Onawa, Iowa A Field Trip

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.

Inaction Heroes A Film

Copy Goes Here

For the proper effect, check the trailer first and then please take a few minutes (eleven actually) to watch our short feature film about words, pictures and bravery, Copy Goes Here. In case you missed it, here's what our home page looked like when we debuted the movie.

Stuff About Stanley Kubrick

I Am Putting Myself
to the Fullest Possible Use, Which Is All I Think That Any Conscious Entity Can Ever Hope To Do

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.

A Film and New Exhibitions

A MoOMumentary

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!.

A Project For a Friend

You Lost Me There

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 Plus This Equals That

The Lionel, the Richie and the Wardrobe

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.

The Field Tested Books Book

I Read That Somewhere

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.

Vehicle ID System Update

I Brake For Quasi-Religious Symbols

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.

From an occasional series Face Time

Classic Display Faces That Deserve Props

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.

How Smart Are Your People?

Check Out the
Big Brain on Brad

Our logic puzzlers are perfect for starting arguments at home or at work. Einstein's Fish, School of Government, Da Vinci's Other Code and, of course, Which Porn Star Ate the Most Hot Dogs? C'mon Brainiac, let's show 'em what you got.

September Guest Editor Mig Reyes

Reyes All That

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.

Fresh Signals

Grain Edit visits the Enormous Champion studio. jc-yesterday

In response to Cee-Lo Green's F*ck You, there are two sides to every story, Clearly Obsessed. ms-yesterday

Still life, with remnants. jc-09.03

"A taut suspense thriller about a gifted girl and the ancient cult that wants to use her mental abilities for its own sketchy ends." KG's latest novel make Entertainment Weekly's Must List. Sweet! ms-09.03

First there was the typographical music video for Cee-Lo Green's F*ck You, now the official video is online. ms-09.03

Good news for drinkers, we outlive non-drinkers. mgr-09.03

Gorgeous foggy photos by Kim Holtermand dw-09.03

An empty glass resembles a meaningless colorful mosaic, until a liquid is poured into it, revealing its name. dw-09.03

How Eames House Blocks are made. dw-09.03

The man behind the double rainbow all the way is revealed in Microsoft's latest ad. What does it mean!? mgr-09.03

Giant bubbles over Stinson Beach. dw-09.03

Trailer for Devil. ms-09.03

Cork wine stoppers and pourers in one. dw-09.03

Blobs, the real reason why HTML5 exists. mgr-09.03

"While viewing people on one of the wealthiest streets in the world, I was looking for private and surreal moments, shapes and reflections, the look of people and their faces." From photographer Michael Butler, Rodeo Drive. ms-09.03

You don't need a dance floor to break it down, maybe just a bit of rain. mgr-09.03

Designing a better subway map. ms-09.03

How do you feel about corporations mixing with politics? Let one know at Dear Target. Via Ben Rummel Design. mcj-09.02

Animated type. dw-09.02

DW, you might want re-think your choice for your dream car. ms-09.02

Earth and Moon from Messenger. ms-09.02

"My boss got a call from her kid's teacher; she was calling every parent to apologize profusely for the movie she'd shown in class that day. She'd pulled a version of The Giving Tree off YouTube and played it for the class. Unfortunately, she'd pulled the wrong version. It was this one." sd-09.02

"All-in-all, an awesome quality product!" Thanks for that. ms-09.02

"It was not the young Danish designer's intention to create a comfy and soft sofa, but rather a simple resting place, which still requires some physical activity." dw-09.02

FotA Steven Heller takes a look at Thurston Moore's book publishing company, Ecstatic Peace Library, which is now almost ten years old. sd-09.02

Jim DeRogatis is celebrating his birthday with a look at the best albums of 1990, including The Flaming Lips' best work, In a Priest Driven Ambulance. In case you forgot, the Lips used to be a rock and roll band. bb-09.02

18 places to feel dwarfed by nature. ms-09.02

And you think you had a bad day? ms-09.02

Say hello to GeekMom. ms-09.02

My Morning Run. ms-09.02

For BB, get that damn song out of your head! Unhear it. ms-09.02

The design crews behind Facebook and Threadless reveal their behind the scenes processes. mgr-09.01

Music vid of the moment: Wentworth Kersey's Oxbow. Find the hidden phone number in it, text them with your address and receive a copy of their new album. Via Denver Egotist. sd-09.01

Trailer for Beijing Punk, a documentary that follows underground punks in China's capital city as it prepares for the Olympics. sd-09.01

In German, but some cool photos of The Museum of Letters in Berlin. More info on the Buchstabenmuseum here. sd-09.01

Page Two contains the previous 35 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.

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The MoOM Board

One of the most popular parts of our site is The Museum of online Museums (MoOM) which is updated quarterly. Please consider joining the MoOM Board of Directors. A subscription comes with a handsome coffee mug but none of the snootiness so often associated with the patronage of old-school cultural institutions.

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Supporting the MoOM requires a simple annual non-tax-free contribution of $75. In exchange for your generosity, you'll receive one sweet, tall coffee mug anbd a permanent listing and link as a member of the Board of Directors. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

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:

"Jewelboxing to appear as part of Sonoma/Napa photography group meeting." Read the entire post.

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

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