When Field Notes released Resolution last November, the white Date Book in that edition instantly reminded me of “Hardball White” memo book from Day Game, their 15th quarterly edition from Summer 2012. Both books have matte, white covers with red foil-stamped text, and Day Game being one of my favorite Field Notes editions, I couldn’t resist putting them side by side for comparison.

Day Game on the left, Resolution on the right.

What we see here are:

Day Game “Hardball White” cover: French Paper Construction 100#C in “Recycled White”
Resolution Date Book cover: Mohawk Vellum 80#C in “Carnival Stellar White”

Pretty close! But the white in Day Game looks slightly warmer. Granted, the Day Game book shown here is a used copy, most likely dirtied over time, but I pulled out a brand new one, and it still looked slightly warmer. Interestingly, I can’t really tell the difference in the paper thickness, even though it’s 80#C vs. 100#C. As for the foil-stamping, maybe the red in Resolution looks slightly lighter?

Other noteworthy differences:

Resolution is printed with dotted lines on the front (for dates and such), while Day Game has a small home plate design on its back cover.
Resolution features black staples, while Day Game is stapled with silver-colored staples.
The inside cover in Resolution is printed in medium gray. Day Game is printed in “Pinstripe Blue” ink.

Resolution is a 56-page date book; Day Game is dot graph grid with 48 pages.
The body paper in Resolution is Domtar Earth Choice Vellum 60#T in “Gray” (previously seen in Lunacy), printed with “Frost White” and medium “Winter Sky Gray” inks. In Day Game, it’s the classic Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 50#T “Bright White” printed with “Double Knee Duck Canvas” light brown ink (what you see in many older Original kraft memo books).

I’m a big fan of this white + red combination, so I was really happy to see it again in Resolution. I imagine it was a welcome release for those who missed out on Day Game, too. I like that Field Notes is giving a taste of their classics to the newer fans, unintentionally or not. What are your thoughts on Resolution’s Date Book?

Firsts

Let me get the “thirds” out of the way first. Ambition is the 3rd in the Colors series to get its covers embossed, after Northerly and Traveling Salesman. It is also the 3rd to feature gold-colored staples, after Drink Local and Shelterwood.

As for “firsts”, they are pretty significant. By now it’s not very surprising to see 3 different colors in a pack of Field Notes. But 3 different types of ruling inside? That was definitely not expected.

A ledger. A weekly planner. A memo book.

(I don’t know, for some strange reason, when I watched the Ambition video, I thought of that time Steve Jobs announced the iPhone:
An iPod. A phone. An internet communicator.
An iPod. A phone. Are you getting it?

… okay, back to Field Notes.)

The “Chocolate” weekly planner (which, by the way, is not as rich brown as the Traveling Salesman) is the most interesting book out of the three, in terms of “firsts” in the Colors series. Simply, a datebook has never been done before! And to accommodate all weeks of the year, the brown book includes 56 pages, instead of the usual 48 pages.

Field Notes ledger books: Ambition (left) and Traveling Salesman (right)

We’ve seen the ledger lines before in Traveling Salesman (16th edition, Fall 2012), and we’re very familiar with the regular graph grid by now. But the Ambition ledger is slightly different from the Traveling Salesman. Traveling Salesman ledger lines have one extra line at the very bottom of each page.

And the graph grid in Ambition’s “Wine” book is not printed edge-to-edge, like it usually is in other graph grid editions. It has a bit of a blank space at the top and the graph grid starts with double lines after that space. This header space is surely to match the look of the date book and the ledger, and I really appreciate that kind of attention to detail. And for someone who likes to stamp a date at the top of each page, this is a welcome twist on the classic format.

The “Wine” memo book from Ambition (left) and Original kraft (right). Making these GIFs cracks me up.

Original kraft innards (top left) compared to off-white innards, from top-right to bottom: America the Beautiful, Shelterwood, Ambition. Ambition’s has the most “cream” color.

Ambition belly band matches the innards.

Another new thing in Ambition is the innards. The majority of Colors Field Notes have featured Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 50#T but Ambition uses Cougar Natural 50#T Smooth (website says “Natural White” text-weight vellum). Whichever it is, I really like it. A quick test with gel pens and fountain pens tells me that the Cougar paper is slightly smoother than the Finch paper. And it’s off-white, so it gets even more love from me. I hope to see more of this paper in the future editions!

A nice bonus for subscribers: a matching bookmark with gold text. It's a long, thin strip of paper folded in half, labeled “NOW” on one side and “LATER” on the other.

Last but not least, Ambition has its edges gilded. Even the covers. Wow. Every season, I wonder what new thing Field Notes is going to try but gilding never crossed my mind for some reason. When I saw the announcement, I wondered how they’d look, since Field Notes are relatively thin compared to all the gilded books I’ve encountered in the past. And the round corners! Would they be gilded okay, I worried. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about.

A screencap from the official Ambition video: these look like little nuggets of gold!

It sounds like this edition was quite a learning experience for Field Notes, as far as gilding goes, and a labor of love. They had to haul all that paper back and forth, first for printing at eDoc Communications, then embossing at Nu Wave, back to eDoc for binding, and then finally gilding at Liberty Book and Bible. I really think they could’ve gotten away with not embossing the covers but then Field Notes would not be Field Notes, I suppose. No wonder this edition is called Ambition!

Now, I must mention that I am not a big fan of the weekly datebook. One of my pet peeves with planners in general is Saturdays and Sundays getting only half the space. Weekends should be twice as big, if anything! The injustice! But I know why, design-wise, this happens often in planners. I love everything else about Ambition that I’m going to make this work. The “Double Knee Duck Canvas” light brown ink on the innards is light enough that I should able ignore all the special lines and text and just use the planner like a regular ruled memo book. Plus, I understand thematically why the planner is included in the trio. It makes enough sense as the year-end edition and a great idea as a gift, that I can’t bring myself to disregard the whole edition because of the planner.

(Sidenote: By now, you should know that the fun ink names in the Specifications are not specific to actual inks but are named by Field Notes. Ambition is printed with Saphira ink, instead of the usual Toyo ink but the light brown ink is still called “Double Knee Duck Canvas”.)

My feelings towards Field Notes Colors had been aggressively lukewarm in 2014 (see my ranking to see how the earlier 2014 editions fare) but Ambition really turned things around and ended the year on a high note for me. I store some of my Field Notes upright in the outside pocket of my bag, and the little flash of gold at the top of Ambition really lifts my mood. And it reminds me that I need to get sh*t done.

Some fun (for me) details:

Ambition is the 25th in the COLORS series. It is the winter edition of 2014.
Item Number: FNC-25
Edition size: 30,000 packs, November 2014
Cover: French Paper Co. Speckletone 100#C with embossed logotype. The ® mark is not embossed. Text printed with metallic soy-based Saphira ink in “Ambitious Gold”.
- Ledger: green cover in “Olive”, the same cover as in Balsam Fir
- Weekly planner: brown cover in “Chocolate”
- Graph grid memo book: wine cover in “Wine”
Paper inside: Cougar Natural 50#T Smooth printed with soy-based Saphira ink in “Double Knee Duck Canvas” light brown.
Gilding: By Liberty Book and Bible, Indianapolis, IN, with Ochsner edge gilder and round corner guilder.
Embossing: By Nu Wave Diecutting & Finishing, Chicago, IL.
Belly band: Matching cream color with light brown text
Extras: a bookmark for subscribers
Staples color: gold
Film: Ambition on Vimeo, and a funny story to go with it

My Favorite “Practical Applications”:

#05. Bridges Burned (I really want this print)
#06: Swiss Bank Account Numbers
#20. Possible Domain Names (Ha! I just recently let many expire.)
#23. Blue Sky Solutioneering

What are your thoughts on Ambition? Which book is your favorite?

Quick color comparison of brown, from left: Drink Local Ales “Stout”, Traveling Salesman, Ambition, Drink Local Lagers “Bock”.

Quick color comparison of red, left to right, top then bottom: Arts & Sciences, Ambition, Drink Local Lagers “Bock”, County Fair, Fire Spotter (or is it Red Blooded?), National Crop “Sorghum”, Drink Local Ales “Amber Ale”.

Quick color comparison, from left: Balsam Fir, Ambition, Day Game, Original kraft.

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