What's All This Then?
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What's All This Then?
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Thursday Edition
Attention Fleet Managers:
It's time to update your CP Vehicle Identification Decals.
Coudal Partners
A CP Film In 5 Parts
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.
Poetry After the Beep
Verse By Voice
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 Short Film Series From SD
She Said We Said
We realize that it's sometimes difficult for the common man to understand the goings-ons in the political landscape. So in the interest of education, we sought to strip down the messages of the Hillary Clinton campaign into short parables, just like how the Bible does it. This parable helps to explain Clinton's incredible political experience. We also illuminate five other concepts here. The films were written and directed by our Steve Delahoyde with the help of the cast of Schadenfreude who volunteered to help us spread this important political information.
A CP Labs: Film
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.
Lowercase Tee Rides Again
Junior’s Senator
From Illinois
For the first twenty minutes Jim's kids were singing this it was hilarious. By eight-thirty this morning it was embedded in his wife Heidi's brain. Sometimes things are just supposed to happen. So, here's the latest fashion statement for politically active kids from our Lowercase Tee brand.
An SD Film Regrets
Easily Distracted
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.
Nobody Asked Us But...
Livin’ the Brand
Michele posted a link to a video produced by agency.com as a way to promote themselves in pursuit of landing the coveted "agency of record" status on the Subway fast-food account. We thought it was pretty much asking for someone to respond in kind. You ought to watch as much of theirs as you can stand before checking out our unsolicited response.
I brake for quasi-religious symbols
Vehicle Identification System Update
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. Thanks to C for the pix above and here's his suggestion for adding a bike to the fleet.
How To Explain The Rules of Cricket
13 Points
Originally written for a collection of essays, we thought this informative essay by KG deserved a home on the web, as well. The internet, after all, is the number one reference for both potential cricketers and pie eaters.
What you read where
Screening Documentaries
To accompany our first biennial 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 spent some time poking around in their flat-files. We also watched as they went through the process of hand-screening prints. There's an improvisational nature to the building up of layers of color over time, and we can tell you that the whole thing is refreshingly analog and deliciously slow. Check 6 Colors, 1,800 Pulls and 2 Dogs.
For a subsequent Field-Tested Poster we asked Dan and Mike of Aesthetic Apparatus to make something great for us and then Steve buzzed up to The Twin Cities for a visit that resulted in the mini-doc Found & Reused.
Get ready to book a trip because the 2008 edition of Field-Tested Books will be bigger and better than ever.
Puzzler: Einstein’s Fish
Is This Your Sander Vitreus?
One of our most popular projects ever was Michele's Einstein Fish Puzzle, see if you're in the two percent of the population that Albert Einstein purportedly said could figure it out. More puzzlers: School of Government, Da Vinci's Other Code and One With Everything, which asks the question, "Which porn star ate the most hot dogs?"
Not Quite so
Fresh Signals
Here's the video version of the last post. Now W&T needs to make an In The News shirt.
Wire and Twine's brand-new SPECIAL shirt. Awesome.
Bram Meehan of Panel Press sent along a link to an interesting Mother Jones article that fits with our featured Laboratory Conditions film. Fear and Fallout in Los Alamos by Bill Donahue.
Google is hosting millions of photographs from the LIFE Magazine and John Gruber did the required first search on "Kubrick," yielding amazing results, like this beauty.
Thomas Kinkade's 16 Guidelines for Making Stuff Suck. We just can't steal enough links from Chris.
Elbow-Toe's fab 17 pages of doodles with a red felt-tip pen. Looks like we better send that dude some Field Notes.
Song and video of the moment, if the moment is in 1977 or possibly at some time in the future. Magic Fly from Space.
Neal Shafer adds Field Notes to his Christmas list. Thanks for that.
Yay! Taschen releases The Ingmar Bergman Archives and the book looks amazing. It's in the same style and format as The Stanley Kubrick Archives, which is just about the nicest present I ever received thanks to H.
Page Two gets a redo this morning.
"Instead of painting on canvas, I install a canvas behind real objects." Forest for the Trees, an interview with Myoung Ho Lee in the TMN Galleries.
Lines and Colors spends some time in the Phillip K. Dick Book Cover Art Gallery, a featured collection in the Fall Exhibitions at The MoOM.
"Each month or so, we release a new issue of 'i left this here for you to read.- We then leave them in public places (such on park benches, on buses, in airports and dentists' offices...) for anyone to take--free of charge." From artist Tim Devin, i left this here for you to read.
The NYPL collection of dust jackets from American and European Books, 1926-47. More than 2,000 original specimens. I. II. III.
Vote the Chicago way, early and often. Choose your favorite most influential designer of our time.
Show me your dock, I'll show you mine. Clipped from Quipped.
Matt Lee points out that sometime life imitates art. Check the descriptions here which correspond nicely with our home page from the day we launched our short film Copy Goes Here.
Hollywood seems determined to ruin my childhood memories. Teaser trailer for Race to Witch Mountain.
Ron Wise's Banknoteworld, a geographical directory of world paper money. Tons of great scans. I. II. III. Thanks Sean.
Notice.
Tor reviews our Museum of Online Museums. Thanks for that.
From an occasional series, Great Moments in Fresh Signals History, Grant Hamilton's awesome Polaroid portfolio, an obsessional on Polaroid Land Cameras, the branding of Polaroid 1957-77, Phil Patton's Gone in Sixty Seconds and a tutorial on Polaroid Transfers.
Wow, that is one lucky penguin.
Amazing photos of the wildfires in California.
Yet another reason why BB should get the iPhone, Bacon iPhone cases.
Nice vintage photo collection of celebrities.
The renovated Tel Aviv Port.
Jon Tan's thoughtful essay on the paragraph in web typography and design.
An omnibus of recent Field Notes sightings.
An ambitious project, the creation of a new graphic identity for the Dutch government by Studio Dumbar which includes a beautiful custom typeface by Peter Verheul.
I saw Quantum of Solace this weekend, loved it. Seen in the previews was the hotly anticipated new trailer for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. There's a crappy version floating around the internets but if you are patient, you can see the HD version today at 10:00 am PT here.
So you know, 29 brilliant music videos.
A nice round up of custom error 404 pages.
Gorgeous, the Exline bath tub.
So you know, Gizmodo gives us their 20 essential iPhone apps.
Back to the Cover Page.
Icon 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.
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:
"Bringing it full circle is that someone recommended taking the time to scan these important pieces of your life and sticking it all onto discs, then going that extra mile by nicely packaging it in Jewelboxing." Read the entire post.
Another Thing We Made: The Show
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.
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