A Wall in the Studio

True to the Blobbiness

We've long-admired the dynamism of a mural that is hangs on the north side of the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce, on Ashland Avenue. Once we renovated and moved into our new studio space, we decided to track down who was responsible, with the idea of doing something similar for our main work space. The artists, Gwendolyn Zabicki and Kent Smith, were up for the idea, and also for us filming them painting the 12' x 8', 3-panel artwork. Thanks a million to them.

New from Field Notes

Eternal, Shiny
and Chrome

Just in time for gift giving, a metallic embossed cover, a new binding and orange spine, plus Drapln-designed wrapping paper and a "To/From" sticker. Our Field Notes winter limited-edition is Black Ice.

Einstein's Puzzle

Who Owns the Fish?

Since 2004, we have been doing our part to encourage acrimony and hard feelings at family gatherings. Face it, you'll probably fight about something at your holiday get-together, it might as well be something important, like whether or not you're in the two percent of the world's population that Albert Einstein purportedly claimed could solve this puzzle. So... Who Owns The Fish?

JC at Creative Mornings

What Are You
Afraid Of?

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

We Choose to Go to the Moon

The Moon in
a Sandbox

It's not quite like faking the moon landing, but the film we made for the release of our new Field Notes Quarterly Edition for Fall, Lunacy, was made entirely using the same sort of practical, analog effects that you'd need to employ if you were going to stage that event, back in the day. So fun. So messy.

A Cautionary Tale

Heed This Well, Young Costumed Beggars

Our annual warning to trick-or-treaters, in the style of Hilaire Belloc.

Faces Deserving of Props

Tight, in All-Caps with Almost No Line Spacing

Chauncey H. Griffith's Bodoni Poster Black was developed for Mergenthaler in 1929 and features strong verticals and shallow descenders. It's regularly employed for era-specific "Appearing Nightly at the Copacabana" lobby-card-ish announcements and by and large it's serviceable, if not particularly interesting. But, just in case you find yourself in need of a two skinny chicks whispering near the coke mirror, late 70's, Los Angeles sort of vibe, set it tight in all-caps with almost no line spacing. Suggested pairing: Univers Light Extra Condensed.

Verse by Voice

Poetry, After the Beep

Several years ago, on a whim, we asked people to read their favorite short poems into our voice mail for a project we called Verse By Voice. And lots of people did, creating a poetry meme!. To get the idea, here's novelist Zadie Smith reading Frank O'Hara's Animals.

Selling Space

Making it Real

"In 1966 Norman Rockwell really needed a spacesuit and NASA didn't want to give him one." Now, that is a lede. An excellent, illustrated article by Darren Garret, The Improbable, Bold History of Space Concept Art.

Museum of Online Museums

The MoOM

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.

From The DDC

Chock Full

Pretty Much Everything, the new book by our co-conspirator in Field Notes, and other things, Aaron James Draplin, is available now. You need this. Everybody needs this.

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

From Field Notes and writer/director Matthew James Thompson, a film for the holidays, In Your Hands. jc-yesterday

Best gif of 2016. jc-yesterday

"The idea was to create a surreal world based on simple geometric light shapes that seem misplaced, but somehow blend with its surrounding at the same time." Lucid is beautiful. Here's a look at the making of this project. jc-yesterday

Warm up with William Faulkner's hot toddy recipe. bb-yesterday

1969 De Tomaso Mangusta. Nuff said. jc-12.22

The Year That Was and Wasn't, The Morning News closes the damn door on '16. Great feature. jc-12.22

A sweet, short film by David Friedman about the graphic design of US Stamps. jc-12.22

Song of the moment, "You" from Manwolves. What a hook. Simple. Undeniable. jc-12.22

When New York's nightclubs were secret empires. dw-12.22

The Year in Pictures 2016 ms-12.22

Merry Christmas Lil' Mama, a mixtape gift from Jeremih & Chance the Rapper. Boom! jc-12.22

"Lab puppies on a tin are always going to be your number-one seller. A snowman might come second. And Santa - unfortunately for Santa, he's always last. " ms-12.22

Frozen soap bubbles. Gorgeous. bb-12.22

PopSci: Gifts for people who look like they spend a lot of time outside (but are actually just from Brooklyn). By Rachel Feltman. jc-12.22

User interface design for screens in Rogue One, by Blind. jc-12.21

Long distance dedication to Jeff Drake: Agent Orange's surf punk best. bb-12.21

"Character confidently says they can do something; character tries but fails to do that thing. Most scripts, somewhere in them, have a Foggy Says He Knows the Way bit." I'm always interested in different types of jargon or "shop-talk," vocabularies specific to a field, trade or industry. For example, Andy Riley explains How To Talk Comedy Writer. jc-12.21

The world turned upside down. dw-12.21

Ofisuredii and feyskontrol. Foreign Words that Seem Like English, but Aren't, by Matthew Anderson. jc-12.21

The Standardization of Time in America, "It used to be that each town kept its own time, and chaos reigned." jc-12.21

Related to an earlier post, the world's smallest snowman stands less than 3 microns tall. dw-12.21

The Age of Female Dominance, Brought to You by Robots. jc-12.21

Designing the alien alphabet for Arrival. jc-12.21

Nice illustrations by Rob Bailey. dw-12.21

The tumbleweed snowmen of Albuquerque. dw-12.21

Barb's Revenge. dw-12.21

ETCH Clock transforms an elastic membrane into digital numbers. dw-12.20

Long read of the day, meet The Man Who Cleans Up After Plane Crashes. ms-12.20

Magnets and Marbles. jc-12.20

Sure, I listened to Pipeline driving through the snow this morning, but it hardly inspired me to surf in Lake Michigan. bb-12.20

Sweet set of Star Wars illustrations by Andy Fairhurst. jc-12.20

Unreal, Supermoon over Spanish Castle . ms-12.20

The first line of dialogue in this video is, "Holy shit, holy shit, what the hell? Holy shit." Seems appropriate. jc-12.20

Vibrant contemporary Japanese posters by Mitsuo Katsui. jc-12.20

PhotoCorps. "PhotoScouting is all about noticing the world and sharing perspectives" through completing photographic challenges. Great idea, sweet patches too. jc-12.20

Craft Barrel-Aged Smoked Authentic Homemade Sun-Dried Whole Extra Sharp. jc-12.20

"Rare announcement poster for what would become Dr. Strangelove. This version opens with Aliens coming to earth after the nuclear apocalypse." Aliens? jc-12.20

A tediously accurate map of the solar system. If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel, by Josh Worth. Via John Dickerson. jc-12.19

We knew Brian "Candykiller" Taylor was inventive, but we did not know he built a Blade Runner Voight-Kampff Machine replica from scratch. Yowza. jc-12.19

"I must confess to being rather blindsided by the end of our relationship. It seems Captain Von Trapp and I misunderstood each other. I assumed he was looking for a wife of taste and sophistication, who was a dead ringer for Tippi Hedren; instead he wanted to marry a curtain-wearing religious fanatic who shouts every word she says." ms-12.19

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

Grab our blended RSS feed here.

Translate

French | German | Italian
Japanese | Spanish | Portuguese

One Hundred Forty

Coudal on Twitter

The MoOM Board

One of the most popular parts of our site is The Museum of online Museums (MoOM) which is updated quarterly. Please consider joining the MoOM Board of Directors. A subscription comes with a handsome coffee mug but none of the snootiness so often associated with the patronage of old-school cultural institutions.

Elias Jones
Maura Statman
Fergus Wessel
D'Ortenzio Family
Johnson Hur
Kelly Leonard
Brigitte Martin
Brian Mohney
Unnikrishna Menon Damodaran
Rick Johnson
Leah Blum
Philip Birmingham
Andrew Dale
Patch Superstore
Haris Bacic
Ian McRoberts
Seedhouse
Grettir Asmundarson
Vladimir Gendelman
Tom Shakow
Dallas Shelby
Blueberry Ln.
Michael Russem
James Sampson
Rod McGuinness
Jason Lankow
Nöel Jackson
DJ Edgerton
Carolyn Wood
Mark Powell
Chris Ebmeyer
Christen Carter
Chris Allison
Keith Krieger
Kathleen Devlin
Roger McLeish
Fred Beshid
Katie Harrar
Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran
Daniel Annereau
Dan Rubin
Barbara Ann Kipfer
Sunniva Geuer
Gareth Walters
Claire Zulkey
Sean Palmer
Jane Quigley
Edward Lifson
Witold Riedel
Brian Cook
Anne Herron
Abby Urban
Erik Ratcliffe
Michael Jenkins
Katie Carney
Mark Greenberg
John Boardley
Jon Tan
Robin Sherwood
William Dampier
Don Stillman
John Pojman
Werner Haker
Amy Hostler
Whet Moser
Debbie Millman
Matt Russell
Bill Keaggy
Adam Kruvand
Randy Hunt
David Demaree
Erik Vorhes
Dan Mabrey
Nalani McClendon
Mary Catlan
Anonymous (8)

Supporting the MoOM requires a simple annual non-tax-free contribution of $75. In exchange for your generosity, you'll receive one sweet, tall coffee mug and a permanent listing and link as a member of the Board of Directors. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

We actually do
stuff beside
updating this site.

Find out what.