What's All This Then?
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What's All This Then?
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Sunday Edition
Pennsylvania's State Game Bird: Ruffed Grouse
The Field Notes County Fair edition. Our tribute to the 50 states.
Layer Tennis LiveFriday's match was a blast. Frank Chimero and Kate Bingaman-Burt played ten smart, collaborative and colorful volleys including props and video and even some animated gifs! It's going to be very difficult to pick a winner, but pick we must. Check it out and cast your vote.
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.
We had this notion that somehow through experimentation we could identify how our perception of a book is affected by the place where we read it. Or maybe the other way around. Maybe it's possible to determine how a book colors the way we feel about the place where we experience it. The result is Field Tested Books. Check hundreds of reports online or better yet, for portability and typographic excellence (Linotype Electra!) you can't beat the paperback Field Tested Books Book which is available now for just nine bucks.
For the last ten years we've been collecting links and tossing them into various categories. As you probably have noticed, we're a bit of obsessed with a certain film director. Check our big, messy "Stuff About Stanley Kubrick" archive.
New exhibitions and our three-part MoOMumentary entitled The Curators, are now showing at The Museum of Online Museums. Kevin Guilfoile is the Collections Director of the MoOM, and he chatted chatted with Time Out Chicago recently. The MoOM has also been featured on All Things Considered, in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune and Time Magazine and was discussed at length on an episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful!.
Daniel and Steve visited the Monona (IA) County Fair for Field Notes, video camera in tow. It's not likely to make anyone's list of top viral videos, but it does sort of catch the pace of the place. Available now from Field Notes Brand, our County Fair Edition, featuring 50 versions, one for each US State. Available in 3-packs, full sets, and as part of a yearly subscription.
Longtime friend Rosecrans Baldwin dropped us a line asking if we'd be interested in making a trailer for his debut novel You Lost Me There. He'd sent us some uncorrected proofs a few weeks prior and we'd loved it, so of course we said yes. He wanted to use the prologue to the book and tracked down a studio where he recorded himself reading it. Sending those files over, along with a collection of amazing photos by Aya Padrón, and we got to work. Since the prologue, and the book itself, is all about memory, we built a collection of blur and flicker effects and thought gradual fades would work nicely throughout. To really make the piece work, we spent most of our time on the sound design, assembling dozens of miscellaneous audio clips in our archives and finding bits and pieces at our regular go-to: the wonderful, collaborative site The Freesound Project. We hope you'll enjoy the end result as much as we enjoyed making it, and really hope it encourages you to pick up a copy of You Lost Me There.
This is the sort of thing that Twitter is especially good for, but a washroom full of chalkboard walls works too. 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 presentation at SXSW, A General Theory of Creative Relativity.
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.
Chauncey H. Griffith's Bodoni Poster Black was developed for Mergenthaler in 1929 and features strong verticals and shallow descenders. It's regularly employed for era-specific "Appearing Nightly at the Copacabana" lobby-card-ish announcements and by and large it's serviceable, if not particularly interesting. But, just in case you find yourself in need of a two skinny chicks whispering near the coke mirror, late 70's, Los Angeles sort of vibe, set it tight in all-caps with almost no line spacing. Suggested pairing: Univers Light Extra Condensed.
Mig Reyes (mgr) is a designer's designer. Having worked for clients like Segura Inc., Rand McNally, and Harley-Davidson, he now spends his days designing at everyone's favorite t-shirt company, Threadless. His nights are occupied working on projects like Humbled Pie, a site dedicated to hearing words of wisdom and advice by people in all types of creative industry. Mig also serves as a mentor for AIGA's Chicago chapter and teaches at The Chicago Portfolio School, so you know he must be a stand up guy. Catch up with him on a minute-by-minute basis on his Twitter feed and here on Fresh Signals as he steps in as our Guest Editor for September.
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.
Too cute, two peas in a pod salt and pepper shakers.
"You should be raising strong, fit children. Do you have any idea what fat does to the taste of blood? I may as well be drinking sap from a log." Complaint letters from Dracula.
Atari playing cards.
Of course it's by Craig Robinson, All the 2010 MLB uniforms, pixel style.
Badaude found a batch of French recipe cards from the 1970s and 80s, and has decided to start posting them every Friday.
Trailer for The Dilemma. Worth seeing if just for the cameo by CP film regular, Sandy Marshall, who we last worked with on the "Staying Late" spot for 37signals' Rework. He's also in the bizarre film I shot for tonight's 20x2.
Song of the moment, maybe the summer. 8 bit Doctor Worm.
"Summon the children just before you mix the martini. Announce to them that it is now grownup's hour – and they are to pursue their play elsewhere. The martini hour is for those are going to drink martinis."
Bamboo Bicycles from Greensboro Alabama's With Not For. Via Andy Richardson
Local note. Twenty speakers. One question. Two minutes each. 20x2, tonight at Martyrs'. We'll see you there.
Promo video for The Exquisite Book.
Black walnut trays for your wireless Apple accessories. Cha-ching.
"Bring your own resealable bottles, Poland Spring containers, jerrycans, whatever. Or you can get one at the store. Select your grade (red, white, or rosé). Pump. Print receipt."
Today is Park(ing) Day, an annual, worldwide event that inspires city dwellers everywhere to transform metered parking spots into temporary parks for the public good.
Cockeyed asks two important questions: "How Much is Inside a Bottle of Wine?" and "How Much is Inside a Keg?"
A Typographic Anatomy Lesson, a limited-edition letterpress print that is unfortunately sold out. More please. Via Daily Design Discoveries.
Kumi Yamashita creates art from shadows. Wow. Via Michael Surtees.
CNN's helpful article, What to do when body parts fall off.
SD, think you might want to get Briscoe one of these.
A nice video review of our Field Notes Brand County Fair Editions from Mike at Insanely Great Mac. Thanks for that.
"I could tell you but then you would have to be destroyed by me." Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World. More here and here's the very coolest one of all, from expert/author Trevor Paglen.
So you know, 7 weird hotels
40 years ago tomorrow, Jimi Hendrix died. SPD has collected a set of magazine covers. Also, Hey Joe.
An instant MoOM classic. The Leeds Play Bills Collection is an awesome typographic reference. For example, sure, "Britain's saucy sex kitten is rare and rich without a stitch," but it's the sans-serif that gets me going. Clipped from Quipped.
Trailer for the documentary Who is Harry Nilsson?
Now you can get your cholesterol and a buzz at the same time, deep-fried beer.
"In addition to tasting they would test the brew by donning leather trousers and sitting in a puddle of beer on a stool for half an hour." Hops, Hogsheads & Horsepower, a highly-selective history of beer, by Adrian Teal.
Peacay collects some Indian textile design patterns. Simple and lovely.
If God were on Facebook.
"The first problem: how shall the weight be carried?" The Minister on Andrew Loomis books on illustration and drawing available as free downloads, collected at Escape From Illustration Island.
From an occasional series, Great Moments in Fresh Signals History. A map of nightclubs in 1932 Harlem. The new Moscow Metro map and the process behind the design. Twitter: The Criterion Collection, Vol 2. 1000 Screens, 1000 Dreams, and ephemera from Expo '70.
Who know geometric shapes could be so emotional?
From my new favorite blog, A Chicago Sojourn: "the painted concrete artistry of Jerome Soltan." A great post about the architect who built the the midcentury entryways to many of the apartment buildings in my neighborhood.
Our talented pals at Delicious Design League are offering a "Mystery Tube" of 5 posters for $30. Ka-Ching! (Via ASG)
Page Two contains the previous 35 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.
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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.
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:
"Alan Houser was kind enough to put together an entry on his blog, extolling the virtues of Jewelboxing." Read the entire post.
Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.
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