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WINTER 2014 QUARTERLY EDITION Ambition THREE 48-PAGE MEMO BOOKS
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Our 25th QUARTERLY Edition
Gilded Edges
For our 25th Quarterly Edition, we tried to come up with something special; something totally new and different, but also true to the Field Notes aesthetic. Ambition is just that: a 3-Pack that echoes some of our favorite editions, but with a few new twists.
Gilding is an ancient technique once performed by artisans with gold leaf, mallets, and secret mixtures of binding paste. A century or so ago the process was mechanized, but it’s still ridiculously complex. The books are clamped into small batches, then make three passes (once for each edge) through an Ochsner edge gilder, which sands the edges smooth with varying grits of sandpaper, then fuses metallic foil to the edge with heat. It was certainly the strangest piece of printing machinery we’d seen, until a few minutes later when we saw a pair of Ochsner round-corner gilding machines in action.
Our old friends French Paper Co. of Niles, Michigan supplied “Olive,” “Wine,” and “Chocolate” 100# Speckletone for the covers, with production bouncing around the Midwest for the last few weeks. Printing started in Chicago’s suburbs at eDoc, then the covers were delivered to Nu Wave Diecutting & Finishing in downtown Chicago to emboss the cover logo. After a trip back to eDoc for bindery, they were trucked down to Liberty Book and Bible in Indianapolis for a process nearly as old as bookbinding, but all-new to us!
But that’s not the only Field Notes first in this edition. The “Olive” book is ruled in ledger lines (which you may remember from Traveling Salesman, FNC-16), and the “Wine” book is graph paper, but the “Chocolate” book features 56 pages ruled in a weekly datebook format! The body paper is Cougar Opaque 50# “Natural White” text-weight vellum printed in “Double Knee Duck Canvas” ink. With all that gold going on, gold staples were the obvious choice to hold the books together.
With a datebook, ledger, and memo book in hand, projects of any scope become more manageable. And we bet the elegant gilded edges will help get you out of bed a bit earlier and start getting things done. All that’s standing between you and your goals are a whole bunch of notes, facts, lists, and figures, and now you have the perfect place to write it all down.
SPECIFICATIONS:
- 01.
Proudly printed by the good people of eDOC Communications, Mount Prospect, Ill.
- 02.
Cover: French Speckletone 100#C "Olive," "Chocolate," and "Wine" with a thick, brute force, 1-color application of "Ambitious Gold" metallic soy-based Saphira ink.
- 03.
Innards: Cougar Natural 50#T Smooth with a fine application of "Double Knee Duck Canvas" light brown soy-based Saphira ink.
- 04.
Cover and innards printed on a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 40" 6-color printing press.
- 05.
Bound with a Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST 270 5-pocket saddle stitcher with cover feeder/scorer & Rima RS 105 inline stacker, with appreciation to Samuel Slocum, George W. McGill, and William J. Brown, the "Founding Fathers of the Staple."
- 06.
Gilded with an Ochsner edge gilder by Liberty Book and Bible, Indianapolis, Ind.
- 07.
Corners rounded to ⅜" (9.5mm) and gilded by an Ochsner round corner gilder.
- 08.
Inner pages: 3/16" (4.5mm) graph paper, weekly date book, and ledger.
- 09.
Memo book dimensions are 3½" × 5½" (89mm × 140mm).
- 10.
FIELD NOTES uses only the Futura typeface family (Paul Renner, 1927), in collaboration with Monotype.
- 11.
All FIELD NOTES memo books are printed and manufactured in the U.S.A.
