What's Next?

Pretty much everything you'd ever want to know about Danny Choo's Smart Doll and how it was made. A fascinating story, an intriguing product and a highly personal post from the creator. I'm not sure what to make of this whole thing except to say it's probably going to be a huge hit, at $560 each.

The Arts and Sciences Edition

Both Sides Now

Our limited-edition Field Notes release for summer is The Arts & Sciences Edition and it's big enough for both sides of your brain. Available in 2-Packs and by Color Subscription, and shipping right now.

New in The MoOM

Ways of Seeing

There's something for everyone in the Spring Exhibitions at our Museum of Online Museums. 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.

Spring Summer Fall Winter

To Every Season

Roughly every three months since January of 2009, we have introduced a seasonal release of Field Notes. With a couple exceptions these have all been limited-editions and have all sold out quickly. Thanks for that. You can see and read about them here and also in our Obsessive's Guide videos where we chat about the "making of" each release.

Each edition was made available to our Field Notes email list first and was offered in 3-Packs and by a year-long subscription, for those wanting to collect them all and to make sure they don't miss out on one. Subscribers frequently get extra and exclusive items with their shipments. While they last, you can start a subscription right now with our current release, The Arts & Sciences Edition. The Fall edition is on press now and is a radical departure from previous releases and if we can pull off what we have planned for winter, you are surely going to want to be a part of that too.

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.

How'd That Get There?

Regarding That
Recent Order

Customer service at the Field Notes Brand Midwest HQ is handled one order at a time.

From Field Notes Brand

Cherry, Baby

We all know that paper is made from wood. Our 22nd Field Notes seasonal release is made of wood. The Shelterwood Edition features covers made from American Cherry wood, sliced ever-so-thin and bonded to a substrate of kraft paper for durability.

From the Archives

Stuff About SK

As you probably have noticed over the last ten 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 in our big, messy archive of Kubrickian links.

Reading Assignment

I Had Him for Shakespeare

The Old Man and the River. Pete Dexter's exquisite profile of Norman Maclean from Esquire in 1981. Maybe the best thing ever written about CP hero Maclean, it makes you want to go back and read A River Runs Through It for the 20th time and, especially Young Men and Fire. They aren't making magazine pieces like this any more.

Faces Deserving of Props

The American Century

This is a new entry in our occasional series on type. The consistent beat of Century Schoolbook as it marches across the page is what makes it feel so sensible and familiar in both text and display situations. The vintage (but not old-timey) feel of it seems just about right for a new wave of popularity. Suggested pairing: Futura Std Book, all caps with extra letter-spacing. We used Century Schoolbook for A Drive into the Gap and here's what Bryan had to say in the end notes.

Century Schoolbook is one of 221 typefaces designed by American typography titan Morris Fuller Benton (1872-1948). Century Schoolbook is based on Benton's father Linn Boyd Benton's Century typeface, created for Century magazine in 1894. The younger Benton's version was created at the request of textbook publisher Ginn & Co., with the intent of improved legibility. Century and its variants were originally published by American Type Founders. Formed by a merger of 23 foundries in 1892, ATF quickly became the dominant force in American typography until the mid-20th-century, largely thanks to the Benton's typographical and technological innovations. Century is often cited as the first true typeface "family," a concept quickly embraced by type designers, foundries, and users.

One From Way Way Back

How Do You Spell Courage?

"How do you spell courage?" 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.

May Guest Kelly O’Connor McNees

The Bee’s McNees

Kelly O'Connor McNees (kmc) is the author of three novels: The Island of Doves, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, and In Need of a Good Wife, which was a finalist for the 2012 Willa Award. She also runs Word Bird Editorial Services, through which she helps authors of all stripes improve their craft and prepare their writing for publication. Kelly is from Michigan, but she lives in Rogers Park with her husband and daughter. For the month of May, she'll be right here with us, serving as our Guest Editor.

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

Sorry San Fran, the Force is with Chicago. dw-yesterday

The Rentals are finally back, yay! bb-yesterday

"The project you've been working on for the past 3 months is due tomorrow morning and the client just asked for 500 last minute changes... Don't panic, we've come up with a simple way to make your upcoming extra hours easier." Agency Survival Kits. dw-yesterday

Matthew tweets, "A nomination for The MoOM: huge collection of Japanese train station stamps." Seconded. Motion carried. jc-yesterday

Teaser from For the Love of Mud, a film about cyclo-cross by Benedict Campbell. jc-yesterday

Local note. The Music Box Theater's Son Of 70mm Film Festival starts July 11th and features Lawrence of Arabia, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World and 2001. If it's the same beautiful print of 2001 they showed last time, it's mandatory viewing, especially if you've never seen it projected. jc-yesterday

Trailer for the film The Drop. ms-yesterday

Nice illustrations by Ryo Takemasa. dw-yesterday

Totally great, Star Wars ( Guardians of the Galaxy Style!). ms-yesterday

"The hopefuls are toting their most prized possessions- a vase lovingly wrapped in a towel and riding in a laundry basket on a wagon; a carousel deer with real antlers and a chunk missing from its head; a 4-foot-tall painting of a nude woman; a Winchester rifle; a cart filled with antique dolls. At one point, the sound of shattering china echoes through the set; you can hear people gasp, as everyone looks around nervously, clutching their heirlooms a little more tightly." ms-yesterday

Totally awesome inventor Colin Furze. ms-yesterday

The folks over at The Art of Manliness show us how to grill vegetables. ms-yesterday

Well, this would for sure get you an interview here. ms-yesterday

In the alternate-but-real universe of the Unofficial Football World Championships, England's playing for the title today! bb-yesterday

15 famous character actors you can't name. (Well, 14 and Catherine O'Hara.) bb-yesterday

"Throughout this article we've made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and some of our statements may be flatly false." Alternative Histories, by Miles Klee for Lapham's Quarterly. jc-yesterday

Bone Music, Soviet-era bootlegs were pressed as records using x-ray plates. Via Notcot. jc-yesterday

Hand lettering by Tobias Hall. jc-yesterday

Flying paint at 1/3500th of a second by Floto + Warner. Via Moo. jc-yesterday

"In early May, a product evangelist and tech blogger from San Francisco, Robert Scoble, visited Hogeg. Hogeg showed him Yo and asked for his feedback. 'This is the stupidest, most addictive app I've ever seen in my life,' Scoble told him. Hogeg agreed." ms-yesterday

For drivers, ↑ works better than ↓. jc-yesterday

Rick Staehling's Old Fishing Photos is a curated collection of images that celebrates fishing as sport, recreation, nostalgia and art. Terrific. jc-yesterday

"An observer of the tiny moments of agency life, figuratively speaking." ms-06.23

80 Years of World Cup ticket designs. dw-06.23

A comic on the pointlessness of reading internet comments. mcj-06.23

Heartbreaking look at the vanishing island of Isle de Jean Charles. ms-06.23

rebeccapurple. Right on. bb-06.23

Want. ms-06.23

IN EXTREMIS, bodies with no regret. dw-06.23

You can keep your deer, pink flamingos, fluffy rabbits, and cuddly gnomes. My garden will have the Rampaging Kaiju. ms-06.23

Gorgeous Modern houseboat for rent just outside Berlin. ms-06.23

Rock on Dude, I love that song........Ooops. ms-06.23

Songs of the summer. 50 years worth. jc-06.23

Typo/Graphic Posters. jc-06.23

On this day in 1961, John Steinbeck's The Winter of our Discontent was published despite the "pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches." jc-06.23

"Well, I don't care if your friend Brad doesn't have to learn the piano. He isn't actually your friend at all. He's a person you think you should like because he's part of the popular crowd, but if you try to glom on to that group, the end result will be tears and humiliation, and you'll question your self-worth while lying in bed at night, creating imaginary torture devices you'd like to use on him." ms-06.23

Blitzortung.org is "a world-wide, real-time, community based lightning detection and lightning location network with live lightning maps." Via Mefi. jc-06.23

Trailer for Frank. ms-06.23

Cutting and pasting worked! Cutting and pasting worked! Cutting and pasting worked! Cutting and pasting worked! Cutting and pasting worked! Cutting and pasting worked! Paul Ford checks out Kinja by posting in Kinja. Delightfully nerdy. jc-06.23

"Mr Holmes as a character, plus the majority of his characteristics and those of his chums, are decidedly in the public domain." Elementary. jc-06.23

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

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