What's All This Then?
This site is edited by Coudal Partners, a design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago, as an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce. [Next]
What's All This Then?
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Friday Edition
Leaving well enough alone.
What we talk about when we talk about work.
Coudal Partners
Vox Vocis
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.
Shift Option Rinse
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.
A Very Short Attention Span
Passing Fancy
Are you better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them? Pay attention.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Proper Attire
A perfectly constructed tee from a sweet new tri-blend with just our "Crois" on the front. That's it.
A CP Film In Five Parts
Laboratory Conditions
RIP Ed Grothus who we met while we were in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We were looking for locations for one film project and 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.
Field Notes meets Busy Beaver
Busy with the Beavers
We've been both fans and customers of the Busy Beaver Button Co. since forever. They've made buttons for Pinsetter, for Field Notes, and for a lot of our personal projects, too. We hung out in their office for a couple of hours, talking to founder Christen Carter, and put together this short doc, hopefully capturing a little of the greatness that is Busy Beaver.
A Project on the Attack
Going Negative
Fresh off the series of promo trailers we'd made for their new book REWORK, our office mates at 37signals dropped us a frantic line late Thursday afternoon with an idea. Their book was ranked just behind Karl Rove's in the Amazon sales rankings. Since Rove has a history of playing dirty in political media advertising, could we come up with a tongue-in-cheek attack ad about his book? And get it done in time to show it at one of their talks at SXSW on Sunday morning? It was going to be tight, but why not? Steve checked out political ads on YouTube to get the look just right, swapped some jokes back and forth with the 37s crew, practiced imitating that ominous, whispery narration every spot seems to use, and loaded up on iStock credits for footage, music and photos. Come Sunday, the video premiered at David Heinemeir Hansson's talk and, at least in that particular conference room, Karl Rove was finished.
Layer Tennis Season 3 Exhibitions
Ten Layer Cake
Highlights from the Layer Tennis Exhibition Season. Match #5 featured a common bin of video clips and an edit-list going back and forth between Jason Uson and Josh Bodnar in a video editing exhibition. Match 4 was an experimental five-day extended motion graphics competition featuring Matt Smithson and Daniel Oeffinger.
Two photographers in two cities shooting and posting a photographic dialogue live while a musician creates a sound track. That was Week #3's Exhibition Match #3 of live Layer Tennis. Here's the back story from the shooters. Match #2 was amazing, two expert typographers created and modified a new typeface in real time. Check Mark Simonson's recap, Beneath the Volley of the Fonts. The Season Opener was Khoi Vinh and Nicholas Felton with comments by John Nack and the guys have posted a terrific recap of what they did during the game, and why. It should be required reading for future players.
a short film that seems longer
Long Day’s Journey Out of Iowa
Our Steve Delahoyde is a man with an iron will. An iron will, a subcompact, a girlfriend and an idea on how to make a regular drive more, er, interesting. Note: All the driving worked. Claire and Steve are now Mr. and Mrs..
Two For The Dead
All Hallows’
It's often lost in the candy-coated, super-styled proceedings of the holiday, but Halloween is really all about departed souls and dealing with loss. Also for Halloween, Jason Santa Maria has collected some short writings on the subject of candy. Jim has contributed a warning in verse. Heed this well, young costumed beggars.
Not Quite so
Fresh Signals
A boy and girl in a city with a wigglegram.
Big thanks to Herman Yung of Doobybrain for serving as our Guest Editor in August. Up next for September is Mig Reyes of Threadless and Humble Pied. A list of all the brilliant people who have helped us throughout the years can be found here.
"The best of the bottom of the barrel." Youtube videos no one watches, Zero views.
"Gonna ride my bike until I get home." The Bike Song.
300,000 of the largest websites visualized with favicons. Oh, that one looks familiar.
There are gig posters, then there are vintage B-movie posters.
A look at some of the amazing rainforest wildlife photographs of Guido Sterkendries.
Musician Maxence Cyrin adapts pop songs to piano pieces and then sets them to scenes from classic films. You can see a fabulous example of his work with this take on The Pixies Where is My Mind. Via It's Nice That.
Trailer for the film Another Year.
Constantly changing the design of these cards hasn't helped the Cubs win, but who's keeping score?
If all modern art was like this, I'd be broke buying too many lifetime museum memberships. Video of Chris Burden's "The Flying Steamroller."
For BB: everyone's favorite video band Pomplamoose teamed up for a promo for a song off Lonely Avenue, the album Ben Folds and Nick Hornby have coming out in late September.
Thanks to this bizarre music vid, now I know where the stuff I drink every morning comes from: Funginears' Tea.
For the rock star/chef on your life, the Flipper Guitar spatula.
Everything is better when there's tacos involved, even your favorite music: Album Tacos. Thanks Claire.
Wanting to beat the studios to the punch, 54 different filmmakers have made The Footloose Remake. Here's the original for Scene 53 and here's the remake (give it a minute before it starts to veer ever so slightly).
As Glenn Beck's rally kicked off this weekend in DC, Jeff Jetton did the only thing that made any sense: dress up like pregnant demon and carry a sign reading, "I Want a Sandwich." Via Wonkette.
Chris Milk's interactive music vid for Arcade Fire's The Wilderness Downtown.
An infographic showing the history of search engines.
Heather K. Phillips' Stamps of Disapproval. Via design work life.
Pretty to look at, but like with all perfume/cologne/fashion ads, don't pay any attention to the script or the story: Martin Scorsese's spot for Chanel.
One more point for the "print is dead" team.
For MS: We gave the color wheel a spin.
Banksy placed this kiddie ride near the Brighton Pier. It's not your average kiddie ride. This one sports a dolphin entangled in a net and jumping over a BP oil barrel.
"With her fertile imagination, Eckert brilliantly pictures what makes a home, how different its meanings are to different eyes, and how little or much it takes to create the image of the home you want, your image of perfection." From photographer Amy Eckert,
Manufacturing Home.
Too cute, the arcade alarm clock.
"In the beginning, before there was such a thing as a Gutenberg Bible, Johannes Gutenberg laid out his rows of metal type and brushed them with ink and, using the mechanism that would change the world, produced an ordinary little schoolbook."
Be prepared to put your work aside and spend some time browsing. A ridiculously gigantic collection of vintage adverts.
"When the album that is life finally reaches the end, wouldn't it be nice to keep that record spinning for eternity?" Get your ashes pressed into vinyl with AndVinyly.
Scratch off the gold foil top layer to reveal geographic information about countries you have visited with My Scratch Map.
So you know, the 10 greatest accidental inventions of all time.
For when the facts are too confusing, Fake Science.
Trailer for 127 Hours.
Stunningly beautiful, stylish, highly collectible and each a limited numbered edition of 1000. Limited edition Puffin designer classics.
Really digging Linda Ferrari's photos of abandoned socialist monuments in Bulgaria. They seem so grand in scale and placed in such isolated areas.
Back to the Cover Page.
Find a JobIcon 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.
Having to do with our Field Notes Brand.
What we just talked about at lunch.
A Thing We Made:Field Notes
Field Notes Brand memo Books and more. "I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now." A CP/DDC joint.
Some Other Things We Made:
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:
"Jewelboxing to appear as part of Sonoma/Napa photography group meeting." Read the entire post.
Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.
The Deck Network. Interested in getting your product or service in front of millions of savvy, curious remarkably good-looking people? Give a shout.
