creative design firm that was looking for a new challenge. When Coudal received his copy, he called Draplin that very day. A week later, they formed the Field Notes brand. Field Notes is a collaboration between the Draplin Design Company in Portland and Coudal Partners in Chicago. They rely on various printers to bring their designs to life—most particularly Tom Meitzler of Lake County Press in Waukegan, Illinois, which offers electronic and highend commercial printing. Field Notes now caters to its devout fans with a subscription service where subscribers get quarterly limited editions, site discounts and fun, exclusive perks. But how did Field Notes go from a small-run gift to a booming brand? GROWING A CULT FOLLOWING. ORGANICALLY At first, the company printed too few books because they didn’t anticipate how popular they would be—and even the Field Notes team ended up in short supply of some early limited editions they didn’t think to save enough of. Now, they print 30,000 - 35,000 of each limited edition, then move on to The “Mile Marker” Edition used Lynx Opaque Ultra Smooth 60 lb for the inside of each memo book. the next design. This approach lets the staff focus on something new several times a year and generates excitement within the company when it’s time to brainstorm a fresh design. Part of the company’s success stems from its love of experimenting with different materials and production methods—and its close collaborations with graphic designers and printers, who all trade ideas on how to use those materials and production methods. “That goes into how we work with Tom Meitzler, too,” says Bryan Bedell, Design Director at Field Notes. “He’ll come to us and say, ‘Hey, we have this binding method we think would be cool.’ Or we’ll say to him, ‘How do we do gilded edges?’ and they’ll come back and say, ‘We’ll figure it out and get back to you.’ We keep those ideas in our back pocket until we figure out how to really do them.” A walkthrough of the design process for one of the most recent Field Notes memo products, dubbed the Mile Marker series, will show how these collaborations work—and why the products are so in-demand. Field Notes feels the love for its suppliers. The passion and authenticity of the Field Notes brand extends to its suppliers as well. The company chooses suppliers that resonate with its mission and values, and insists on meeting every supplier in person; for example, the teams at Field Notes and Tom Meitzler and Amy Fulton, of Lake County Press, visited Domtar’s Rothschild Mill together in October 2019 to see how their paper is made and to get to know the people there. “I have been to many mills, but the passion of the employees at Rothschild really stood out to me,” says Meitzler. Field Notes is proud of its suppliers, and it shows. For example, books includes the notation “Proudly printed by the good people of Lake County Press, Waukegan, Ill.” “This is something our company rallies around, from the shipping associate to the press operator,” Meitzler says. “We take a tremendous amount of pride in making this product, and we constantly reference this in company meetings and how we work each day.” 2
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