What's All This Then?
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What's All This Then?
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Wednesday Edition
The fair air, the cozy sweater, the hot tea. So what's missing?
Field-Tested Books will fill you in on what goes best with where.
TodayOffer applies to Field Notes, Jewelboxing and everything else... Order a Field Notes Box Set of 50 USA State Editions today and we'll add a load of extra stuff in your shipment too.
Our limited-edition, seasonal release for the Fall is "Raven's Wing." A black-on-black letterpressed cover makes these notebooks stylish and even a bit sinister. We put them on sale to our mailing list on Thursday at 2pm and they were sold out in about 48 hours. Thanks to everyone who ordered, they'll start shipping in about a week. You can still get yours as part of a COLORS subscription and perhaps you might consider joining the Field Notes mail list. The edition release for Winter is not too far away.
Check out Friday's Layer Tennis match between Jessica Hische vs. Mig Reyes, with layer-by-layer commentary by Joshua Allen. After the fur stopped flying, we chatted with Mig who prevailed in the fan voting.
We've been working on this new project in secret, keeping the window shades drawn tight and shredding the paperwork along the way. And now we can finally announce it. Say hello to the next generation of search, a new product that promises to change the way people find things on The Internet. Plus, Peppermints!
It's often lost in the candy-coated, super-styled proceedings of the holiday, but Halloween is really all about departed souls and dealing with loss. Also for Halloween, Jason Santa Maria has collected some short writings on the subject of candy. Jim has contributed a warning in verse. Heed this well, young costumed beggars.
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!.
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.
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.
Come along on a Field Notes Field Trip. Available now from Field Notes Brand, our County Fair Edition, featuring 50 versions, one for each US State. Available in 3-packs and as part of a yearly COLORS subscription. We also have a limited number of full boxed sets, featuring all fifty notebooks, which would make a great gift for a kid who loves America.
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.
Phineas X. Jones (pxj) travels in many of the same circles as we do. Out at a design event? Hey, there's Phineas! A party for literary types? Look over there, it's Phineas. This is a man who knows what's what. When he's not busy being at places, he's a stellar designer, running the gamut from web work to photography to what he's perhaps best known for: his illustrations. He's made gorgeous, hand-printed posters, which he sells at Octophant, and has drawn for clients as varied as Best Buy and Chupa Chups Whistle Pops. And if you happen to have had a Half Acre beer recently, there's a good chance he made the label for it. In between all of this, he also finds time to tweet and play Layer Tennis matches. A big welcome to Phineas who will be guest editing for us for the month of October.
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.
"...it really was just a couple of shitty weeks spent in a van with four smelly guys who left anticipating the rock 'n' roll summer of their dreams and returned with no illusions." Jim DeRogatis is a Field Tester. Read all the Field Tests online, or better yet, buy the book for just nine bucks.
Alissa Walker visits 37signals new space for Fast Company.
Etch A Sketch iPad Case.
Today is Wednesday.
Gangsta Lorem Ipsum generator.
Disassembled Household Appliances, a set of photos by Brittny Badger, done as a senior thesis high school project. Also, see the Junk Drawers of her friends. Via Strange Attractor.
Venus After Sunset.
Project C-90 lives, the art of the audio cassette. Via Monoscope, who has picked out some beauties.
So great, Oops.
Really looking forward to this, the BBC One's modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.
"Begun in the 1930's, the Stalin-era underground was the USSR's largest civilian construction project, with stations built as 'people's palaces.' Employing outstanding architects and artists, it still looks amazing after all those years." Moscow Metro.
"Christmas was coming, and while I was afraid to talk to Leslie, I thought a gift might show her how I felt." Candygram from Mister Zeldman.
You've seen them credited with "vias" for lots of links over the years here in Fresh Signals but I thought I'd just say that Things Magazine is on fire lately.
An infographic infographic from Dare UK for a recruitment video. Fun.
Still life with Smurf.
Sorta related to the last, meaning you could potentially combine the two for additional awesomeness. A series of Mego Planet of the Apes action figure commercials.
With "zero points of articulation" this is about the least amount of action an action figure can have, an yet I am strangely drawn to it. Thanks Scott.
These photographs of residents of Lafayette Park, a residential community in Detroit designed by the architect Mies van der Rohe, were shot in the same room in each of their townhomes.
Collective Nouns Illustrated.
Related to the last, Hal4400's lovingly presented collection of Marantz audio components. Gorgeous.
An instant MoOM classic. Phantom's Reel to Reel Tape Recorder Online Museum.
Iconic Photos. Like it says, and annotated. Bookmarked.
"Before the Internet, one could simply walk into an establishment, often built of simple bricks and mortar, and, standing face-to-face with another human being, exchange paper currency for goods and services. Happy days are here again." Attention Shopkeepers.
Stumbled onto this quite accidentally, I love when that happens. Chris Glass visited Firecracker Press in St Louis. You can visit them here.
Danny Cooke's video profile of David Smith, traditional ornamental glass artist.
Grain Edit flips through Corporate Diversity: Swiss Graphic Design by Geigy 1940-1970. Here's a short film, documenting a retrospective of the firm's work.
Spectacular photos by Jamey Stillings of The Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, which is 1900 feet long and 900 feet above the Colorado River and set to open to traffic this week. Enjoy this in full-screen mode. Here's an ATC piece by Ted Robbins on the project.
Concentrate.
So you know, 50 secrets your pilot won't tell you.
Gorgeous trailer for Biutiful.
Music video of the moment, Hollerado's Americanarama.
Marijuana.
Aqua-Velvet's Logo Collection, from Graphis Annual 1967-68, parts one and two.
Marc Gómez del Moral's video for El Guincho's "Bombay" is awesome sexy/weird jumpcut heaven (NSFW).
Yes, Cabel from Panic is more than a little obsessive, but he's our more than a little obsessive.
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:
"The client absolutely loved the packaging, and all of her friends were wondering how something that professional was printed on a home printer!" Read the entire post.
Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.
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