What's All This Then?
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What's All This Then?
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Saturday Edition
A General Theory of Creative Relativity.
Jim's talk at this year's SXSW.
Coudal Partners
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.
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.
A Very Short Attention Span
Passing Fancy
Are you better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them? Pay attention.
Field Notes meets Busy Beaver
Busy with the Beavers
We've been both fans and customers of the Busy Beaver Button Co. since forever. They've made buttons for Pinsetter, for Field Notes, and for a lot of our personal projects, too. We hung out in their office for a couple of hours, talking to founder Christen Carter, and put together this short doc, hopefully capturing a little of the greatness that is Busy Beaver.
A Project on the Attack
Going Negative
Fresh off the series of promo trailers we'd made for their new book REWORK, our office mates at 37signals dropped us a frantic line late Thursday afternoon with an idea. Their book was ranked just behind Karl Rove's in the Amazon sales rankings. Since Rove has a history of playing dirty in political media advertising, could we come up with a tongue-in-cheek attack ad about his book? And get it done in time to show it at one of their talks at SXSW on Sunday morning? It was going to be tight, but why not? Steve checked out political ads on YouTube to get the look just right, swapped some jokes back and forth with the 37s crew, practiced imitating that ominous, whispery narration every spot seems to use, and loaded up on iStock credits for footage, music and photos. Come Sunday, the video premiered at David Heinemeir Hansson's talk and, at least in that particular conference room, Karl Rove was finished.
Layer Tennis Season 3 Exhibitions
Ten Layer Cake
Highlights from the Layer Tennis Exhibition Season. Match #5 featured a common bin of video clips and an edit-list going back and forth between Jason Uson and Josh Bodnar in a video editing exhibition. Match 4 was an experimental five-day extended motion graphics competition featuring Matt Smithson and Daniel Oeffinger.
Two photographers in two cities shooting and posting a photographic dialogue live while a musician creates a sound track. That was Week #3's Exhibition Match #3 of live Layer Tennis. Here's the back story from the shooters. Match #2 was amazing, two expert typographers created and modified a new typeface in real time. Check Mark Simonson's recap, Beneath the Volley of the Fonts. The Season Opener was Khoi Vinh and Nicholas Felton with comments by John Nack and the guys have posted a terrific recap of what they did during the game, and why. It should be required reading for future players.
a short film that seems longer
Long Day’s Journey Out of Iowa
Our Steve Delahoyde is a man with an iron will. An iron will, a subcompact, a girlfriend and an idea on how to make a regular drive more, er, interesting. Note: All the driving worked. Claire and Steve are now Mr. and Mrs..
Two For The Dead
All Hallows’
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.
Einstein's Puzzler
Whose Fish?
An annual tradition. It's never too early to start planning what your family is going to argue about at this year's Christmas party. Enjoy the day and remember, our Albert Einstein's Fish Puzzle is available as a nice-looking, free, printable PDF file. It's perfect for proving to your Uncle George that he's not all that, brain-power wise, and it's certainly more enjoyable that talking about health care.
Vermouth and Beauty
Perfect
Many things are debated in this studio: Politics. Sports. Books. Film. Especially film. While there may be room for argument on this subject, there's very little room for vermouth. We're not sure why you'd want to, but if you'd rather order up something different from the bartender, you'll find a ton of ideas in our huge collection of Friday Drink Links.
Not Quite so
Fresh Signals
Inside Insides, magnetic resonance imaging of food. Via VSL.
Slushpile Hell held a Twitter contest for the top 25 worst children's books ever.
A flame thrower vs. a fire extinguisher, all in slow motion. With a combination like that, how could Dancing Pigeons' Ritalin not be the music vid of the moment? Via Doobybrain.
Sunset, Shadowrise.
Song of the moment. Big Little Dipper Dipper's Hockey Star. Via
Wish I could be in Manchester right about now. Bet it'll be a great party. Happy 10th Anniversary to Bren and all our co-conspirators at magneticNorth.
For Marshall, a musical comparison for Inception.
Someone in Cyprus just bought The Good Soldier Svejk. David Barnett on book voyeurism and a sweet, new mapping feature from The Book Depository.
An excerpt from The Thousand, KG's new thriller, to be published August 24th. It's an amazing ride, beautifully written, ingeniously constructed and a ton of fun.
Trailer for The Extra Man.
From the fine gentlemen over at The Art of Manliness, 14 Famous Man Caves.
3-D door stickers.
Pirates, Zombies, Robots, Ninjas, Vampires or Werewolves. Check the chart to see who is most detrimental to your health.
Today's long read, What should medicine do when it can't save your life. Worth reading.
"A is Atari, the first on the scene.
B is Bits, be they 8 or 16.
C for Controller Cords stretched 'cross the floor." The Gamer's Alphabet.
Carolyn with Grass Stain Green.
Quadräteln, a typesetters' dice game played using "spacer" leads. Machine translated from the excellent and excellently named Reden ist Silber, Schrieben ist Blei, Reading is Silver, Writing is Lead.
British artist James Hopkins' Vanitas Series. Startling, meaningful and wicked smart.
Ohio never looked better. Thanks Kyle.
"This is my maternity leave hobby. While my baby is taking her nap, I try to imagine her dream and capture it." Via SpaceInvading.
Royal Mail's 2012 Olympic stamps.
New designers talk about their views on green design.
Should you leave your car windows cracked open
during a quick errand on a hot day? Thanks, Science!
Bird's eye view of the filming of Transformers 3 on Wacker Drive in Chicago. Shot and edited by our pal, Chris Pritchard of the nation's most gracious hosting company, Tilted.
What the Field Notes County Fair Complete Set looks like right before you open it.
Clueless idiot gives "gift" to his ex on her wedding day; Lizzie Skurnick tells him where he can put it.
!?
So you know. You are not so smart.
Brockmann in Motion, twelve lovely seconds from Vit Zemcik. Via Casual Optimist.
Related to the last. Carl Corey's Wisconsin Tavern League, Installments 1-4. Light, atmosphere, composition and longnecks. Fab.
Can't bear to wait until Friday on this one. Our pal Andy Adams of Flak Photo recently edited a swell piece that features photos by Carl Corey shot in Wisconsin Taverns. Idyllic.
1300 miles in, Renegade Pencils have begun their journey to Mongolia in a converted ambulance and have posted a first set of short films. They're raising money to build schools and we're proud to say that Field Notes is going along for the ride. Much more on that soon. In the meantime, dig deep won't you?
Kate's 500 Worst Passwords Poster. Cha-ching.
"And every team really needs to bring back proper hosiery and end the pajama nonsense." Monochrome in Baseball, Part IV. You do occasionally check in on Uni Watch don't you?
Relink for Mark, who was frantically searching for this. There are plenty of reasons to admire H.C. Beck's iconic London Underground Map, we use it frequently as an example of clarity and beauty in information design. Cameron Booth used it another way, as a template for interpreting the U.S. Eisenhower Interstate System. Brilliant.
Back to the Cover Page.
Find a JobIcon 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.
What we just talked about at lunch.
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:
"My favorite part about Jewelboxing is how professional and sturdy they are, with neither form nor function sacrificed." 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.
