. Watch for the brackets to be announced shortly. January, 2006

Joshua Allen (ja) has been writing Fireland for ten years. He's also deep in a novel writing project called Chokeville. He will never complete it. We got to know Joshua's voice as a long-time contributor for our brothers-in-arms at The Morning News and from his various pseudonymous projects that for good readon, we can't list here. If we did list them, you'd understand. Trust us. December, 2005

Jason Wilder (jwd) from Rochester NY, writes an always surprising and constantly updated list of links to and comments about independent and underground music called Mystery and Misery. After swiping dozens of links from him over the past years, we figured that if his taste about other things is as discriminating as it is about music, he'd be a natural for a Guest Editor spot. November, 2005

Mark Friesen (mf) writes NewsDesigner.com, which, for those of us who are obsessed with typography, mastheads, cutlines, eyebrows, captions and wood, has become an important gathering place for the discussion and display of front-pages from around the world as well as news and industry information, all delivered daily in a breezy, personal style. October, 2005

Tina Roth (tr) is the Design Director of Thinkmap in NYC and publisher of a fine personal journal about design and aesthetics. Growing up in Switzerland has shaped her view and compliments a keen and playful sense of modern style. September, 2005

Shoepal (sp) is responsible for the photography, wayward meta-links and occasionally pithy observations found at Shoepal.com. Currently taking time off from (de)constructing The Internets he is instead learning to roast and appreciate "good" coffee. Though, in reality, he simply longs to be a Farmer, Boulangere or travelling Troubadour. He unfortunately consumes far more media than he produces. August, 2005

Andrew Huff (ah) is co-founder and editor of the only Chicago cityblog that matters, and the only one that knows that the phrase "Windy City" is code for "I'm from outta town," the most-excellent Gapers Block. Andrew also maintains a wide-ranging personal site called me3dia. July, 2005

Michael Green (mg) of Christchurch, NZ is our guest editor for June. Michael is the proprietor of Triplux and Still Journal, where he discusses photography, film, music and a whole bunch of other obsessions we happen to share. June, 2005

Christopher Phin (cph), senior staff writer for the UK-based MacUser Magazine. Chris fell into journalism after realising that he wasn't a very good graphic designer and we're all the better for it. He is otherwise engaged by being recently engaged and lives and works in London. May, 2005

Jason Santa Maria (jsm) is designer by trade, Jason recently jumped into the self-employed category and works frequently as a cog. Also he has a sunny disposition, talent, taste, three cats and a camera. April, 2005

Eric Helin (erh) is half of the Slowtron directing team, along with Drew Neujahr. They've brought us the very popular Western State Video Profile Series: 1. 2. 3. and 4. Plus, How to BBQ a Man, they are currently working on a new series of short films for us. March, 2005.

Jamie Dihiansan (jd) lives in Chicago with his lovely wife, even lovelier daughter, dog, and 4 cats. He enjoys dancing with his daughter Ruby to everything from Bad Brains to Belle and Sebastian, and hopes that one day she will be a pro skateboarder. Jamie and his team at Asian Mack sift through Apple Music Store releases and review their favorites daily. February, 2005

Michael Rutchik of Mudhaus Design is a designer and photographer and was recently featured in our weekly Depth of Field series. Check his LA 2:1, daily widesceen look at his city and f ZERO.ZERO, an experimental series of pictures, each made two seconds into the future. Really. His latest project is a photo-a-day series of his lovely daughter Piper-Jolie. January, 2005.

Paul Giambarba (pg) was head of Polaroid's identity and packaging team and has recounted that experience in the blog, The Branding of Polaroid, 1957-1977. The story there is required reading for anyone interested or employed in the field of modern design. More recently, Paul has launched the ambitious 100 Years of Illustration and Design to bring depth and detail to profiles of commercial artists and historical styles. December, 2004.

Roderick Chow (rch) is the proprietor of Fogday Press, which specializes in letterpress printing and small edition publishing. He's a frequent volunteer at the San Francisico Center for the Book, teaching kids and others how to make books and print. Roderick is also a supernumerary for the San Francisco Opera and while that means he doesn't have any lines to say, that doesn't stop him from speaking up at Make Ready, the journal of one man's quest to shed light upon ephemera and insight into the world of a persnickety tramp printer. November, 2004.

Rob Corradi (rc) is our guest editor for October. Rob is one of the main cogs in the Preloaded design machine in London. Any listing of the great interactive work they do for A-List clients would inevitably leave out something important, so visit their site and gawk around a bit. October, 2004.

Jason Koxvold (jk) does a lot of things well. We met him after he showed the good taste to order from Jewelboxing. Check his home base, Bubble & Squeak, where you'll find Quicktimes and stills from Thailand, Chicago, Cuba, Norway and Britain in My View: A Travelogue and also the beautiful video for our studio song of the moment, this video for Appearances from Citizens Here and Abroad. September, 2004.

Karen Ingram (ki). We've been following Karen's work since she took part in one of our early Photoshop Tennis matches. An illustrator by trade, we've always been most impressed by how Karen combines natural and digital media. But she's done a lot of other stuff too, including a chapter in the New Masters of Photoshop Book from FoE. Check her her online porfolio. August, 2004.

Steve Delahoyde (sd). Everything you could possibly want to know about Steve can be found in the subtext of this touching film. And there's lots more where that came from at Irritable Colon. His personal site contains other work which provides higher production values but perhaps less biographical insight. July, 2004.

Åsk Wäppling (aw) is the proprietor of The AdLand Ad-Rag, a site created by the ad grunts for the ad grunts, featuring the very latest international advertising creative news and a huge collection of spots, straight out of Denmark. June, 2004

Armin Vit (arv), is the hard-working, insightful proprietor of Speak Up, a community by designers about design. Armin's folio of work demonstrates a lovely straddling of the gulf between classical influences and a modern style. May, 2004.

Dan Benjamin (db) has saved countless lives with his Anti-Spam Address Enkoder and other elegant solutions. In fact, every time we don't get a spam, we think of Dan. He also runs The Hivelogic Narrative, an ongoing series of dispatches from the front lines of web development and fine cigar appreciation and is available for hire through his Automatic Labs. Dan describes himself as an 'arbiter elegantiarum' and if we had any idea what that meant we might describe him that way too. April, 2004.

Eric Snowdeal (es) knows a lot about a lot of things, including technical stuff that we're interested in but frequently don't understand a bit when he starts explaining. You can understand most of what he posts at Ex Machina and other places however. Funny thing is, we never asked him to participate all during the time his office was just down the block from CP. Instead we waited until he had relocated to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Just felt safer that way. March, 2004.

Nathalie Chicha (nc) has many talents including an ability to keep Cup of Chicha, her daily weblog, well-stocked with interesting linkage and a generous supply of wit. February, 2004.

Aaron Draplin (ad) is shift foreman for Draplindustries Design Company of North America and an extraordinarily talented designer. He, like us, is also unnaturally fond of the 1976 American Bicentennial Logo. January, 2004.

Claire Zulkey (cz) edits the fascinating zulkey.com, chock-full of interviews and clever content. Her new book is available for preorder. December, 2003.

Ralf Zeigermann (rz) writes and draws The Cartoonist, a consistent and consistently entertaining journal of pop culture. November, 2003.

Bob Sassone (bs) is the editor of the weekly web mag Professor Barnhardt's Journal and the author of "Book, With Words and Pages." October, 2003.

Stuart Heath (sh), aka "Mr. H", of the incomparable Giornale Nuovo holds forth from Karlskrona, Sweden. Stuart's discriminating taste and thoughtful perspective on the visual arts make the Giornale one of our favorite places anywhere. September, 2003.

James Norton (jn) is the editor of the "noncomprehensive guide to everything" Flak Magazine. August, 2003.

Matt Hinrichs (mh) is proprietor of the pop culture weblog scrubbles.net, in (way too) sunny Phoenix. July, 2003.

Rob Ford (rf) is the founder of Favorite Website Awards and the inspirational monthly link bonanza, Wellvetted. June, 2003.

Marshall Sokoloff (msk) is a Toronto-based photographer who runs the excellent Blurbism. May, 2003.

Heather Armstrong (ha) is the voice behind the fabulous Dooce, the site we always show people when they ask, "What's so cool about weblogs anyway?" April, 2003.

Jonathan Bell (jb) is co-editor of Things Magazine. Published bi-annually from London since 1994. Things now exists as a combination of weblog and print-on-demand publication. March, 2003.

John Gruber (jg) publishes Daring Fireball, an intelligent and opinionated journal devoted to geeky things like operating system interfaces. John has gift for making complicated things simple and a voice that makes them interesting. February, 2003.

Stephen Coles (sc) is from Typographica, a must-read for type geeks. Stephen is currently dating Vendome after breaking off a long and passionate affair with Knockout. November, 2002 through January, 2003.

Heather Champ (hc) has lured over 10,000 poor, unsuspecting photographers into her nets at the Mirror Project and countless other wayward souls to the excellent Harrumph. October, 2002.

Jon Buonaccorsi (jtb) runs both Slatch, a must-read weblog about music, alcohol, and commercial fisherman, and 75orless, our favorite source of concise indie-rock record reviews. September, 2002.

Jennifer Sharpe (js) is the fun and tireless proprietor of Sharpeworld. June, 2002.

Mark Simonson (mls) is a designer, lettering artist and the leading voice in the hopeless struggle against the hegemony of Arial. May, 2002.

Steven Green (sg) is ringmaster at London link bonanza, Plep. April, 2002.

Kevin Shay (ks) edits Staggernation. March, 2002.

Andrew Abb (aa) holds forth from Osaka and runs the unstoppable gmt+9. February, 2002.

Reading at CP

Field Tested Books, a suitcase full of reviews of books read on location, edited by DR.

How To Explain The Rules of Cricket by KG.

Perfect by JC.

the CP Holiday Rock-and-Roll Pop Quiz by KG.

Beaten Up and Stepped On by Rosecrans Baldwin.

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:

"At Jewelboxing HQ, case safety is #1 (employee safety is around #3 or #4, well below cake and beer safety). That's why we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of bubble wrap." Read the entire post.

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

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