You may remember we made some custom FIELD NOTES for our friends at Threadless and they ran a contest on flickr a coupl’a weeks ago. One of the ten winners, Kyle Kastranec, posted some photos of his winnings and shared his winning entry:

So I answered the question of how I would use a custom 3-pack of Threadless Field Notes with this:

I will use the first to plan a chest painting for every single Cleveland Browns home game next season.

I will use the second to document my vintage t-shirt collection (via precise color facsimiles) for future generations to envy.

And I will use the third to help me memorize the name and placement of every human organ in case I decide to become a doctor.

We will certainly follow up with Kyle to see the finished notebooks, especially the chest painting sketches, matched to photos, matched to Browns’ final scores. Thanks, Kyle!

We’ve been crazy busy with custom editions lately. Aside from a few “logo jobs” like these, we did Kids’ “Neon Ice Pop” FIELD NOTES for J.Crew’s “CrewCuts” kids’ store, the aforementioned Threadless books, and a couple other colorful runs we can’t talk about yet, not to mention our upcoming limited-edition Spring 2010 COLORS set, which will be available soon for presale to our e-mail list. Sign up at the top of the left column of this very page!

As always, drop Michele a line if you’re interested in customized FIELD NOTES!

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The March 2010 Vanity Fair features a great feature story about beloved Chicago filmmaker John Hughes. Throughout the article, David Kamp describes Hughes as a lifelong writer and note-taker. Page 263 features a Dan Winters photograph of part of Hughes’ extensive collection of notebooks, and just inches from the original handwritten script of The Breakfast Club (A Mead spiral notebook labeled “Detention”) sits a familiar-looking kraft-paper-covered memo book. Most of us here at FN HQ grew up with Hughes’ films, and ever since he placed his first order, we’ve been fantasizing about what great ideas Hughes shared with his FIELD NOTES.

UPDATE 2/25: Aaron Draplin reveals a bit more about Hughes’ relationship with the DDC and FIELD NOTES, and promises to share the whole story someday.

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Ladies and Gentleman, we bring you none other than Clint David Walkingstick.

If that isn’t just about the best name ever, I don’t know what is. Nevertheless, Clint’s on to something with his cunning use of our “FN-09″ General-Purpose Band of Rubber: “A good way to keep the cards tight and right.”

Clint’s a busy guy. He makes shirts, runs a lively blog and is a graphic designer with a way with words.

I’m gonna give this one a try here in Berlin. I’ve got my cards, a Field Notes Band of Rubber and an iron will.

Thanks, Clint David Walkingstick. That is one hell of a name.

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We got a nice package in the mail today from our friends at J Crew, their latest catalogue. When we got to pages 94-95 and saw that our Field Notes Memo Books were featured with such iconic brands as Timex, Sperry, Ray Ban, and Belstaff, we just about fell over. J Crew has been with us for a long while, they started by carrying us in their awesome men’s shop, The Liquor Store in Tribeca and we sure do appreciate their support. Oh and our kids dig them too.

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Eben Lindsay took a few photos and wrote us. Fishing that day was fantastic. We were at the Lower Stanislaus River outside of Oakdale Ca. It was the kind of beautiful California weather that, as an East Coast transplant still amazes me in January. The fishing was good for January, and the light was great for photography. At lunch I took a few minutes to make some notes in my FIELD NOTES about what flies were working and what parts of the river were productive. When I got home I sketched out the best pool and made notes about the current and where in the pool the fish were holding. Thanks for that.

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The Offer.
The Destination.
The Package.
The Invoice.
The Content.
The Field.

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A while back, we were excited to learn that eminent graphic novelist Warren Ellis was a fan of FIELD NOTES memo books. Following up, Ellis recently posted scans of some FIELD NOTES pages, sharing a glimpse of his creative process, including a futurist nanotechnology concept, a bit of an Astonishing X-Men script, some dialogue for Gravel, and some layout notes for his collaborators.

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Aaron in Denver is using his customized FIELD NOTES (above) as a “Vinyl Want List” for record-shopping expeditions. (It also turns out we have a lot of common friends in the motorscooter scene, cheers Aaron!)

Vanessa here in Chicago is documenting a messy breakup of a long-time relationship on her blog “Nine,” and is looking forward to running out of space in her old notebook so she can break open her Grass Stain Green FIELD NOTES.

Andrea in Oregon found an 1880s FIELD NOTES ancestor, and points out that our “FN-09 Band of Rubber” (included in online orders!) makes a great cat toy.

Keep the stories coming to pages@fieldnotesbrand.com! And get on the mailing list (top left of the site), we’ve got some good stuff in the pipeline that will be announced soon!

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A few weeks ago, COLORS subscriber Ladd Cotton of Salt Lake City, Utah fired up his Smith Corona and typed us a letter about his FIELD NOTES customization projects. Ladd’s been making hand-stitched leather covers and adding ledger information to each page for some adventurous friends and family. The other day, he followed up with an email and some photos:

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Filmmaker Juan Camilo Barriga in Rome writes:

I am currently shooting a short film. And we didn’t have an eyebrow for the camera at the time so I improvised with my field notes. The only downside is that I had to take the cover off. But now it is back on the notebook!!
Field notes are awesome! I not only use them as makeshift equipment for cameras, but it’s also where the shot lists are made and where the storyboard is born!

So add “Prevent lens flare” to the list of uses for FIELD NOTES! (Maybe we’ll look at some matte black paper for COLORS?) Thanks, Juan!

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