Staple Day 9

A MONTHLY UPDATE FROM INSIDE FIELD NOTES

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Hi, it’s Jim from Field Notes. This is the ninth edition of our monthly mail which contains a variety of stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Please respond to this email if you have comments, questions, or suggestions.

TLDR Version: Feedback, Postcards from the Edge, Shakespeare & Memory, Rustic Blobs, A Primitive Instrument, John and Ansel and Seth, Close to Home

Form and Function

The primary way we investigate potential new Field Notes styles and formats is by watching how people use our products. We’re also lucky that many people write us directly to tell us what does and doesn’t work for them, and what we could do to make things more useful. Thankfully, people are not shy to post photographs and videos of their filled-up books online, and we keep close tabs on those too.

For our summer release we have identified a particular way a large number of people are using our Memo Books and have recruited a team of them to help us craft a new product that will be adaptable enough to appeal to a wide audience, but specific enough to keep things nicely organized. It’s a fun process and there is a bit of paper engineering involved in the production of this one too. Our Quarterly Editions give us the flexibility to try new things that sometimes wind up as part of our product line. For example, Expedition, Front Page, and Heavy Duty all started as quarterly editions. So thanks especially to our subscribers for making that possible.

* There’s a Chicago connection and a nerdy and interesting story behind the history and reproduction of the postcards. Read “Greetings from the Shores.”

Tis in My Memory Lock’d

Writers and actors, David and Ben Crystal appeared on an episode of the Shakespeare Unlimited Podcast (which is consistently great, btw) to chat about their book, Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life. David talked a bit about an experimental approach to producing plays that applies to note-taking and handwriting in general.

“My Shakespeare theater companies have been exploring for the last ten years a modern adaptation of Elizabethan or Jacobean rehearsal practice where they only have two or three days to raise their shows.”

“One of the first questions that we get asked is, ‘How, if you have that limited amount of time, how do you possibly remember the lines? How can you possibly learn all of Hamlet in a day or less than a day?’”

“One of the things that you can do is write it out into your own hand. We know that Shakespeare’s actors would have had to copy out their own parts in their own hand. That was partly practical, because one’s handwriting isn’t necessarily easily legible for others. But also, if you sort of imagine you’re copying something out, you’re sucking those words into your short-term memory there. If you were to come back to that line in five minutes or ten minutes, I’d pretty much guarantee it won’t be there. But if you leave it alone for a day, and come back to it the next morning, or even the day after, you might be surprised that it’s sunk in from your short-term memory and into your longer-term memory.”

Note: The podcast is produced by the The Folger Shakespeare Library, whose home in Washington DC is reopening to the public on June 21, after a multi-year renovation. Sounds like an excellent excuse for a weekend trip.

What the Font?

Back in summer of 2020, Field Notes designer Bryan Bedell went deep into the origins of a classic National Parks rustic script typeface that we wanted to reproduce for our old-school National Parks Water Transfer Decals. After assembling information and digitizing samples he wrote up the results of his research and conclusions in a Dispatch on our site.

“I’m dying to know if a maniac drew these with pen and ink and a genius traced them in Illustrator, or if a genius drew them with pen and ink and a maniac traced them in Illustrator. I’m pretty sure it’s one or the other, and I say that with the greatest love and respect for anyone involved in making these perfectly imperfect blobs of text.”

Bryan’s process is a great example of a balance we have always tried to to strike at Field Notes. Of course, we’re here to make, and market note books. But just as importantly, we’re also here to learn.

A House for Words

“Keyboards have always intimidated me. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page. Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience. And I have a particular fetish for notebooks with quadrille lines—the little squares.”

“I suppose I think of the notebook as a house for words, as a secret place for thought and self-examination. I’m not just interested in the results of writing, but in the process, the act of putting words on a page. The words aren’t written in stone by an invisible author-god. They represent the efforts of a flesh-and-blood human being and this is very compelling.” —Novelist Paul Auster, who died on April 30th. From The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 178.

Various & Sundry

If you haven’t already, check out John Dickerson’s Navel Gazing podcast, and not just because we’re sponsoring it. John’s notebook-inspired essays are wicked smart and funny too. Our collaboration with the USPS continues with a sweet new series of stamps honoring photographer Ansel Adams, and another big release for later in the year. Spotted in the wild: Seth Meyers using a Field Notes x Wilco Memo Book during this episode of Working It Out with Mike Birbiglia.

Asking the Experts

Tell us about a shop in your hometown that would be a good fit to carry Field Notes. We’ll reach out to them. If they agree to give us a try, we’ll send you a nice “Box-o-Swag.”

As you’d expect, our products can be found in book shops, stationery stores and the like. But barber shops, skate/surf shops, outfitters, clothing stores, and all manner of independent retailers also stock and sell Field Notes. Just drop a note to this address with “Shop Tip” in the subject line and we’ll take it from there. Our relationship won’t be official, but while supplies last, it could involve a button.

We have a particularly charming collaboration coming to Chicago soon. Maybe we’ll have an event at HQ for that, or combine it with a Launch Party Happy Hour for our summer release. That heads to the printer in the next couple days. Seeya soon. Thanks for reading.

Coined a long time ago in the Field Nuts Facebook group, “Staple Day” is traditionally observed when a writer reaches the exact middle of a Field Notes Memo Book, revealing the metal fasteners which bind the cover and the interior pages together.