A Round On The House

Although it doesn't seem to have cheered up Buster Keaton above, to end your week, you could do worse than kicking back and pouring a few from our well-stocked archive of Friday Drink Links.

Field Notes Limited Edition

Rows to Hoe

For Field Notes' 14th seasonal release we've gone back to our roots with a box set celebrating America's farmers and the crops they grow. "The National Crop Edition" includes six colored memo books, a souvenir poster and an embroidered patch, all in a custom box. They're available for sale individually and as part of a year-long Colors Subscription.

Plus, Co-Founder Aaron Draplin talks about where Field Notes comes from in a short film, From Seed, and his large collection of agricultural themed memo books from the last 100 years are now online at the Field Notes site.

I Think I Read That Somewhere

A Certain Place

If, like us, your spring and summer vacations are about reading, then here's a place to start. We've collected hundreds of books and had them Field-Tested online, including entries from George Saunders, Jonathan Eig, Jessa Crispin, Steven Heller, Lori Andrews, Michael Bierut, and many more. Or, buy the Field Tested Books Book which is available now for just nine bucks.

Stuff About Terrence Malick

There Wasn’t No
Harm In Him,
You’d Give Him a Flower, He’d Keep
It Forever

We've been talking about it for months and now we've finally done it. With the release of The Tree of Life and because there aren't many dedicated resources, we've created a new archive category about one of our heroes. Stuff About Terrence Malick is full of links and resources and we'd appreciate you writing us about anything you think belongs in there. (Use the contact link below.) It's a nice complement to our big Stuff About Stanley Kubrick collection. Logically, Bergman is next, but for now we'll leave that up to the excellent Face To Face.

An occasional series Face Time

Classic Display Faces That Deserve Props

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.

A Very Short Attention Span

Regrets, I Have a Few

Are you better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them? Are you easily distracted? Do you find it hard to concentrate on any one thing when there are so many other things to check out? Yeah, us too.

To Every Season

Blind Faith

Legends of the Fall, a film we made high above north central Wisconsin in October. The "Fire Spotter" Edition of Field Notes sold out almost immediately but if you trust us to keep making fun, new editions (and the Spring release that's going to be announced in a week or two is plenty fun and completely new) you can sign up for a Colors Subscription now based on blind faith. That way you'll save a few bucks and be sure to get the next four releases, starting with Spring and extra goodies too. Afraid of commitment? Make sure you're on the Field Notes mail list, folks there always get first crack at new products.

Verse By Voice

Poetry After the Beep

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. To get the idea, make sure to listen to novelist Zadie Smith reading Frank O'Hara's Animals.

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 unstoppable Daily Dose of Imagery.

Search Different

For Sale:
1 Billion Dollars

While it's only a couple years old, it's social power and technical innovation makes it a bargain for any cash-rich tech company looking to expand their reach and ecosystem. For a quick billion dollars your company can own the jewel of the next generation of search and change the way people find things on The Internet. "Never Not Find What You’re Looking For Again" with E-Z-Fynd. Secret Himalayan headquarters included, plus Peppermints! From CP Labs, the folks that brought you The RinseCam 9000™, so you know it's good. Serious inquiries only please.

JC at Creative Mornings

What Are You
Afraid Of?

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

Who Owns The Fish

Hey Buddy, Is This Your Sander Vitreus?

Every year since 2004, we have done our part to encourage acrimony and hard feelings at family gatherings. Face it, you'll probably fight about something at your next 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?

May Guests Sonnenzimmer

Making It Up
As They Go

Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi (nn) first met while interning at Punk Planet Magazine and The Bird Machine, two of Chicago's most beloved cultural institutions. Following their work there, they decided to open a studio together in 2006, naming it Sonnenzimmer. It's there that Nadine realized she really just wanted to make posters with no type on them, despite years of typography education in her native Switzerland. Nick, who studied graphic design, found that he just wanted to make paintings. Their firm now merges typography, printmaking, graphic design and fine art to create hand-crafted posters, books, and music packaging for a wide array of projects and clients. They're particularly proud of their work with Chicago's bustling free jazz and improvised music community, finding a place where experimentation and abstraction are both respected and demanded. That said, we're expecting lots of interesting and varied links as Nick and Nadine step in as our Guest Editors for May.

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 photographer Tadao Cern: Blow Job. ms-yesterday

So you know: how to build a Keezer. ms-05.18

Building the USS Enterprise - the real ship - over the next 20 years. dw-05.18

Beer and Barbecue Pairings, from the folks at Epicurious. ms-05.18

A Chicago Sojourn takes a trip down Lincoln Avenue's Motel Row. That same street back home in Phoenix was/is Van Buren. sd-05.18

For MS, who had no idea what BB and I were talking about at lunch today: the trailer for Disorderlies. And to somehow tie everything together: the music vid for The Beach Boys and The Fat Boys' Wipeout. sd-05.18

Great animated GIFs by mr. div. dw-05.18

Just in time for this weekend's NATO summit here in Chicago, A.V. Club Chicago has a great interview regarding the city's "long history of anti-protestor violence." mcj-05.18

Scrabble Coasters. ms-05.18

GALEX: The Andromeda Galaxy. ms-05.18

The top 10 tech troll catchphrases. dw-05.18

"I hate getting assigned to shoot baseball, so I decided to mess around instead. More info here. ms-05.18

Zulkey's interview with Gene Honda, announcer for the Blackhawks and the White Sox. sd-05.18

Local note: What's better than an Art Opening in Berwyn!? An art opening featuring the awesome Mr. Walters! (tonight) bb-05.18

Sometimes, a new friend is good. Sometimes, there are limits. ms-05.18

"This is my personal site. There are many like it, but this one is mine." —Z. Right on. jc-05.18

What's that? Just my breakfast returning to say hi. Via Cynical C. ms-05.18

Speaking of dead french poets, Do you like Paul Verlaine? bb-05.18

West Green Road, N15. dw-05.18

Dan Grzeca rules: the Velvet Underground Live at the Grave of Charles Baudelaire, September 28, 1968, Cimetiere du Montparnasse, Paris, France. Sweet, I was there but I didn't get a poster. bb-05.18

ChibiDashi is a cute little box for jewelry or other small trinkets. Via Spoon & Tamago. dw-05.18

Nice overview of Poster Design in Poland, 1890 - 1970. Via Design Info. sd-05.18

For BB: the trailer for Kath & Kimderella. dw-05.18

MS, I prefer the mighty Scoot.net scooter rally patch archive. bb-05.18

Ben Kay can't figure out Nike's ad for Euro 2012. We're completely stumped too. sd-05.18

Images from Jean Errard's Fortification Réduicte Art and Démonstrée (Paris, 1600), a seminal work in fortification theory. dw-05.18

If you're able to find this Punk compilation album from the early-90s, you'll get all the punk classics from bands like Crowded House and the Eurythmics. sd-05.18

For BB: the Scooter Patch Archive. ms-05.18

When the label gets warm the snowflake turns into a sun. Via Brand New. jc-05.18

Sounds of Aronofsky. ms-05.18

Local note: tonight Gapers Block and The Coop present 8x8, an experiment in writing and design, featuring a whole plethora of FotA including Kevin Guilfoile, Claire Zulkey, Letterform, and Paul Octavious. sd-05.18

Big Week with Dan Benjamin, coming to the 5by5 Network in June. jc-05.18

Aqua-Velvet's Logo Collection: Part 2, Number Theory, 1960s/70. Here's Part 1. So simple. So great. jc-05.18

Sci-Fi-O-Rama takes a trip through Creative Computer Graphics by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, from 1984. jc-05.18

Fat men, baseball, and early twentieth century postcards. jc-05.18

Animated miniatures promoting the Oslo Airport expansion by Marc Reisberg. Beautiful, via Motionographer. jc-05.18

Gil Elvgren's iconic pin-up girls and the models he used for reference. jc-05.18

"The Kowloon Walled City was a singular Hong Kong phenomenon: 33,000 people living in over 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, built without the contributions of a single architect, ungoverned by Hong Kong's safety and health regulations, covering one square city block in a densely populated neighborhood near the end of the runway at Kai Tak airport." ms-05.18

Movie posters from entries at Cannes 2012. Love the Moonrise Kingdom photo. jc-05.18

Up & Onward, the design portfolio of Paul Shively. jc-05.18

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

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