“Gumdrop Green” Field Notes

I started using the Field Museum Field Notes at the beginning of this month, and it reminded me that there are other Field Notes editions that use the same green paper stock, French Paper Pop-Tone in Gumdrop Green. So here they are all together (pictured above, from left):

• Shenandoah “Sweet Birch” (Fall 2015 Quarterly Edition)
• Grass Stain Green (Summer 2009 Quarterly Edition)
• The Field Museum (released late 2017)

There may be other Field Notes that use the same paper, but these are all I have. As you can see, I don’t have the original, plain white belly band of Grass Stain Green (I only have a single), but don’t they look lovely all together? I think that these light brown belly bands  look especially great with the matte green covers.

Obviously, GSG stands out because it’s the only one that’s letterpressed (“blind hit” to be more specific). It’s one of the most beautiful Field Notes and certainly one of my top favorite editions, but so is Shenandoah, with its custom-duplex cover and brown ink that work together to complete the forest theme. The Field Museum edition may seem plain by comparison, but it’s still special to me because of all the memories I have of going on field trips to the museum when I was younger.

Back inside covers (from top): Grass Stain Green printed with “Green Mind” ink, Shenandoah “Sweet Birch” with “Shenandoah Salamander” brown ink, The Field Museum with “Lake Michigan Blue” ink.

All three editions use “Gumdrop Green” in 100#C for the cover, but Shenandoah feels the thickest because it is duplex-mounted to another sheet of paper, French Paper Pop-Tone in “Lemon Drop”, making it the only one whose cover looks different when you open it.

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From top: Shenandoah “Sweet Birch”, Grass Stain Green, The Field Museum

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From left: Grass Stain Green, Shenandoah “Sweet Birch”, The Field Museum

As for the body paper, they all use “white” paper, except GSG uses Boise Offset Smooth 50#T, which is what Field Notes used in the early days. Since Balsam Fir, they have been mostly using Finch Paper Opaque Smooth, which is what you’d find in Shenandoah and The Field Museum edition, both slightly thicker in 60#T. Both GSG and Shenandoah are graph grid (3/16"), printed in “Photosynthesizing Chlorophyll” light green and “Appalachian Moss” light green, respectively, while The Field Museum is ruled (1/4" or 6.4 mm) in “Double Knee Duck Canvas” light brown ink, the same color you’d find in Field Notes’ standard Kraft memo books. Fun (to me) side note: the inside cover of GSG specifies 4.5 mm for the grid size, but the conversion should’ve been 4.7 mm. I believe this doesn’t get corrected until National Crop (Spring 2012).

From top: Grass Stain Green, Shenandoah, and The Field Museum. Innards in Grass Stain Green are 50#T, making it the thinnest memo book in this group. Shenandoah feels the thickest with its custom-duplexed cover.

I like that these all have different sets of “Practical Applications”. The ones in GSG are not unique; they’re the same as the ones in the regular kraft books. But the other two have their own custom sets. Interestingly, there are only 15 applications in the Field Museum edition, and I admit I don’t recognize all the references. Maybe it’s time for me to revisit the museum. 😊

All have silver staples!

Back view, from left: Shenandoah “Birch”, Grass Stain Green, The Field Museum.

I’ve always been a fan of Field Notes memo books with French Paper Pop-Tone covers, so I was stoked when the Field Museum edition came out, even though “Gumdrop Green” has been used before (and despite the hefty price tag). It might not be exciting anymore to some fans, but I really like this green, and as a casual Field Notes collector, it’s fun to compare and see how the same paper is interpreted in different ways. Which do you like the best? I really like all three, but if I were offered extras of any of these (one can dream), I’d choose Grass Stain Green. 💚

Green color comparison

Related Links and Notes

• Field Notes Color Comparison: Green
• My previous post on Grass Stain Green
• My previous post on Shenandoah
• There’s a second set of The Field Museum Field Notes, with Earth as the theme! It is available online, here.
• The first version (the green 3-pack featured in this post) is now on sale, here.
• The Field Museum (Chicago, IL)

“Memo Orange Kraft” Field Notes

If you’re one of the Field Notes “collectors”, then you know that Capsule Show makes one of the more interesting, branded Field Notes memo books out there. And if you’re not familiar, Capsule is a fashion and lifestyle trade show, and every year or so, they’ve been giving out their own branded Field Notes memo books to their show attendees. I believe Field Notes has been showcasing their products at Capsule since 2009. Anyway, maybe they have a bigger budget than other companies, but these Capsule Field Notes often feature whatever new things the Field Notes folks are trying on their own quarterly, limited editions. I won’t go into all of them, but take the Capsule Autumn/Winter 2017 edition that came out earlier this year, for example. It features the same PUR binding found in Black Ice, which had just been released at the end of 2016 as Field Notes’ Winter 2016 edition. Or the Capsule Spring/Summer 2015 edition from mid 2014, with the same cherry wood veneer used in Shelterwood (the Spring 2014 edition), but with blue text on the cover. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

Same paper in three different editions (left to right): Workshop Companion, Capsule SS 2016, Capsule AW 2016.

Another set of examples that show how “fancy” Capsule can get, and the focus of this post, are the Spring/Summer 2016 and Autumn/Winter 2016 editions. The SS16 edition is quite minimal and chic, with blind-embossed Field Notes logo on the front and the Capsule hashtag #thatnewnow, also embossed on the back. The AW16 edition has a beautiful photographic image of leaves that wrap around the cover in dark navy ink. Both editions are bound by gold staples and have ruled lines inside. And! As illustrated by pictures above, they both use the same cover stock seen in Field Notes’ Summer 2015 edition, Workshop Companion. Namely, French Paper’s Kraft-Tone 100#C in Memo Orange Kraft. Workshop Companion and Capsule SS16 are actually one of the firsts to use French’s new Kraft-Tone line when it came out in early 2015. Perhaps they were printed at the same time, to make things more time and cost efficient. And it’s interesting that Capsule went with the same cover stock for the following AW16 show, too. Maybe these were all made at the same time. Who knows? However it happened, I think the SS16 and AW16 editions make a nice pair.

Capsule SS16 (left) and Capsule AW16 (right).

This “Memo Orange Kraft” is a light, pale salmon or peach color, for lack of better words, and like other colors in the Kraft-Tone line, you can see little flecks and fibers in the paper (Kraft-Tone is 100% post-consumer recycled paper). I like that a lot, and the paper feels quite sturdy and hefty, too. I admit the color may not be my cup of tea, but I adore the AW16 edition. It’s truly one of the more unique and beautiful editions in my stash. (As far as I know, it’s only the second one to get “photographic” image on the cover after America the Beautiful from Spring 2013, followed by Nixon in 2016). Funny how with different colors and designs, the same paper can go from “okay” (Workshop Companion) to “wow!” (Capsule AW17).

Inside covers of both Capsule editions are printed in red, except in AW16 edition (right), the “background” of the text is printed instead, so that the pale orange color of the paper shows through as the color of the text. This red in AW16 is Pantone 185, the same color used for the ruled lines.

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Inside covers: Workshop Companion (top) with text in unnamed black ink, Capsule SS16 with “Capsule Red”, and Capsule AW16 (bottom) with Pantone 185. I wouldn’t be surprised if this “Capsule Red” was actually Pantone 185.

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Innards comparison, from top: Workshop Companion with “Maple Lacquer” dot grid on French Kraft-Tone 70#T “Standard White Kraft”, Capsule AW16 with Pantone 185 ruled lines on Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 60#T “Bright White”, and Capsule SS16 with “Memo Orange” ruled lines on Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 50#T “Bright White”.

Workshop Companion “Electrical” (far left) with brass staples. Capsule SS16 (middle) and Capsule AW16 (far right) have gold-colored staples.

Back sides, from left: Workshop Companion, Capsule SS16, and Capsule AW16. The SS16 is embossed on the back.