Local Note Chicago Will Call

Order anything we sell using coupon code "WILLCALL" and pick it up here from Jen at 400 North May Street.

CP vs. Your Spam Filter

Infrequently

Our Infrequent Mailings are sent about once a month and #55 is scheduled to go out on Monday and will contain a screed about the vacuous nature of political discourse in America a bunch of news and a brand new subscriber-only contest too. Just add your email address here. We won't ever abuse the privilege.

Museum Of Online Museums

Collections Collected

Tons of new listings and exhibits have been posted for the summer at our Museum of Online Museums. The MoOM was featured on All Things Considered and in the NY Times. It was also selected as one of Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites and was discussed on a recent episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful! Consider joining our Museum Board, a subscription comes with a coffee mug but none of the snootiness so often associated with the patronage of cultural institutions.

No Game No Plot

The Breeders’
“Walk it Off”

After stumbling into a lifetime-dream-fulfilling chance to direct a music video for indie-rock legends The Breeders, SD and BB came up with a concept for the song "Walk It Off" from the band's fantastic new album Mountain Battles. But wanting to make things extra-complicated, they decided to turn a fairly simple plot into an interactive, multiple-perspective, experimental experience.

The Field-Tested Books Book

Location, Location, Location

Announcing our biggest, best edition of Field-Tested Books yet. We looked over the shoulders of lots of smart people while they read lots of interesting books in lots of familiar and unfamiliar places and now you can too. All the Field Tests from this new collection and previous years are online. Plus, we've created a sweet, new, limited-edition poster with Spike Press and we're totally excited to say that the first-edition of The Field-Tested Books Book, a paperback containing 143 selected reviews, is also available for purchase. We'll be making a donation to First Book for every one we sell, so order a book for yourself and help us buy a truckload of new books for underprivileged kids. The First-Editions are shipping now. Buy one today we'll ship it today.

News: Thanks to everyone who came to our recent live Field-Tested Readings, in Chicago and New York City.

Made In the U.S. of A. Field Notes

In Good Company

Our newest brand was created in combination with the unstoppable Draplin Design Company of Portland Oregon. The first offering from Field Notes Brand is a super durable made-in-the-USA memo book inspired by vintage farmers' planting books and other practical, historic, mostly-midwestern American design. The notebooks are showing up in lots of interesting places, including in a recent issue of Lego Magazine!

Grey Skies Are Gonna Clear Up

Tips For Tough Times

As a public service, Steve Delahoyde and our pals from Schadenfreude present a new series of handy tips for Surviving The New Depression. Get happy.

Films About Hand-Made Posters

Screening Documentaries

The Beginning and End Are Up To You, is our mini-documentary about John Solimine who created the limited-edition poster for Field Tested Books 2008.

For our first summer reading feature we asked Jay Ryan of The Bird Machine to design and hand-screen a limited run of posters. We visited Jay and Mat Daly at the Bird Machine Shop and we can tell you that the whole thing is refreshingly analog and deliciously slow. Check 6 Colors, 1,800 Pulls and 2 Dogs. The next Field-Tested Poster was created by Dan and Mike of Aesthetic Apparatus. Steve buzzed up to The Twin Cities for a visit and that resulted in Found & Reused.

A CP Film In Five Parts

Laboratory Conditions

While we were in Los Alamos, New Mexico, looking for locations for one film project, we discovered a lot more about the town and its people than we bargained for. So we made a different film and called it Laboratory Conditions. It's being shown here in five pieces and is also available on DVD.

How Do You Spell Courage?

Inaction Heroes

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.

An SD Film Regrets

Passing Fancy

From JC's talk at Seed Conference 3. If you're at all like us and are better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them, you ought to pay attention to the fifth film in Steve's "Regrets" series, Hobbies.

Other recent features are listed on Page Two.

Fresh Signals

It's Friday, what'll ya have? We're buying. jc-today

Amor Montes de Oca has agreed to serve on the almost prestigious Board of Directors of our Museum on Online Museums. Thanks for that. jc-today

"A snake charmer, a wine buff and a welder go into a bar - the rest is history." So cool, the chain wine bottle holder. ms-today

"The animated story of one man's epic journey, created entirely from public domain symbols. In other words, an airport story told in the language of airport infographics." Airport. ms-today

Our Field Notes Brand is mighty proud to share the stage with a fearsome T-Rex for Day 47 of the 365 Toy Project. jc-today

We love flipping through books with Grain Edit. Today it's the fab 1967 Design Coordination and Corporate Image by FHK Henrion and Alan Parkin. jc-today

"If you can get Morgan Freeman's and Ashley Judd's heads floating together, God help you." An interview with the designer behind Hollywood's most famous floating head movie posters. sd-today

A Friday Drink Link and the song/video of the moment: Dancing, by The Walking Man. sd-today

Eric Etheridge's Breach of Peace. Mugshots of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders set against current photos and interviews. Heroic. jc-today

PingMag talks to designer Tom Hingston about visualizing music. jc-today

"I've seen the yellow eyes of an animal when it thinks it's going to bum-rush my property and take a leak on everything I hold precious." Eric Spitznagel is a Field Tester. Read his and all the other reviews online, or better yet, please buy the book. jc-today

An interview with author and occasional co-conspirator Dan Pink for Melissa Pierce's film Life In Perpetual Beta, Elegant Design For Your Whole New Mind. jc-today

The photography of Tod Seelie. jc-today

A different sort of Friday Drink Link, the Scotch and Soda peacoat. ms-today

"The Wrong Door is a new sketch show set in a parallel universe where the special effects you see in the movies and on TV are part of everyday life." Get a sneak peak at the new BBC show here. ms-today

Gorgeous work from photographer Bill Steber. ms-today

So you know, 15 strange moments in anti-theft inspiration. ms-today

The awesome Gallery of Pocket Protectors goes straight into the MoOM. Via ISO50. jc-yesterday

My car is so boring in comparison. ms-yesterday

So adorable, Creatures from a Square. ms-yesterday

Song and video of the moment, The Wave Pictures Just Like A Drummer. ms-yesterday

Steven Heller on Paul Rand's can. jc-yesterday

Love this salt and pepper set. ms-yesterday

Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell have made the Citizen Kane of Fantasy Football movies called 10 Yards and you can download it free. Hunter also signed on recently as an Executive Producer on our over-time and over-budget film project 72° which may help since he seems to actually get movies finished. jc-yesterday

Vogue's recent fashion shoot on location in India, where impoverished members of society model Fendi and Hermès, has predictably provoked a lot of debate. se-yesterday

Cute as a button! Not sure if that has been said about a car before. ms-yesterday

100 year forecast. ms-yesterday

Funny graffiti from the abandoned Michael Reese Hospital makes good use of a morbid old quote often attributed to either Tom Waits or Woody Allen, regularly used on gravestones, and even the inspiration for this great book. sd-yesterday

Oldie but so very much a goodie, 300 love letters. ms-yesterday

Geff Hinds has just sent in his Field-Tested Books entry about reading The Haunting of Hill House in his sister's house near a state facility for the mentally ill. Have your own memory of "a certain book in a certain place?" Send it in! sd-yesterday

Noted without comment, an exploding banana mask. dw-yesterday

Hunting the 62mph Autobahn Skateboarder. sd-yesterday

Nakki Goranin talks to Smithsonian Magazine about the once ubiquitous photobooth and about her new book, American Photobooth. se-yesterday

Gone. Touching 3D animation by Bard Edlund. Via The Cartoonist. jc-yesterday

Alex Steinweiss album covers. dw-yesterday

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

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15 Minutes

Carlos Salazar [?]

The Producers

Claire Zulkey
Howard Mann
Carlos Parrilla
Damien Newman
Drew Myler
Grant Hutchinson
Skipintro
R.BIRD
Karen Labenz
Andrew Figgins
Mark Powell
Mike Keen
Chet Yeary II
Greg Storey
Matt Lee
Jeremy Quinn
Grant Unrau
Debbie Millman
David Demaree
Charles Adler
Paul Joyce
S.J. Barlament
Stephen Vance
Sam Potts
John Tolva
Cameron Moll
J. Thomas Lowell
Hillman Curtis
Gridiron Software
Loyd Boldman
Heidi J Nyburg
William N. Kilarjian
Mario Van der Meulen
Simon Angling
Colin Scroggins
Inline Studio
Witold Riedel
Alan Hawkins
Marko Dugonjic
Chris Bernard
Matt Mullenweg
Alexander Muse
Dan Rubin
Thomas Mackechney
Dan Cederholm
Eric Mersmann
Ben Edwards
Brian Seethaler
Lightburn
Matt Haughey
Bill Keaggy
Pierre Mai
Kevin Hamm
Andre Torrez
Greg Hoy
Issa Breibish
Drew Stauffer
Abby Urban
Christopher Ebmeyer
Jeffrey Rutzky
Robert D. Whitson

Your Name Here

the pitch

You can be an Executive Producer of our new short feature film, 72°. If you've always wanted to be a hotshot Hollywood player, or you just want to lend a hand to the project here's your chance.

A Thing We Made:
Jewelboxing

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:

"Second to the wedding images, I get the most compliments on these cases." Read the entire post.

Some Other Things We Made:

Field Notes Brand "I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now." A CP/DDC joint.

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

Limited-edition, professionally mixed and mastered, custom-designed live performances on CD. That's The Show. With partners like The Pixies and Dead Can Dance. More news soon.

Lowercase Tee: For politically and otherwise active kids.

We actually do
stuff beside
updating this site.

Find out what.

infrequent mail

Our occasional mailings always contain a contest and a special offer or giveaway and usually some smart alecky commentary too. Enter your email to subscribe. We won't ever abuse the privilege. Period.