Three different books, for three summer months!

Black staples!

Front!

Back! Check those foil hits!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Our Field Notes Colors "Night Sky" Summer Edition are NOW SHIPPING!

If anyone's seen one of my talks in the last eight months, they should remember a little bit I do where I challenge all in attendance to "Get Cosmic." Just for one second, to slow it all down and savor the reality that we are on a rock, floating in space, surrounded by majestic, great, mindblowing amounts of nothingness, distance, space and ether. And, it's real. It's science. To stop whatever yer doing and think, "Shit, if we go 100 million miles in any direction, that's just a grain of sand within a sea."

Our universe is big, and at times, those stars can be DEAFENING, when you really think about how big EVERYTHING is, and how beautifully, hauntingly insignificant we are in all of it.

I find that line of thought beautiful, refreshing and provocative...and oddly soothing.

Okay, come back down to earth, cosmos drifter...

When Jim and the gang told me about the "Night Sky" Summer Edition some months back, I quietly freaked out. ANOTHER killer offering, and, something hitting very close to home within me as of recently. I knew they were onto something incredible, and finally getting to see them up close last week, well, my mind was YET AGAIN blown to cosmic smithereens. Bravo, Field Notes Midwest!

Get it going with a click here!

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SNAGGED FROM FIELD NOTES WEB SITE: Countless lines of prose, poetry, and music have been written in hopes of capturing the magic of a summer night, but leave it to FIELD NOTES to take an inexplicably transcendent feeling and distill it down to basic science: it’s the stars. If you live in the city, you may often forget that there are more than a handful of ‘em up there. But if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere without light pollution, seeing the Milky Way stretched across the sky on a moonless summer night never gets old.

Our nineteenth edition of FIELD NOTES COLORS celebrates the wonders that cross the summer sky each night. The “Night Sky” 3-Pack features French Construction “Blacktop” covers, mapping out three sets of constellations that have graced the northern hemisphere summer sky long before “summer” was given a name. Constellations and popular asterisms are highlighted in silver holographic foil. Inside is our usual beloved Finch Opaque text paper, with a new “Reticle Graph,” sort of a hybrid of our popular dot-grid and graph papers. It’s all bound together with shiny black staples.

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WATCH THIS FOR A LITTLE PRIMER:

Field Notes: Night Sky Edition from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

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THEN, CLICK THIS ONE, KICK BACK, AND WATCH THE NIGHT WHIP BY: A visit to the Great Basin in Nevada!

I mean, come on...incredible, right? So cool. Thank you, Field Notes Midwest!

LOVE THAT CARGLUX LOGO: One of our all-time faves!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM: Sure, my dad steals the spotlight on the blog. Eats up that bandwidth with that big head of his. But the reason I'm here, and who I am, and the RAGING gentleman I've grown into is because of my mom. And that's that.

Happy birthday to the best mom a kid could ask for.

THIS SHIT'S GRABBING ME: The new Pokey LaFarge record from Third Man Recordings has really got me. Lazy and kinda sweaty. We dig. Old sounds, but new. Listening to it on the headphones, banging around the basement and shit. Charming stuff.

TAKING THE DAY OFF: And not doing much. At least, nothing to really detail on here. I can tell you this much: Whatever we did was in the spirit of "getting out of town" in a couple weeks, heading back to Michigan for some time with mom and dad. Eyes on the prize. Time back home with mom and dad, laying low.

WITH ALL THE MIGHT WE HAVE: Today is Leigh's last day in class, but a couple hours away from wrapping up a hard-fought battle for her Masters of Education! A MASTERS DEGREE, people. Learned. Earned. Amazing.

Leigh wears a lot of hats. Mom, student, sister, cousin, friend and girlfren to little 'ol me.

I just want to note that her accomplishment is something very special. Graduate level stuff is rough. Her commitment to her program, the ups, downs and those little rugrats she watched over that last bunch of months...impressive moves, across the boards.

She kept a surgical focus intact for years! Getting up each morning SO early, raising her Ewok, navigating ugly employment reports, slaying adversity from the saddest of sources, being a long way from home, dealing my little brand of "graphic design-ism", and the whole time, doing it with grace, spirit and determination.

And something else that blows me away: She could of went after all sorts of degrees. Other paths. more lucrative fields. Instead, she picked one of the toughest, trickiest, most under-appreciated fields of all. And that says a lot about her character. She wants to help the little ones.

I just find that kind of selflessness INSPIRING.

She is going to do GREAT things on this path. Remember that cool teacher you had? She'll be one of those kinds of educators.

Congratulations are in order for this girl.

It's summer time, lady...TAKE A LOAD OFF!

FOUND THIS ONE, SOME TIME AGO: Was diggin' deep in Murray's Archive, and found this little gem. The reel is fine, sure. That's not what "got us." That boss "Mitchell" type STOPPED US DEAD IN OUR TRACKS. So good. Wow.

BRING ON THE HEAT: If you can't beat it, join it, right? Well, we're gonna try a new approach this summer, and get our girth out in that sun a little bit more. Come July, we're heading back to Michigan to hang with the parents, and you can bet yer ass I'll be floating around in our big Lake Michigan under the supervision of Lifeguard Leigh.

So we made a logo for that big summer sun. Might plop it on a t-shirt? Would you wear one? And if so, what color? Let's make some threads, you some summer scrubs!

TONIGHT, PORTLAND: 6pm! Here's the link, you curious Portlanders!

We're talking about things tonight! A sorta new talk from our tour, revised, beat-down, hocked up, wrastled and spit out into a speaking fiasco we're calling "Things About Things That Don't Have A Thing To Do With Things."

We've tested this to SUCCESSFUL results in Toronto and Vancouver, and you know how discerning Canadians can be! The shit worked up there, and it WILL work tonight!

How we're selling this one: Tired of that same old overly smart, overly coy, overly dramatic conference talk you keep sitting through? Yeah, you know the one. Where some yahoo is up there "connecting the dots" on a bunch of shit that is more or less obvious, or, is painfully parsed together? We get it. But it doesn't mean it's fun. So give the DDC a shot? Welcome to our little brand of dumb! Let this talk be a breath of fresh air. Get dirty with the DDC and talk about things that don't really have much to do with things. Dumb things. Orange things. Wild things. Things that might save yer life. Things that might make you throw out the old things? And maybe not? That just might be the thing…

Be there, fuckers! One night only! Our ONLY gig this summer in Portland!

WE'VE BEEN ON A SEARCH TOO LONG: And after a couple years of hoisting dirty old beasts, we settled one on the internet, and holy shit, good luck getting it out to Portland! Freight blues!

WHEN RECORD SHOPPING, ALWAYS KEEP THAT LAZY EYE OPEN: Even when I strike and don't find something to snag, I still look for old logos. And some time ago, I stumbled on to this old Capitol Records logo. So good. The way they used to do it.

NEED A BREAK: Getting sick. Already sick? Something like that. Allregies? Bug? Argh. We're closing the DDC factory floor today and heading home to rest and take a load off.

DARKNESS ENVELOPES THE DDC FACTORY FLOOR: With the arrival of our "Black on Black" action caps!

Click here and scroll down a bit to get to the "Black 6-Panel Foam with a Black Patch!" So evil. Feel the darkness.

TODAY, VANCOUVER: High noon, precisely. Us, baring our soul up on a stage to a room packed full with Canadian web/design/craft people! Right downtown, in the big buildings of Vancouver, is the Interlink Conference, and we come in peace! High noon! Be there! A talk about things...

OFFICIAL INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: Tomorrow, Vancouver! We unleash a sort of new speaking fiasco titled, "Things About Things That Don't Have A Thing To Do With Things." At the Interlink Conference! Be there! Hopping a flight up to Vancouver later tonight. Border hoppin'!

ONE MORE GIG TO GO: Our final stop of the DDC 2013 "Sorta Winter Right The Fuck On Into Spring" North American tour is this Thursday in Vancouver, BC at the Interlink Conference! Excited to head up there!

AMERICA, YOU BIG, BEAUTIFUL LAND: And to our fellow Americans, we have to wonder: Have you procured a couple sets of our latest Field Notes Color release, "America The Beautiful?"

Three different cover on coated paper, big, goopy CMYK dots, copper staples, burly uncoated innards and a REAL water decal! You need this!

Get it going here, and don't miss the movie Field Notes Midwest made and slayed! So good.

From the Field Notes site: In today’s world of computerized precision, it was challenging to find anything but the brightest-white paper, and our printer takes great pride in perfection. Printing oversaturated photos on yellowed paper, with a purposefully out-of-register 100-line screen, was nearly outside the capabilities of modern machinery and left pressmen scratching their heads. But we made it happen! The dust has settled, and we present our beefiest FIELD NOTES ever. Colorful stock photography of “Spacious Skies,” “Amber Waves,” and “Mountains Majesty” are reproduced in full-color on heavyweight, off-white, Tango-coated one-side covers, and stuffed with 48 pages of burly Finch “Soft White” paper ruled with “Looseleaf Blue” ink. They’re bound together with shiny copper staples, and as always: they’re manufactured in the very nation they celebrate.

Hell yeah, America!

GOT THE HELL OUT OF TOWN AS QUICK AS WE COULD: Not that the place wasn't nice. Nah. Super nice. Evan knows how to pick those painfully cute and quaint joints. Wolfesboro, New Hampshire is a beautiful little town. Smells of Mitt Romney, unfortunately.

I'll say this much: Lake Winnipesaukee just might be one of the most beautiful lakes I've even been on. Just gorgeous.

But man, that heat was something else. 97 and 98 degree and shit. In early June? Excruciating. Sweated in places I didn't know could sweat. Like, yer earlobes and kneecaps. That's hot.

Leigh and I woke up in our ice box lake hotel, readied ourselves, hit a Dunkin' Donuts for round things and hit the road back down to Boston. Flew out around 4pm, happy as hell for our buddies Evan + Maja. A beautiful wedding with lots of beautiful people, and, some a couple ugly fucks. Congrats!

Married!

Evan's class ring. Always classy.

My shoes were a little too orange for a couple numbnuts in attendance. Suck it.

Lance Violette threw up blood at midnight. This was some time before that. Poor guy.

Hungry people getting rather "grabby."

Dock dicks. Lance and Chief.

Ocean bugs for dinner.

Carnage.

Party time!

THANKS, NEW HAMPSHIRE: That was a hot, fun night. All photos by our beardy buddy, Jared Eberhardt. Thanks, man. Good seeing all you fuckers.

SUN DOES SHINE ON A DOG'S ASS EVERY NOW AND AGAIN: And this weekend, that beagle is one Evan Rose. He finally got Maja to accept his weird, little hand in marriage, and that shit is going to get REAL OFFICIAL in New Hampshire on Saturday.

Now, some time ago we made a rogue edition of Field Notes that Evan insisted on calling "Field Knots." Ever the copywriter, and not one to fuck with marriage preparations, we let the guy take the reigns and craft a VERY LIMITED edition of "Evan + Maja Bee" announcement books.

They turned out great! They were shipping a couple months back, and then shipped out to the roster of friends and family invited to the event.

Don't even ask about getting one of these. So limited.

Leigh and I are heading to the woods of New Hampshire late tonight, via a series of painful flights. For Maja, mainly.

WE GOT TO MAKE ART TO HELP KIDS: Just as simple, and cool, as that. Some time ago, Don from the always-awesome Invisible Creature invited me to contribute to the yearly Target "Heartwork" project.

Target puts it best: Heartwork is a project designed to raise money for art supplies within the art room at Target House—this wonderful home-away-from-home for the families of children facing long-term treatment at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

So proud to roll the sleeves up on this one. ALL the entries were killer! Check 'em all out with a click here!

BACK AT IT: That last gig in Wichita, then the subsequent Sasquatch Festivalism have got the best of me. Time to focus and get back to the work at hand.

HEAVY METAL, IN A MALL PARKING LOT: We'll go a long way to get a Red Fang fix. Even just a little one. This afternoon, Leigh and I ventured down into the wilds of Clackamas to see some heavy riffage. Got to see Coyle and Maureen for a split second, amidst the shredding.

There was even a "pit" with gangly, chaotic youngsters "slamming." One big oaf was purposely knocking kids down, then laughing about it with his fuckwad buddies. Dumb never goes out of style.

I love me some Red Fang, and it was awesome to see 'em, rain or shine. New album this fall!

Inspection complete!

Brad, Bailee, Man Mountain, Leigh Leigh = Couple Dynamics.

This is how we show affection: Gripping my lady's face with meaty palms.

Pondering the bigness of that big gorge. Leigh photo!

WE'RE GOING NEXT YEAR: That's a threat!

A LONG, FUN DAY AT THE SASQUATCH FESTIVAL: Slept in over there in Ellensburg. Needed it, bad. Met Brad and Bailee, loaded up on breakfast at the Yellow House, then whipped over to George, Wash. Then we spent a day at the Sasquatch Festival, and here's our big fat list:

01. Got to shake the hands of Tame Impala, nerd out and give all the lads Field Notes.
02. Went as far backstage as possible, even get booted out of Nick Offerman's "back ramp."
03. Loaded up on lunch around rock and rollers.
04. Sucked down beers on blow-up tents. I don't even drink, so, hell, "going for it."
05. Lurked the merch tent and saw all the awesome Sasquatch shit.
06. Inspected the monster graphics everywhere, glowing with pride.
07. Waited all day, and finally got to see Tame Impala slay it. We dig.
08. Got to see what it looks like from the big stage, while XX played.
09. Loaded up on a nutritious supper amidst roadies and rockers.
10. Ran into a bunch of Bend scrubs.
11. Made buddies in the backstage tent.
12. Waved our little wrist passes every 100 yards at some beeper bro.
13. Watched Nick Offerman from some booze rig, but couldn't hear him. Boo.
14. Wondered about age, youth and how I'm in my middle age, like it or not.
15. Smiled big and wide each time some scrub walked by in a Sasquatch t-shirt.
16. Gazed out over that big gorge.
17. Hung with my Leigh Leigh all day.
18. Shot the shit with my buddy Brad and his lovely Bailee.
19. Learned to pick out "rock boots" to decipher who was and wasn't "playing in a bit."
20. Had a fuckload of fun, and thank you to Adam & Lynn from the Sasquatch Festival!

WE STRUCK THE DEAL IN A CORNFIELD IN IOWA: DDC "Northeast Iowa" tour manager Dana "Spuds Mackenzie" Lechtenberg as my witness, my phone blew up and it was one Adam Zacks representing the infamous Sasquatch Festival on the other end!

I made Dana pull the rig over so I could focus. We talked about the history of the Sasquatch festival, the recent poster/event work of the incomparable Invisible Creature and how there might be a chance the DDC could help out for 2013. Yes!

We struck a deal in that Iowa country side that day. I mean, sure, Adam was in Seattle, but I made him promise me this: THE DDC DEMANDS A GAGGLE OF THE "BACKSTAGIEST OF BACKSTAGE PASSES" FOR LEIGH, ME AND A COUPLE BUDDIES. And he promised me the world. And the Gorge. And the heart of Doug Martsch.

I remember saying something to the effect of, "Adam, goddammit, come May next year I want to be in that backstage zone saying, "Hey there, Jack White, hand me that potato salad, bud..."

We laughed and got to work a month later.

And holy shit, Leigh and I are in an Ellensburg hotel, resting up for a couple days lurking at the Sasquatch festival! So excited to see those big graphics all over the thing! I wish wish wish we could've brought the Ewok along, as that was a big part of accepting this job. I wanted the kid to be able to hang backstage with us, seeing the bands. Next summer, buddy.

Anyhoo, goodnight from Ellensburg. Tame Impala tomorrow!!!

Man, I love that logo. Lucky little Wichita'ers!

We made a poster for Kansas! Everything we've ever known about the sunflower state!

WICHITA, WE DID IT: So you know how I always say to the designers in the crowd, "Stay the fuck out of Portland?" Well, tonight, I meant it. Wichita has SERIOUS DESIGN TALENT slithering all over town, and man, I was intimidated. Some great, great work going down in that town.

Take Chris Parks, or, Dominic Flask, or Ben Redington? Heavy hitters! great to meet you guys.

Anyhoo, the show was awesome, held in Cowtown in a Wild West saloon venue thing. Complete with wood plank walk ways and old west musk smell. Best venue of the tour!

Thank you so goddamn much to every one who attended the gig, bought a Kansas poster, shot the shit, showed me their incredible work, chowed down and hung heavy. Met so many cool people in Wichita. I didn't want to leave.

Thank you to AIGA Wichita for such a cool gig. Man, that sound system ROCKED!

Extra special thanks to Dom and Ben for taking me record shopping. Three shops in 90 minutes. Perfect.

Keep up the killer work, Wichita! I'll be back, I swear!

KANSAS CALLS: And we meet that call. Today we're flying down to Wichita, Kansas for a quick gig for AIGA Wichita!. Excited to hang in Kansas. Ben Redington, we're on our way!

TOO BUSY TO BLOG: Martino is still here, and shit's getting heated up on these monitors. wild vectors for upcoming bindings. How we do it. Good to see you, Martino! So good up there.

Wichita, we are coming for you this Thursday!