One Link Aicher's Icons

"The images convey unambiguous, visual information using the smallest possible space and a graphic style. Aicher's pictogram system is structured following uniform rules of design, comparable with the grammatical rules of a language."

The Latest from Field Notes

Home Improvement

Our 27th seasonal Field Notes release is a set of six books, boxed in a sturdy 60-pt custom slipcase with a sheet of crack-and-peel decals. Each of the books focuses on one DIY discipline — Wood Working, Automotive, Gardening, Painting, Plumbing, and Electrical — with tips, reference materials and the usual Field Notes wise-cracking. It's called The Workshop Companion, it's a limited-edition and we just talked to your Dad. He wants one.

New at the MoOM

Department of Collections

There's something for everyone in our Museum of Online Museums. For example, Voices of East Anglia's groovy Japanese print ads from the 60s and 70s collection. Like most cultural institutions, The MoOM needs the support of the community to survive. Well, not really, since we don't have a building or a staff or even those cheap little round colored badges that you hook on your collar when you attend... We do however have a new version of The MoOM Mug, which is available exclusively to benefactors.

JC at Creative Mornings

The Problem With Doing a Project in
Your Spare Time is That There isn’t Any

Here's Jim's presentation from the inaugural edition of Chicago Creative Mornings. Thanks to Tina, Mig, Gravity Tank and everyone who showed up.

Anti Time Lapse

The Stars and
Their Courses

In conjunction with the 2013 summer release of the Field Notes "Night Sky" Limited-Edtion memo books (sold out long ago) we made a short movie... and a really, really, really long one.

The idea was fairly simple, though complex in the making: for those of us in big metropolitan, light-polluted areas like Chicago who can't see the night sky very clearly, we wanted to travel to this section of rural Nevada and bring the stars back with us, capturing a full night sky and playing it back in real time. Check all six hours and 20 minutes of The Stars and Their Courses, and here's some background and technical information too.

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.

As you probably have noticed over the last fifteen years, we're a bit of obsessed with the films of Stanley Kubrick. Check this sweet collection of behind-the-scenes photos from the set of 2001 and find tons more stuff in our big, messy archive of Kubrickian links.

2015 Tournament of Books

Something to
Crow About

The 2015 edition of The Morning News Tournament of Books has concluded. We're happy to say our Field Notes Brand sponsored this literarypalooza. Congratulations to the winner and all the participants. From TMN: "In case you're new to all this, the ToB is an annual springtime event where a group of the best works of fiction from last year enter a March Madness-style battle royale. These novels are seeded and paired off in an NCAA Tournament-like bracket. For each pairing, one of our esteemed judges will read both novels and advance one, with a transparent explanation of how they made their decision."

Layer Tennis Season Recap

Gone in 60 Seconds

In December we concluded our post-season Season 4 Layer Tennis tournament with the Championship Match in which Kelli Anderson squeaked by James White to take the crown. Now our short, frenetic season recap video has been posted. Layer Tennis only happens thanks to our pals at Adobe Creative Cloud.

Field Notes Brand Books

Clemente’s Bat

“My first memory is of my father carrying a hammer into our bedrooms and smashing open our piggy banks on the night Roberto died.”

Forty-two seasons ago, Roberto Clemente slashed a double into left-center field, recording his 3000th regular season career hit. That hit would turn out to be his last. The bat he used is the central object in Kevin Guilfoile's book, A Drive into the Gap, the first title from the publishing imprint of our Field Notes Brand. The book has garnered great reviews and is a story about baseball and memory, and fathers and sons. See a film, read an excerpt and buy a copy of A Drive into the Gap here.

We're Going On an Adventure

Winter’s Tale

"One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen." —Rene Daumal. Why did we do it? Because it is there. Or was anyhow. Presenting Above the Sun, a true story.

Hold Life in Your Hands

The Write Stuff

We commissioned a short film by writer/director Matthew James Thompson to say thanks for all the support for Field Notes, from Coudal Partners and the Draplin Design Co..

Guest Editors

Helpful and
Mostly Polite

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

The title sequence from Foxy Brown employs "almost every trick in the title design book, from image rotoscoping and solarization to multi-layered optical animation and colorization." Groovy. jc-today

Sci-Fi SFX. jc-today

"...if you're feeling faint or need to get out of the sun PLEASE remember to do so." So you know, how to make a to-do list for your to-do lists, by Nicholas Ciccone. jc-today

"Apparently this shot, taken from the film unReal was filmed with the GSS C520 Gyro stabilizer system attached to a truck which was driving along a road which was constructed specifically for this shot. To make it even more impressive the rider Brandon Semenuk was injured during the filming and he only hit the entire segment once." jc-yesterday

Four sweet shortlisted designs for a new pedestrian bridge from Nine Elms to Pimlico in London. jc-yesterday

So you know , the entire British Movietone collection is online. For example, here's Picasso's 80th birthday party. jc-yesterday

Urban Ant City. dw-yesterday

"Someone on the Field Nuts Facebook group once randomly commented that they wished there was a complete listing of the Field Notes Practical Applications from the Colors Editions listed somewhere. Well, here you go! Nice work Andy. jc-yesterday

Two Medieval Monks Invent Bestiaries. bb-yesterday

New Bond, Spectre trailer, with Christoph Waltz as villain. jc-yesterday

25 essential punk movies. bb-yesterday

Sound advice from Jason Kottke and Paul Anka, Just Don't Look. jc-yesterday

Atlas Obscura's interactive map "is the result of a painstaking and admittedly quixotic effort to catalog the country as it has been described in the American road-tripping literature." jc-yesterday

Lovely vintage Lego ephemera. jc-yesterday

A musical about Clara Peller, the "Where's The Beef?" lady. dw-07.21

A new episode of Wedded Blitz by Katie Baker is always welcome. jc-07.21

The hyper-realist painting of Nathan Walsh, and the sketches beneath them. jc-07.21

The third greenest restaurant in America for 2015 is first in our hearts. Congrats to Big Delicious Planet. jc-07.21

Great sketches of New York architecture by James Anzalone. dw-07.21

Following the 102nd Tour de France. The guys in the first picture have the right idea. ms-07.21

Steven Heller asks, "Can Design Help the USPS Make Stamps Popular Again?" bb-07.20

Trailer for Attack on Titan. dw-07.20

Alexey Zakharov brings paintings to life. dw-07.20

So you know, how to beat a claw machine. Via Gray. jc-07.20

Myscriptfont.com does a surprisingly decent job of converting your handwriting into a font, quickly, for free. Seems kinda too good to be true, maybe it's a front for the NSA. bb-07.20

Abandoned Nova Scotia. dw-07.17

Advanced Drinking Aphorisms, by Jonathan Schaff. jc-07.17

GQ takes a look at 10 Models who look totally bummed to be modeling at this week's first-ever Men's Fashion Week in NYC. ms-07.17

Trailer for Suicide Squad. If you are like me and need a primer, here you go. ms-07.17

Local note, Happy Hour is coming back. ms-07.17

Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is moving back to Milwaukee. ms-07.17

"Existing as diagrams, drawings or written descriptions, these devices never produce a sound. Yet they are no less a part of musical culture for that. Indeed, fictophones represent an essential if hitherto unrecognized domain of musical thought and activity, and it is in order to catalog these conceptual artifacts that we have established the first institution of its kind: the Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments." Via Public Domain Review. dw-07.17

New Wilco album, "Star Wars" is available as a free download just in time for their home-town headlining of Pitchfork tonight. See you there. jc-07.17

Flrn Gif. jc-07.17

So you know, how to draw Bugs Bunny. jc-07.17

Studio discussion led to me remembering the "Subway" episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. It won a Peabody and was nominated for Two Emmys. You can watch it in parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. ms-07.16

Gorgeous trailer for the documentary The Look of Silence. ms-07.16

Lorrie Frear goes deep on optotypes, the typography of eye charts. Fascinating. jc-07.16

So you know, everything you ever wanted to know about Chicago's bridges, including my neighbor and favorite, which is currently closed for repairs. jc-07.16

Local note, eat the garden in the garden at Big Delicious Planet next week. jc-07.16

Page Two contains the previous 40 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.

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