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

Your daily rabbit hole: the late, great Hollywood stuntman, writer, and director Hal Needham. To start you off, here's Hal on NPR's Fresh Air in 2011, then check out his six greatest stunts. Dude even had his own action figure and playsets. bb-yesterday

A playful analog interface for music by our pal and occasional co-conspirator Brendan Dawes, Plastic Player. I think remember chatting w/ Bren about this years ago. Fun. jc-yesterday

"A piece of fabric described as the Holy Grail of fashion history will become one of the star attractions at Hampton Court Palace after it was identified as the only surviving piece of clothing worn by Elizabeth I." ms-yesterday

Animated Engines & 507 Mechanical Movements. dw-yesterday

"The daily process goes like this: the sound that is occurring in a single ordinary living room space, during a single minute, is recorded. But, simultaneously, the previous day's recording — of the sound of the same space 24 hours before — is played back into the space. So, each recording includes its predecessor, which includes its predecessor in turn, and so on, in a potentially infinite regression." The Minute/Year Project by Kata Kovács and Tom O'Doherty. jc-yesterday

Two autonomous bots contemplating existence @seeBotsChat. dw-01.09

Marco on ten years of iPhone. Amen. jc-01.09

Paul Gets a Passport, a beautifully illustrated and interesting post from Codex 99, as usual. jc-01.09

Gorgeous, from photographer Ken Hermann and art director Gem Fletcher, Wrestlers of Inner Mongolia. ms-01.06

Adrian's picks for the best film posters of 2016. As you'd expect, a great list. jc-01.06

An aerial tour of the new Apple campus. ms-01.06

From The Guardian, the top 10 unreliable narrators. ms-01.06

While I was home for New Year's, I photographed my dad's liquor collection for posterity. 144 bottles dating back to the 60s, from all over the world. bb-01.06

"Each of our patterns are artistic interpretations of symbols that Vietnamese associate with new beginnings." Coca-Cola's Tet 2017. dw-01.05

"Kodak will produce Ekatachrome at its film factory in Rochester, N.Y., and will market and distribute the Super 8 motion picture film version of Ekatachrome film directly." Comeback story. jc-01.05

An interactive visualization of every line in Hamilton. ms-01.05

Fabulous, Tiny Hut in the Sky. ms-01.05

Wired gives us their picks for their fave gadgets at this year's CES Show. ms-01.05

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine title stills. Fab. jc-01.05

SK talks about The Shining in a 1980 interview conducted by Michel Ciment. Includes a really interesting section on the primacy of narrative in film and novels. Thanks Jeff. jc-01.05

Everything Steven Soderbergh saw and read in 2016. jc-01.04

Gorgeous Sonoma County farmhouse. ms-01.04

Wait for it. ms-01.04

"You knew this about me, and you knew this about the cows. I made this very clear when we had the argument in front of the ducks. We were at the pond, you made quite the scene, and I had to explain it to you right there - those are my ducks. In the absence of my cows, at this point, they are priority number one in my life. To think I would put you before my ducks is a near wanton absurdity." ms-01.04

Pocket-sized duct tape. dw-01.04

Part 4 of Brand New's run down of the best and worst identities of 2016. jc-01.04

"Realize it's Saturday and you were planning to be OOO tomorrow to admire your creation and everything, but I'm hoping you can keep rolling on this through the weekend." Client Feedback on the Creation of the Earth, by Mike Lacher. jc-01.04

Lonesome Grain Silos Of Hobson Montana. jc-01.03

From Tape Drives to Memory Orbs, the Data Formats of Star Wars Suck, by Sarah Jeong. jc-01.03

LSSU's 42nd annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. dw-01.03

Coffee Lids. Definitely MoOM-ish. Via Gray. jc-01.03

A Full Sky Aurora Over Norway ms-01.03

Palette knife portraits by Salman Khoshroo. jc-01.03

From Field Notes and writer/director Matthew James Thompson, a film for the holidays, In Your Hands. jc-12.23

Best gif of 2016. jc-12.23

"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-12.23

Warm up with William Faulkner's hot toddy recipe. bb-12.23

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

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

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