Sam Haskins is a South African photographer best known for his contribution to nude photography during the 60’s and 70’s.  During this time he also published a number of photography books, some of which include Five Girls (1962), Cowboy Kate (1965) and November Girl (1966).

Five Girls explored a fresh approach to photographing the nude female figure and contained important first explorations with black and white printing, cropping and book design which went on to become a key feature of all his subsequent books.

Below are some of the more famous photographs of Gill, one of the models featured in the book:

"Gill was an art student in Johannesburg in the early sixties. Not a professional model, she just walked into the studio one day and was a total natural in front of the camera.

There were stories of Vietnam soldiers taking copies of Five Girls (often gifted to them by their wives or girlfriends) to war, so Gill was also a Vietnam pinup. The fan mail generated by Five Girls in the 60s included letters from both men and women." - Sam Haskins

You may recognise two of the photos from a more recent artistic project as they were used for the album cover artwork for The Last Shadow Puppets – a side project of Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane of The Rascals.

For more info on everything Sam Haskins visit:

www.samhaskinsblog.com 

www.haskins.com

To accompany the Yuki  7 film posters (check them out here) Kevin Dart has produced a very slick looking book titled Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7.

The book contains artwork by Kevin Dart along with contributions from a number of his friends and colleagues to create a pseudo “Art of” book with production artwork, movie stills, posters, and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of the Yuki 7 movies.

Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 is available at Kevin Dart’s online store here.

Also click here to check out the third element to this cool project: the theatrical trailer to ‘A Kiss From Tokyo’ .

I bought this cool little book a while back now and it has since become a very useful reference for when tutoring at uni. Written by Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School has one architecture lesson per page and at times can be quite funny due to its succinct ‘zen-master-like’ quotes (some of the illustrations are pretty funny as well).

“This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom.” Matthew Frederick 

So whether you’re a 1st year architecture student, someone working in the architecture profession or just someone wanting to gain an insight into design, this book is a great starting point. It covers aspects of the creative process, design, drawing, and presentation and is not only relevant to architects but also designers and artists of any background.

Click on the pages below to view pdf samples of the book at the MIT Press website.

Above Images: FREDERICK, Matthew. 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. Cambridge, MIT Press, 2007.

For a more detailed review visit The Designer’s Review of Books.

Since I hadn’t posted much for a while I thought I’d do two posts in two days. (I’m feeling guilty!)

While doing a search for mid-century modern furniture a little while back I came across this photographic book by Jed Darland titled Sexitecture. Released in 2004, the limited edition book contains 50 black and white photographs of the female body and various pieces of designer furniture. The book is published in a frame-lid box so all the photographs can be individually mounted or framed.

“SEXITECTURE: The female body graced by architecturally inspired furniture will raise awareness of the importance of design as it relates to human scale, and remind readers to be conscious of their surroundings, where they live, where they work, and most importantly, where they sit.” JED DARLAND

The limited edition of 10,000 copies is now sold out but I have seen copies listed for sale on www.amazon.com 

Sexitecture also has a new project in the works: “SEXITECTURE: The Vitruvian Man.”

Check out the Sexitecture website for more information here 

or the Sexitecture Myspace page here

The Aeron Chair

The Ball Chair