What's All This Then?
This site is edited by Coudal Partners, a design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago, as an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce. [Next]
What's All This Then?
Thanks for visiting. If browsing around here while at work has had a negative effect on your productivity we're sorry but imagine what it's done to ours. [Hide]
Sunday Edition
Beautiful photography, very few thumbs accidentally in front of the lens.
Our Depth of Field feature on photographers.
Coudal Partners
An Infrequent Mailing Contest
Selections from the hundreds of entries we received to our Cover Me contest that was part of last month's Infrequent Mailing. Our readers demonstrate their ability to find fab stuff once again. Enjoy.
One With Everything
Which Porn Star Ate the Most Hot Dogs?
Subscribers to our Infrequent Mailings got a head start on this all-beef, but not entirely kosher, new puzzler and we received hundreds of entries from people like Dick Ideal, Chi-Chi Streamview, Brandy Nottingham and Frisky St. James.
Try to solve our other logic puzzlers including Einstein's Fish, School of Government and Da Vinci's Other Code.
Vox Vocis
Please Versify
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 and since April is National Poetry Month we thought it was appropriate to feature it again. 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.
Making Book The Final Tally
5076 New Books
For Kids
Every spring when The Morning News announces the novels that will compete in their annual Tournament of Books we handicap the field and post the "Morning Line" odds for the event. This year we stretched the gambling metaphor a bit further and encouraged readers to wager on which book would win "The Rooster." With the help of 37signals, Metafilter, Happy Cog, Iconfactory, Core77, Daring Fireball, Emma, Business Brickyard, eight6 and skinnyCorp we raised enough money to buy over 5000 books for underprivileged kids. The winners have now been posted.
Making An Endorsement
Reelect Our Greatest President Ever
We don't often jump into the political muck here at the site but a recent Hillary Clinton television spot asks a pretty serious question and we thought it was our patriotic duty to give it an equally serious response.
A Short Film Series From SD
She Said We Said
We realize that it's sometimes difficult for the common man to understand the goings-ons in the political landscape. So in the interest of education, we sought to strip down the messages of the Hillary Clinton campaign into short parables, just like how the Bible does it. This parable helps to explain Clinton's incredible political experience. We also illuminate five other concepts here. The films were written and directed by our Steve Delahoyde with the help of the cast of Schadenfreude who volunteered to help us spread this important political information.
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.
A CP Labs: Film
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.
Lowercase Tee Rides Again
Junior’s Senator
From Illinois
For the first twenty minutes Jim's kids were singing this it was hilarious. By eight-thirty this morning it was embedded in his wife Heidi's brain. Sometimes things are just supposed to happen. So, here's the latest fashion statement for politically active kids from our Lowercase Tee brand.
Nobody Asked Us But...
Livin’ the Brand
Michele posted a link to a video produced by agency.com as a way to promote themselves in pursuit of landing the coveted "agency of record" status on the Subway fast-food account. We thought it was pretty much asking for someone to respond in kind. You ought to watch as much of theirs as you can stand before checking out our unsolicited response.
A Friday After Lunch
Watch us Now
We were looking at some goofy old tv network promos during the morning and wondering why nobody does those anymore. At lunch somebody said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we had one of those for our site?" So, for a Friday project, we decided to mash one tgether before the end of the day, and we made it with an hour and a half to spare and with apologies to NBC and that other CBC too, the one that's not the Coudal Broadcasting Corporation.
Not Quite so
Fresh Signals
"Nothing wrong with the little recreational grammar." Comma sutra.
Media buyer's revenge.
Mr. Squirrel assembles a Real Good chair.
Whimsical photos by Robert Wechsler.
Well, I guess it's one way to remember your address .
Classic illustration by subject. Woah. Via the DDC.
Posted without comment, Nice Try, Give Up.
Meet Newton, SynPet.
Free Readymech Pinhole Cameras from Corbis. Designed by Fwis in NYC.
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.
Comprehensive cover gallery of the French "Saint" novels. Mostly by Boirau and Regino Bernad. A great collection, most definitely MoOM-worthy.
Lovely, The Gegenschein over Chile.
For the gun-toting person in your life, the shot shell kitchen timer.
For the MoOM, a huge collection of vintage broadcast microphones.
Take a peek inside Communist North Korea.
Season two of the television version of This American Life returns. Here's a clip of a story animated by the fabulous Chris Ware.
"So I followed the ancient hero, Beowulf, into the dark, and made my slow way down the path through the tangle of tree-roots to the edge of the water." Alice Maggio is a Field Tester. FTB 08 gets closer every day.
The haunting new video for Radiohead's All I Need.
Photos of the moment: Lightning vs. Erupting Volcano. It doesn't get much more impressive and/or scary than that.
Dazzle Ships? That was a great record!
IT Enquirer interviews our own BB about Jewelboxing and The Art of Disc Labeling. More info at the Jewelboxing blog.
Confusion, not concealment.
David Lu makes lovely computational drawings. He's posted a motion render of one on Flickr, which to me is the best use of video on Flickr to date.
Design Observer on the inaugural Chicago International Poster Biennial. Damn, scooped again, and right in our backyard. Deadline for entry, May 27th. Here's the official site.
1470 piece Craftsmen Professional Toolset. The photo gives me tool envy.
See where some of the $152 billion stimulus package is going.
Fabulous hi def photos of San Francisco. Via Dark Roasted Blend.
The world's tallest LEGO tower measures in just under 100 feet high.
Some of the creepiest photos ever taken.
This and the bottom row of this give me an idea. Someone out there, do it, so I don't have to.
Choose clusta, not clutter.
Nice collection of vintage record labels.
Song of the moment. Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros Johnny Appleseed. Fab. Thanks Marshall.
"Federally subsidized subsitinance."
Folks from 21 states plus Montevideo, London, Paris, Antwerp, Wien, Montreal, Tel Aviv and Rio have registered for our Third Seed Conference on June 6th in this amazing building. Who's next?
Back to the Cover Page.
Find a Job
Icon Key
What all those little square icons in Fresh Signals mean.
A post from our monthly guest editor. The complete
listing af all the people we owe favors can be found here.
We love these products so much we even paid for them.
A post with this icon may well end up in our Museum of Online Museums.
About Depth of Field.
Not to be missed.
A Friday Drink Link. Hic.
Film feed. Short attention span video theater.
Having to do with our Field Notes Brand.
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.
