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.

Eye: Kevin Cooly

Silence and Winter

Kevin Cooley is a photographer and video artist from Brooklyn. His work is highly polished, precisely composed and forces the viewer to consider meaning in the context of aesthetic beauty. The photo above is from the series Bateaux Mouches, named ironically after the crowded Parisian tour boats on The Seine. The series sets lonely individuals against striking winter river-edge cityscapes and speaks of isolation in places where isolation is frequently impossible. Explore the rest of the collected work, especially the Light's Edge series.

One thing and a couple sentences in the morning. That's the Daily Eye.

The Museum of Online Museums

Curating Since Before Curating Was Cool

The Winter Exhibitions are now open at The MoOM. 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 and Time Magazine and was discussed at length on an episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful!

Vox Vocis

Poetry After
the Beep

On a whim, we asked people to read their favorite short poems into our answering machine for a project we called Verse By Voice. And they did, creating maybe the first-ever poetry meme. Make sure to listen to novelist Zadie Smith reading Frank O'Hara's Animals and Laura Demanski reading Gerard Manley Hopkins' Spring and Fall. Note: we didn't include what is surely not Christopher Walken reading EE Cummings, but that's worth a listen too. Jim talked about this project during his appearance on Public Radio's Hello Beautiful! and the photos are courtesy of Sam Javanrouh's Daily Dose of Imagery.

Pinsetter Alphabets To China

A More Than Fair Trade Agreement

A while back, we sent a bunch of our Pinsetter buttons to our pal Sam Potts to give to his Chinese English language students in Nanshan. We got a package back from Sam the other day and boy were we excited. Enclosed were huge sheets of beautiful, fragile paper that were signed by every student who received a pin. Sam wrote, "Hope this gives you a moment's delight in exchange for delighting the kids." That's an understatement Sam. Here are the other three sheets.

Much Bigger + Lots Beefier

Dimensions

Our 18-Month Field Notes Calendar, actual size, but cropped. The actual weight is harder to demonstrate. Try picking up your iPhone. It's a touch lighter than that. Sturdiness? Pop someone over the head with a plastic ruler. That ought to give you, or them, the idea. Available now in the Field Notes Shop.

Eye: Darkrooms

Lights Out

"Since starting this project, I've become a late and reluctant convert to digital photography. I now spend less time in the darkroom and more time in front of the computer. With film I had a network of contacts across London and I felt embedded in the city. In comparison, digital feels disembodied." Richard Nicholson's beautiful survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms.

2010 Tournament of Books

Making Note

Contestants and judges have been announced for The 6th Annual Morning News Tournament of Books today. Our Field Notes Brand is proud to be the presenting sponsor for this year's edition and we'll be doing a number of special offers and promotions as the tournament draws nearer. In the meantime, get reading!

Eye: Consellection

The Console’s the Thing

Patrick Molnar is a designer from Mainz, Germany who has collected and catalogued gaming systems from Europe, the US and Japan for the last ten years. The result is this beautiful Consollection, 145 systems carefully photographed and annotated. He's producing a book containing packaging art and screenshots too. Since around 1972 we've plugged a lot of stuff into our televisions and seeing them all at once shows how much things have changed and maybe more importantly how much they haven't.

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.

February Guest Josh Berta

Delivering the Goods

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.

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

Video feature, Behind the Cover: The The New Yorker Money Issue with artist Dan Clowes. jc-today

Relinking Richard Howe's The Manhattan Street Corners because even if you saw it you need to see it some more. jc-today

We changed shirts over 100 times each, taking individual pictures of each unique shirt. The designs on the shirts are not photoshopped. They are real shirts for each frame of animation. T-SHIRT WAR! dw-today

Trendy? Fashionable? jc-today

Illustrations by Emma Kelly. dw-today

Music vid of the moment: St. Vincent's Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood, which co-stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein and is set at Women and Women First, "the most feminist of all feminist bookstores." Given that Armisen's a former Chicagoan, it was probably inspired by this. sd-today

"With sushi, you need at least 20 years of experience, but that's not enough. My 45 years, not enough." A clip from Nozawa, a documentary about sushi. sd-today

It's cold out there! You may need to pick up one of these. ar-today

Black and WTF, proof that the past was just as absurd as the present. Via bblinks. sd-today

Relinking From the Pocket, for Chicagoan Jeremy Edwards. seven tips. jc-today

Your Flickr Stats Explained. sd-today

Photographer and mathematician Nikki Graziano's Found Functions. Via J-Walk. sd-today

If you have one of these and one of these, you'll probably want one of these. ms-today

Teaser trailer for The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-sec. ms-today

Lady Gaga dollas. dw-today

"It took two months to store up enough fireplace ash to create this lunar landscape. The darker rocks are made of mixed tile grout, flag crumpled paper & wire. The Earth is a video still projected onto the wall." Matthew Albanese makes detailed miniature models. Fantastic, via Notcot. jc-today

On this day in 1926, Ernest Hemingway pulled a fast one on one publisher to sign with another. jc-today

Take a look at some Vancouver's Olympic venues. ms-today

"My deft touch with magazine collages will no doubt lend immediate impact to your companies presentations." A cover letter from an art major seeking a job that literally requires him to apply the skills he learned in school, by Andrew Miller. jc-today

Field Notes in action. jc-today

Music vid of the moment, Massive Attack's Splitting the Atom. ms-today

How to make an X-wing fighter from a Paris Metro card. dw-today

Art history cheat sheet, in poster form. ms-today

From photographer Jo Broughton, Empty Porn Sets. ms-today

Mike Afsa's Hints For Better Living. dw-today

Try not to smile, Stella's Day. ms-today

"Today, I was walking with my friend and she asked me why I always look down when I walk. I told her it's so I don't trip. The real reason is so I don't miss any crunchy leaves." My life is average. ms-today

Night launch of the space shuttle Endeavor ms-today

Trailer for The People vs. George Lucas ms-today

"Advertising agency of the future sounds a bit like horse drawn carriage of the future." Amen. A thoughtful piece by Bud Caddell. jc-yesterday

A day in the life of a cursor. Via @H&FJ. jc-yesterday

"My stomach lurched a little when I realized that it was Salinger, for real, on the other end of the phone, speaking rather too loudly and seeming a bit confused by my voice..." Joanna Smith Rakoff on answering J. D. Salinger's' mail. jc-yesterday

Ichiro Iwasaki's playful, sleek mobile phone design for the lotta. jc-yesterday

Something Is Happening. dw-yesterday

All the Super Bowl logos and way too much about the evolution of the Saints and Colts unis. 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

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
Christopher Ebmeyer
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:

"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.

The Deck Network. Interested in getting your product or service in front of millions of savvy, curious remarkably good-looking people? Give a shout.

We actually do
stuff beside
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infrequent mail

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