Field Notes History

Paper and Staples,

and So So So Much More.

Like many things on this site, to get the full story about Field Notes, it’s best to read the origin story in our Pretty Much Everything book. That’s the whole enchilada! But to boil it down a bit? When I look back at how Field Notes started, what dawns on me over and over again is the odd idea of taking matters into your own hands. As designers, we’re trained to get the call, when someone is in need of our services. To help their product along. That’s kind of the only way I know this stuff. But what happens when you upend that? And just make your own stuff? It’s a magical thing. And then you realize the change you made: I made my own stuff, and skinned it with my graphic arts skills. And the dollar made on it? That’s all mine. And that was an epiphany for me with Field Notes. Turns out, we can make our own stuff. That’s what Field Notes is all about. All these years later, I still feel the same buzz when I use them day-to-day, or, see them out in the world. Thank you to everyone who uses our little books. Forever appreciated.

Meeting Jim Coudal

and the Handshake That

Started Field Notes

I was a fan of Coudal Partners before they met me. I was watching their “Daily Signals” feed from my basement in Portland. Each day they offered up an assortment of consistently cool links, events and oddball corners of the internet to explore. I was doing the same in the mid-2000s. My blog was daily for a lot of years and somewhere around the fall of 2003 they landed on my draplin.com page. Jim reached out with this email, “How about helping us out during January as our Fresh Signals Guest Editor Aaron? -J”

I jumped at the chance! That was a fun January, and exhausting coming up with cool shit to link each day. Mainly, I was pumped to become buddies with Coudal Partners. They were doing so many cool things, and had guts. I heard Jim say this one a bunch of times, “We don’t take a project on unless it teaches us something.” That blew my mind.

The next couple of years we stayed in touch, trading links and checking in on each other. On my next road trip back east, I made sure I hit Coudal Partners to meet Jim before whipping up the coast to Mom and Dad’s place in Lake Ann.

Must’ve been the fall of 2004 when I finally met Jim and the gang? Something like that.

SHHH!!!

Society for Handheld Hushing

In short, Jim had this idea to make cards that you could give to people who were being loud on their cellphones. He called me and tasked me with the design of the card. I whipped something out that night, fired it back and Jim posted on it on coudal.com, and his audience latched onto it, reposted the thing and the next thing you know, we had 15,000 downloads that day of our little PDF. And get this: People were saying they were going to use them! This was in 2004, when cellphones were still kind of a new thing. Within a couple weeks it had gone viral enough to have Jim and I doing radio spots on NPR stations, as well as no shortages of spicy comments from folks who weren’t feeling the cards.

Here’s a little something I wrote about these cards on December 15, 2004: “Lots and lots of commotion has been created by the Draplin/Coudal Shhh! cards. There have been reports of downloads lumbering past the 100,000 mark. Wow. Settle down, truckers. It’s an experiment, of sorts.

If anyone has the goddamned balls to actually use them, well, best of luck. I’m gonna bet a couple knuckle sandwiches could be in order? We don’t want to create more drama, but we’d be happy to know that the mere existence of these cards is enough to make people think a little bit. I know I have. I’m toning shit down whenever I can.

Thanks to all for the comments—the good, the bad and the downright ugly—as they are appreciated.”

Draplin Design Company: Thanks for sitting down with us.
Jim Coudal: I was already sitting down.
DDC: That’s right, okay, so, what the hell?
JC: Huh?
(Long Pause.)
(I get out of my chair and look out the window towards that Sears Tower.)
DDC: Quite a view you got here, eh?
JC: It’s pretty good, right?
DDC: Okay, Jim, don’t dodge the questions.
JC: Wha…
DDC: What’s up with the heat in this town? I’m sweating like a pig.
JC: Yeah, it was cold and raining and warmed up all the sudd…
DDC: That’s speculation.
JC: Wha…?
(Another long pause. Some staring. Raised eyebrows.)
DDC: Okay Jim, let’s get serious now, shall we?
JC: (Silence.)
DDC: Okay, so, what’s next for Coudal partners?
JC: You leaving the property.
DDC: Right. Real good. Thanks for yer time.

My Buddy Jim

I sure do appreciate Jim Coudal. He’s been a friend, mentor, co-conspirator and trusted voice who’s delivered a swift kick in the ass from time to time to get me right. He believed in me from the very get-go and took the reigns of my little idea and made it into something that was just the right size. If you noticed, I didn’t say, “…made Field Notes into something BIG.” That was never the goal. From day one and that first handshake. The main thing Jim Coudal taught me? Bigger isn’t always better. Jim and the gang built Field Notes into something we could keep in check at all times. Little decisions that pay off in big ways. It’s been very successful, and I’ll forever be thankful for that side of it, but the part that brings a tear to my eye? Precisely this: We got to make our own decisions for our own brand at our own pace. And that is a universe Jim Coudal provided for us. And I appreciate every last bit of it.

And Jim, if you are reading this? Send me the latest edition. Been waiting for weeks! What am I, chopped liver? Don’t answer that.

Field Notes
Personnel

Why is it that EVERY time I visit the Field Notes headquarters in Chicago, everyone is suddenly putting on jackets and grabbing backpacks to go catch a train or whatever? Aaron shows up, and the place shuts down. Now, I clearly know this bull-in-a-memo-book-shop can be a bit disruptive. I like to talk. I like to laugh. I like to say words. I like to gaze into the eyes of Bryan Bedell over Italian sandwiches. I like to have a couple pages of ideas to share with Jim, then sit there like a silent, little lamb, silently taking in all the news from the Field Notes expanse. Happens every time, and I look forward to each chance I get to hang with our leader Jim.

Of course, there's a tricky “Just Not There-ism” or “Too Far Away Out In Portland-ism” thing that I battle. There’s just no way to be on the front lines of Field Notes. We did it for a couple years when we got going, and Jim would loop me into the big decisions. Bryan would patiently show me every single move on the product. But I could feel I was becoming a bit of a burden, sweating them on every little, pernickety detail. I got over that quick, trusting these awesome, clever, fastidious people with my graph paper life.

Here’s how it goes these days: When Jim needs something, I keep a little reserve at-the-ready and jump on it as fast as I can. And once I get close, Bryan’ll take it from there and bring it over the finish line. WOOSH!

To all the folks who work at Field Notes, past and present, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE know how thankful I am to be a part of it all—some 2,500 miles due West withstanding—and appreciate every bit of energy spent making Field Notes what we’ve all made it. Thank you, gang!