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1 Hamburger menu icon 2 3 LOGIN 4 5 [3]Fast company logo 6 [4]SUBSCRIBE 7 8 • [6]Premium 9 • [7]Design 10 • [8]Tech 11 • [9]Work Life 12 • [10]News 13 • [11]Impact 14 • [12]Podcasts 15 • [13]Video 16 • [14]INNOVATION FESTIVAL 17 18 | 19 [15]FastCo Works 20 21 • [16]IBM 22 • [17]Texas A&M University 23 24 [p] 25 advertisement 26 27 06-17-2025[18]DESIGN 28 29 [19] 30 31 How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook 32 33 Two decades after Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal launched Field Notes, the analog 34 notebook company is crushing it in the digital age. 35 36 SHARE 37 FacebookLinkedInBlueskyXLink 38 How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook 39 40 [Photo: courtesy Field Notes] 41 42 BY [26]Zachary Petit 43 44 Listen to this Article[27]More info 45 0:00 / 0:00 46 47 Field Notes cofounders Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal have convened to ostensibly 48 talk about their cult-fave memo book brand. But Draplin—the gregarious, 49 hilarious Portland proprietor of Draplin Design Co.—just wrapped up jury duty. 50 And almost 10 minutes into our conversation, he’s regaling us with courtroom 51 sketches he made during the trial. (“Of course, I had to figure out some way to 52 exploit it for creative purposes.”) 53 54 Such freewheeling is just part and parcel of knowing Draplin, but Coudal has a 55 knack for seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly steering the conversation back 56 to the subject at hand. It underscores a point: Without Draplin, there would be 57 no Field Notes. And without Coudal, there would definitely be no Field Notes. 58 59 “What Jim brought to the table is that he had the light bulb where he saw what 60 this thing could be,” Draplin says. “Jim’s, like, reputable and stuff. People 61 always say, well, you’re half of the thing—yeah, but I would have killed it 62 because I might have gone to the next goofy little thing.” 63 64 [i-1-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Jim Coudal and Aaron Draplin [Photo: courtesy 65 Field Notes] 66 67 Today, 20 years and more than 10 million sold notebooks later, what began as a 68 casual side project with no real expectation has yielded a cult product that is 69 in 2,000 stores worldwide, has a robust direct-to-consumer membership program, 70 and, Coudal says, just came off its best year for sales and revenue. And 2025 71 is on pace, he adds, with hopes to surpass it. 72 73 Design Newsletter logo 74 Subscribe to the Design newsletter.The latest innovations in design brought to 75 you every weekday 76 [30]Privacy Policy 77 78 | 79 80 [31]Fast Company Newsletters 81 82 It all goes back to Coudal’s light bulb—and, of course, Draplin’s before it. He 83 had been drawing all his life and learned bookmaking at the Minneapolis College 84 of Art and Design. When Draplin left the Midwest for the West Coast in 1993, he 85 began collecting [32]memo books that agriculture companies historically gave 86 out as promos, and was taken with their lineage and practical design. He 87 decided to make some of his own notebooks in 2005, and the pragmatism and charm 88 of those promos—the vernacular type treatments, layouts, voice—found their way 89 into Field Notes’ DNA. He hand-printed 200 notebooks on a desktop[33] Gocco and 90 later invested $2,000 into a first run of 2,000 notebooks with “FIELD NOTES” 91 printed on the cover in Futura. His goal? To give them out to friends. And one 92 of those friends along the way happened to be Coudal, of Coudal Partners, the 93 measured mind to Draplin’s mad scientist. 94 95 [01-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes] 96 97 “He just said, ‘There’s something here,’” Draplin recalls. 98 99 Coudal’s team made a website. On the day it went live, they made 13 modest 100 sales via PayPal. But that was okay—again, he and Draplin both had their own 101 gigs, and Coudal says Field Notes wasn’t a priority for either of them. 102 103 But, “Before you know it, there’s media attention . . . and we’re seeing real 104 numbers,” Draplin says. 105 106 According to Coudal: “One by one we fired all our clients because this Field 107 Notes thing was getting bigger and taking up more of our time—and it was a lot 108 more fun than making work we were proud of for people we didn’t particularly 109 like.” 110 111 [08-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Stanley Donwood, Is a River Alive? [Photo: 112 courtesy Field Notes] 113 114 THE FIELD NOTES FORMULA 115 116 When the pair formally launched the brand, Coudal says projects at his studio 117 had three mandates: They had to make money, as the team had mortgages and kids 118 to put through school; they had to be something the team would be proud of; and 119 they had to be able to learn something new from it. Field Notes checked the 120 boxes. 121 122 Draplin’s goals were more straightforward. He says he was making a buck for 123 every grand the agency he worked for did. The mid-aughts were the dawn of the 124 modern “maker” movement, and there was an opportunity to craft your own future. 125 He did just that with a concrete design system for the brand’s signature 126 notebooks from the get-go. 127 128 “There’s never been a piece of type on any Field Notes material that wasn’t 129 Futura or Century Schoolbook, two beautiful, hardworking American fonts,” 130 Coudal says. Other assets like the highly structured copy on the inside covers, 131 as well as the logo placement on the front, were likewise sacrosanct. “We can 132 do different printing techniques, and we can do different-size notebooks, and 133 we do a lot of things. But we don’t mess with what made Field Notes Field 134 Notes.” 135 136 [i-3-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes] 137 138 They sold the 3.5-by-5.5-inch 48-page books in packs of three, and the business 139 grew slowly—but steadily. And as it grew, Coudal says, it became easier: The 140 more notebooks you make, the cheaper each one becomes because you’re buying in 141 bulk. When they began scaling up their print runs, they were able to get the 142 price down to a couple dollars per book, and sell the three-packs for $13 to 143 15—which got them into stores. (Today, you can find them everywhere from indies 144 to Barnes & Noble.) 145 146 One critical moment came in February 2010, when J. Crew featured Field Notes in 147 its catalog, alongside the retailer’s other “personal favorites from our design 148 heroes.” There was a Timex watch, Ray-Bans, Sperry shoes—“and out of fucking 149 nowhere, Field Notes,” Coudal says. “And when that happened, a lot changed for 150 us.” 151 152 Coudal says it gave the brand instant credibility—after all, if it was good 153 enough for J. Crew, it was good enough for your store. In time, friends began 154 sending him screenshots of Field Notes in TV shows; he and Draplin would see 155 people jotting notes in them in bars and elsewhere; on the design web, they 156 became an obsession. By 2014, there was even a[34] subreddit dedicated to them 157 titled “FieldNuts.” 158 159 Meanwhile, Draplin dropped into a New York store where the notebooks were 160 arranged “amongst $600 sweaters and $800 jeans.” And the proprietor told him he 161 could be selling the notebooks for $29.95 or $40—which is something he would 162 not do. 163 164 advertisement 165 166 “That’s my favorite part—this stuff is accessible, right?” Draplin notes. 167 168 [06-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes] 169 170 SUBSCRIPTION STRATEGY 171 172 In 2009, Field Notes launched a set of color variants, and does a new 173 installment every quarter, which subscribers can get annually for $120. They 174 are up to 67 editions. And over the years, the program has grown to include 175 elaborate series like the brand’s popular[35] National Parks books, 176 celebrations of[36] spaceflight and [37]letterpress, and dozens more themes. 177 178 Coudal says the first few print runs were around 1,500 packs each—but they have 179 grown to the 30,000-to-60,000 range today. He adds that aside from “a couple 180 very strange years around COVID,” gross revenue and DTC sales (which account 181 for about 50% of the business) have increased almost every year since 2009. 182 183 [05-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Rocky Mountain National Park by Rory Kurtz, 184 Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Chris Turnham, Yellowstone National Park 185 by Brave the Woods [Photo: courtesy Field Notes] 186 187 “The thing about the subscription model is, first of all, people are paying us 188 now for a product we haven’t made yet,” Coudal says. “That’s really good for 189 cash flow for a small company. But more important than that, having these four 190 projects every year that people are funding ahead of time gives us a really 191 great way to make a relationship with our customers and our retailers.” 192 193 Each one also fulfills Coudal’s third tenet for projects—he has an opportunity 194 to explore an entirely new subject through the work. 195 196 [09-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Emmy Star Brown, Flora [Photo: courtesy Field 197 Notes] 198 199 THE DRAPLIN FACTOR 200 201 Of course, as Field Notes has risen in notoriety over the years, Draplin has 202 been on a parallel path. He embodies the brand at design conferences like Adobe 203 MAX and in his merch pop-ups, where he is treated like a rock star. 204 205 I ask about the impact of Draplin’s industry celebrity, and Coudal jumps in. 206 207 “I can answer that because Aaron’s going to be humble about it. I think it’s 208 made a lot of difference. I think that Aaron has brought a lot of people to the 209 brand, and he’s also like our gospel preacher out on the road, telling the 210 story—the gospel of Field Notes.” 211 212 Before the brand had an advertising budget, Coudal says that was critical. And 213 for Draplin, those talks aren’t to simply shill. “It’s a reminder: You can go 214 make your own stuff, too,” he says. 215 216 With Draplin on the West Coast, Field Notes’ core team of around 10 is anchored 217 in Chicago. While Draplin says he used to be far more involved in the 218 day-to-day around seven years ago, these days he regards his role as a bit of a 219 mercenary. He drops in with ideas; Coudal will, say, assign him to “go make 220 something weird.” He’s also pissed the team off, on occasion, by going rogue 221 with an idea. 222 223 [04-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes] 224 225 Ultimately, “I’m along for the ride at that point, because there’s a den mother 226 watching over us,” Draplin says. As a result of being removed from the daily 227 routine, he adds, “I get to experience the buzz of what the customer gets.” 228 Which is, in all likelihood, a valuable temp check. 229 230 [i-2-91352784-field-notes-at-20]A sample of Aaron Draplin’s collection of 231 vintage farmer’s memo books. Explore the digitized collection [38]here. [[39] 232 Screenshot: courtesy Field Notes, Eric Lovejoy, Leigh McKolay and Joe Dawson 233 Jr. (site credits)] 234 235 “Aaron’s wisdom and inspiration are a constant good thing for the brand,” 236 Coudal says. “And while he’s not checking the layouts anymore, he’s certainly a 237 big part of the general direction that the ship sails.” 238 239 Looking to the future, Coudal says his goals are straightforward enough: 240 Generate more interest, tell interesting stories, get wider distribution. 241 242 Draplin, meanwhile, still seems a bit incredulous that the company exists in 243 the first place. “The biggest, funnest part about this thing—number one, we 244 didn’t lose any money. Isn’t that cool? I would have been okay if we did,” he 245 says. But, “This can exist. This happened. [We’ve done] it for almost 20 years. 246 It’s fucking amazing. I’ll tell you what . . . it exceeded my dreams.” 247 248 The advance-rate deadline for Fast Company’s [40]Innovation Festival is Friday, 249 July 11, at 11:59 p.m. PT. [41] Claim your pass today! 250 251 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 252 253 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 254 255 [42]Zachary Petit is a contributing writer for Fast Company and an independent 256 journalist who covers design, the arts, and travel. His words have appeared in 257 Smithsonian, National Geographic, Eye on Design, McSweeney’s, Mental Floss and 258 Print, where he served as editor-in-chief of the National Magazine 259 Award–winning publication [43]More 260 261 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 262 263 Explore Topics 264 265 • [44]product design 266 267 advertisement 268 Featured Video 269 270 advertisement 271 272 Design↓ 273 274 [45] 275 276 Architecture 277 278 [46] 279 280 Branding 281 282 [47] 283 284 Fashion 285 286 [48] 287 288 Marketing 289 290 [49] 291 292 Product Design 293 294 [50] 295 296 UX (User Experience) 297 298 Work Life↓ 299 300 [51] 301 302 Careers 303 304 [52] 305 306 Emotional Intelligence 307 308 [53] 309 310 Hiring 311 312 [54] 313 314 Leadership 315 316 [55] 317 318 Productivity 319 320 [56] 321 322 Wellness 323 324 Technology↓ 325 326 [57] 327 328 Artificial Intelligence 329 330 [58] 331 332 Innovation 333 334 [59] 335 336 Internet Culture 337 338 [60] 339 340 Security 341 342 [61] 343 344 Social Media 345 346 [62] 347 348 Tools 349 350 Impact↓ 351 352 [63] 353 354 Cities 355 356 [64] 357 358 Climate Change 359 360 [65] 361 362 Energy 363 364 [66] 365 366 Health 367 368 [67] 369 370 Labor 371 372 [68] 373 374 Transportation 375 376 News↓ 377 378 [69] 379 380 Business 381 382 [70] 383 384 Entertainment 385 386 [71] 387 388 Food 389 390 [72] 391 392 Housing Market 393 394 [73] 395 396 Politics 397 398 [74] 399 400 Stock Market 401 402 Lists↓ 403 404 [75] 405 406 Best Workplaces for Innovators 407 408 [76] 409 410 Brands That Matter 411 412 [77] 413 414 Innovation By Design 415 416 [78] 417 418 Most Innovative Companies 419 420 [79] 421 422 Next Big Things in Tech 423 424 [80] 425 426 World Changing Ideas 427 428 [81][82][83][84][85][86][87] 429 430 Fast Company & Inc © 2025 Mansueto Ventures, LLC 431 432 [88]DAA Icon 433 [89] 434 435 Advertise 436 437 [90] 438 439 Careers 440 441 [91] 442 443 Subscribe 444 445 [92] 446 447 Privacy Policy 448 449 [93] 450 451 Notice of Collection 452 453 [94] 454 455 Permissions 456 457 [95] 458 459 Help Center 460 461 [96] 462 463 About Us 464 465 [97] 466 467 Sitemap 468 469 [98]Newsguard Icon 470 100 Shields Icon 471 472 Fastcompany.com adheres to NewsGuard’s nine standards of credibility and 473 transparency. 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