Hello Jim

Hope you’re all staying safe. Like everyone, we’re rolling with the changes these days. Our online store is open, and we’d truly appreciate it if you’d purchase some Field Notes.  

Introductions and Some Fun

We figured since we all have time on our hands these days, it would be fun to get to know each other a little better and also give away some cool stuff. Here’s Jim.

“Hello. I’m Jim Coudal, I started Field Notes with my pal Aaron Draplin and the amazing team at my design firm, Coudal Partners. Over the last ten years, Field Notes has grown and grown until it basically took over our business; it’s all we do now.” 

“We have a blast making new things, making new friends, and learning lots of new stuff along the way. My favorite part of the business is when we decide to create a special edition based on a particular chapter of design or printing history, then —as a team— dive in really deeply to research and understand the processes and craftsmanship that went into it, and then decide on production techniques that replicate it, as honestly as we can.”

“Today’s prize is a good example. ‘Dime Novel’ gave us the opportunity to uncover the very beginnings of the American mass-market paperback industry and adapt modern printing technology to deliver a result that echoes the 1860s. Of course there are going to be occasional anachronisms. The Field Notes typeface, Paul Renner’s Futura, for instance, wasn’t released until sixty years after the first dime novel!”

“My incredible wife Heidi and I have three kids: Isabelle, Grace, and Spencer. Outside of work I’m into Chicago history, Carravagio, Kubrick, Mies, Dylan, biking, and 16-inch softball (I pitch and drink beer for two teams; The Scandal and The Nice Marmots.)”

Now Here’s Your Part

Say hello back by posting a selfie of you holding a Field Notes product and tell us a little about yourself. Be sure add the tag #HelloFieldNotes to your post. Or send it to [email protected]  We’ll collect all the entries we receive and see on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and randomly choose three winners. We will send each winner a rare, out-of-print Field Notes Edition from our archives. We’ll pull the winners from the entire pool of entries, so if you’ve already said hello, you’re in for every day’s drawing.

Winners and Prizes

Tuesday’s random winners are Kathryn in the mountains of Wyoming, Caleb in Berea, Kentucky, and Lily in Seattle. They will each receive the “Ambition” Edition from the Winter of 2014. Congrats.

Today’s winners will receive 2-Packs of the long-sold-out “Dime Novel” Edition from the Fall of 2017. We’ll also include the sweet 1" button that year-long subscribers received. Tomorrow, another one of us will say hello, announce the winners, and let you know what the next prize will be. 

It’s nice to meet you.