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06-17-2025[18]DESIGN
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[19]
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How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook
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Two decades after Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal launched Field Notes, the analog
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notebook company is crushing it in the digital age.
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SHARE
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How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook
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[Photo: courtesy Field Notes]
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BY [26]Zachary Petit
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Listen to this Article[27]More info
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0:00 / 0:00
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Field Notes cofounders Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal have convened to ostensibly
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talk about their cult-fave memo book brand. But Draplin—the gregarious,
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hilarious Portland proprietor of Draplin Design Co.—just wrapped up jury duty.
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And almost 10 minutes into our conversation, he’s regaling us with courtroom
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sketches he made during the trial. (“Of course, I had to figure out some way to
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exploit it for creative purposes.”)
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Such freewheeling is just part and parcel of knowing Draplin, but Coudal has a
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knack for seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly steering the conversation back
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to the subject at hand. It underscores a point: Without Draplin, there would be
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no Field Notes. And without Coudal, there would definitely be no Field Notes.
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“What Jim brought to the table is that he had the light bulb where he saw what
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this thing could be,” Draplin says. “Jim’s, like, reputable and stuff. People
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always say, well, you’re half of the thing—yeah, but I would have killed it
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because I might have gone to the next goofy little thing.”
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[i-1-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Jim Coudal and Aaron Draplin [Photo: courtesy
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Field Notes]
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Today, 20 years and more than 10 million sold notebooks later, what began as a
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casual side project with no real expectation has yielded a cult product that is
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in 2,000 stores worldwide, has a robust direct-to-consumer membership program,
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and, Coudal says, just came off its best year for sales and revenue. And 2025
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is on pace, he adds, with hopes to surpass it.
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Design Newsletter logo
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Subscribe to the Design newsletter.The latest innovations in design brought to
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It all goes back to Coudal’s light bulb—and, of course, Draplin’s before it. He
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had been drawing all his life and learned bookmaking at the Minneapolis College
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of Art and Design. When Draplin left the Midwest for the West Coast in 1993, he
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began collecting [32]memo books that agriculture companies historically gave
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out as promos, and was taken with their lineage and practical design. He
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decided to make some of his own notebooks in 2005, and the pragmatism and charm
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of those promos—the vernacular type treatments, layouts, voice—found their way
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into Field Notes’ DNA. He hand-printed 200 notebooks on a desktop[33] Gocco and
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later invested $2,000 into a first run of 2,000 notebooks with “FIELD NOTES”
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printed on the cover in Futura. His goal? To give them out to friends. And one
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of those friends along the way happened to be Coudal, of Coudal Partners, the
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measured mind to Draplin’s mad scientist.
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[01-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes]
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“He just said, ‘There’s something here,’” Draplin recalls.
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Coudal’s team made a website. On the day it went live, they made 13 modest
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sales via PayPal. But that was okay—again, he and Draplin both had their own
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gigs, and Coudal says Field Notes wasn’t a priority for either of them.
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But, “Before you know it, there’s media attention . . . and we’re seeing real
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numbers,” Draplin says.
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According to Coudal: “One by one we fired all our clients because this Field
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Notes thing was getting bigger and taking up more of our time—and it was a lot
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more fun than making work we were proud of for people we didn’t particularly
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like.”
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[08-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Stanley Donwood, Is a River Alive? [Photo:
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courtesy Field Notes]
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THE FIELD NOTES FORMULA
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When the pair formally launched the brand, Coudal says projects at his studio
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had three mandates: They had to make money, as the team had mortgages and kids
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to put through school; they had to be something the team would be proud of; and
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they had to be able to learn something new from it. Field Notes checked the
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boxes.
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Draplin’s goals were more straightforward. He says he was making a buck for
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every grand the agency he worked for did. The mid-aughts were the dawn of the
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modern “maker” movement, and there was an opportunity to craft your own future.
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He did just that with a concrete design system for the brand’s signature
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notebooks from the get-go.
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“There’s never been a piece of type on any Field Notes material that wasn’t
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Futura or Century Schoolbook, two beautiful, hardworking American fonts,”
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Coudal says. Other assets like the highly structured copy on the inside covers,
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as well as the logo placement on the front, were likewise sacrosanct. “We can
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do different printing techniques, and we can do different-size notebooks, and
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we do a lot of things. But we don’t mess with what made Field Notes Field
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Notes.”
|
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[i-3-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes]
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They sold the 3.5-by-5.5-inch 48-page books in packs of three, and the business
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grew slowly—but steadily. And as it grew, Coudal says, it became easier: The
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more notebooks you make, the cheaper each one becomes because you’re buying in
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bulk. When they began scaling up their print runs, they were able to get the
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price down to a couple dollars per book, and sell the three-packs for $13 to
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15—which got them into stores. (Today, you can find them everywhere from indies
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to Barnes & Noble.)
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One critical moment came in February 2010, when J. Crew featured Field Notes in
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its catalog, alongside the retailer’s other “personal favorites from our design
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heroes.” There was a Timex watch, Ray-Bans, Sperry shoes—“and out of fucking
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nowhere, Field Notes,” Coudal says. “And when that happened, a lot changed for
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us.”
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Coudal says it gave the brand instant credibility—after all, if it was good
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enough for J. Crew, it was good enough for your store. In time, friends began
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sending him screenshots of Field Notes in TV shows; he and Draplin would see
|
||
people jotting notes in them in bars and elsewhere; on the design web, they
|
||
became an obsession. By 2014, there was even a[34] subreddit dedicated to them
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titled “FieldNuts.”
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Meanwhile, Draplin dropped into a New York store where the notebooks were
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arranged “amongst $600 sweaters and $800 jeans.” And the proprietor told him he
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could be selling the notebooks for $29.95 or $40—which is something he would
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not do.
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advertisement
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“That’s my favorite part—this stuff is accessible, right?” Draplin notes.
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[06-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes]
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SUBSCRIPTION STRATEGY
|
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|
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In 2009, Field Notes launched a set of color variants, and does a new
|
||
installment every quarter, which subscribers can get annually for $120. They
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are up to 67 editions. And over the years, the program has grown to include
|
||
elaborate series like the brand’s popular[35] National Parks books,
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celebrations of[36] spaceflight and [37]letterpress, and dozens more themes.
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Coudal says the first few print runs were around 1,500 packs each—but they have
|
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grown to the 30,000-to-60,000 range today. He adds that aside from “a couple
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very strange years around COVID,” gross revenue and DTC sales (which account
|
||
for about 50% of the business) have increased almost every year since 2009.
|
||
|
||
[05-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Rocky Mountain National Park by Rory Kurtz,
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Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Chris Turnham, Yellowstone National Park
|
||
by Brave the Woods [Photo: courtesy Field Notes]
|
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|
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“The thing about the subscription model is, first of all, people are paying us
|
||
now for a product we haven’t made yet,” Coudal says. “That’s really good for
|
||
cash flow for a small company. But more important than that, having these four
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projects every year that people are funding ahead of time gives us a really
|
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great way to make a relationship with our customers and our retailers.”
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Each one also fulfills Coudal’s third tenet for projects—he has an opportunity
|
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to explore an entirely new subject through the work.
|
||
|
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[09-91352784-field-notes-at-20]Emmy Star Brown, Flora [Photo: courtesy Field
|
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Notes]
|
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THE DRAPLIN FACTOR
|
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|
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Of course, as Field Notes has risen in notoriety over the years, Draplin has
|
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been on a parallel path. He embodies the brand at design conferences like Adobe
|
||
MAX and in his merch pop-ups, where he is treated like a rock star.
|
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|
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I ask about the impact of Draplin’s industry celebrity, and Coudal jumps in.
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“I can answer that because Aaron’s going to be humble about it. I think it’s
|
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made a lot of difference. I think that Aaron has brought a lot of people to the
|
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brand, and he’s also like our gospel preacher out on the road, telling the
|
||
story—the gospel of Field Notes.”
|
||
|
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Before the brand had an advertising budget, Coudal says that was critical. And
|
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for Draplin, those talks aren’t to simply shill. “It’s a reminder: You can go
|
||
make your own stuff, too,” he says.
|
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|
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With Draplin on the West Coast, Field Notes’ core team of around 10 is anchored
|
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in Chicago. While Draplin says he used to be far more involved in the
|
||
day-to-day around seven years ago, these days he regards his role as a bit of a
|
||
mercenary. He drops in with ideas; Coudal will, say, assign him to “go make
|
||
something weird.” He’s also pissed the team off, on occasion, by going rogue
|
||
with an idea.
|
||
|
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[04-91352784-field-notes-at-20][Photo: courtesy Field Notes]
|
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|
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Ultimately, “I’m along for the ride at that point, because there’s a den mother
|
||
watching over us,” Draplin says. As a result of being removed from the daily
|
||
routine, he adds, “I get to experience the buzz of what the customer gets.”
|
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Which is, in all likelihood, a valuable temp check.
|
||
|
||
[i-2-91352784-field-notes-at-20]A sample of Aaron Draplin’s collection of
|
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vintage farmer’s memo books. Explore the digitized collection [38]here. [[39]
|
||
Screenshot: courtesy Field Notes, Eric Lovejoy, Leigh McKolay and Joe Dawson
|
||
Jr. (site credits)]
|
||
|
||
“Aaron’s wisdom and inspiration are a constant good thing for the brand,”
|
||
Coudal says. “And while he’s not checking the layouts anymore, he’s certainly a
|
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big part of the general direction that the ship sails.”
|
||
|
||
Looking to the future, Coudal says his goals are straightforward enough:
|
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Generate more interest, tell interesting stories, get wider distribution.
|
||
|
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Draplin, meanwhile, still seems a bit incredulous that the company exists in
|
||
the first place. “The biggest, funnest part about this thing—number one, we
|
||
didn’t lose any money. Isn’t that cool? I would have been okay if we did,” he
|
||
says. But, “This can exist. This happened. [We’ve done] it for almost 20 years.
|
||
It’s fucking amazing. I’ll tell you what . . . it exceeded my dreams.”
|
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The advance-rate deadline for Fast Company’s [40]Innovation Festival is Friday,
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July 11, at 11:59 p.m. PT. [41] Claim your pass today!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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[42]Zachary Petit is a contributing writer for Fast Company and an independent
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journalist who covers design, the arts, and travel. His words have appeared in
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[55] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/productivity
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[56] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/wellness
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[57] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence
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[58] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/innovation
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[59] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/internet-culture
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[60] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/security
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[61] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/social-media
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[62] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/tools
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[63] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/cities
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[64] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/climate-change
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[65] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/energy
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[66] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/health
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[67] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/labor
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[68] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/transportation
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[69] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/business
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[70] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/Entertainment
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[71] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/food
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[72] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/housing-market
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[73] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/politics
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[74] https://www.fastcompany.com/section/stock-market
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[75] https://www.fastcompany.com/best-workplaces-for-innovators/list
|
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[76] https://www.fastcompany.com/brands-that-matter/list
|
||
[77] https://www.fastcompany.com/innovation-by-design/list
|
||
[78] https://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/list
|
||
[79] https://www.fastcompany.com/next-big-things-in-tech/list
|
||
[80] https://www.fastcompany.com/world-changing-ideas/list
|
||
[81] https://www.instagram.com/FastCompany/
|
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[82] https://www.linkedin.com/company/fast-company
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[83] https://www.youtube.com/user/FastCompany
|
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[84] https://www.tiktok.com/@fastcompany
|
||
[85] https://bsky.app/profile/fastcompany.com
|
||
[86] https://www.facebook.com/FastCompany/
|
||
[87] https://twitter.com/fastcompany
|
||
[88] https://www.mansueto.com/vendor-policies/
|
||
[89] https://www.fastcompany.com/90516811/fast-company-mediakit
|
||
[90] https://www.mansueto.com/careers/
|
||
[91] https://www.fastcompany.com/subscribe?itm_source=footer&itm_medium=button&itm_campaign=bottom
|
||
[92] https://www.mansueto.com/privacy-policy/
|
||
[93] https://www.mansueto.com/privacy-policy/#collection
|
||
[94] https://kudos.fastcompany.com/
|
||
[95] https://fastcompany.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
|
||
[96] https://www.fastcompany.com/about-us
|
||
[97] https://www.fastcompany.com/sitemap
|
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[98] https://www.newsguardtech.com/ratings/rating-process-criteria/
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[99] https://www.newsguardtech.com/ratings/rating-process-criteria/
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