For 7.50 euros anyone can have a taste on what its like to be a FANTASTIC MAN. Featuring a range of recommendations on style, FANTASTIC MAN is what they call as the gentleman’s style journal. With its recent publish of issue 11, with cover of artist Mr. Wolfgang Tillmans on the eve of a major exhibition at Serpentine Gallery in London as well as a line of renowned figures, Mr. Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, the legendary specimen of masculinity Mr. FABIO LANZONI, and the celebrated journalist Mr. BOB COLACELLO.

For more visit their website, FANTASTIC MAN.

“An urban guide to the Middle East” – this is the tag line of Middle Eastern’s own urban magazine, Brownbook. Brownbook magazine exposes us to the layers of Middle East’s creative industry, as a hub of tantalizing ideas and expressions. Taking directives from designers, urban planners, architects, songsmiths and scientists. Brownbook is truly a visionary and gives a more worldly and insightful perspective of talents in the Middle East. For a one year subscription of $70, they will deliver the Brownbook straight to your doorsteps.

Brownbook issue 22:

For our July/August issue, Brownbook has headed deep into the Maghreb’s Big Five. Meeting artists, designers, thinkers and directors from Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, we come out pepped on the potential of these switched-on and diverse countries

Issue 22 also contains an interesting interview with the designer behind A.P.C clothing, Jean Touitou. Click here to read the excerpt of the interview.

In greeting the summer season filled with the sun, the sea and a lot of good relaxing time. Monocle will be launching a special summer newspaper edition to be one of your companions during your traveling period.  Packed with a good leisure read and reportage of your plans once the summer season is over.  Priced at  £7.00 the Monocle Summer Newspaper will be on sale  from 29 July at all the best resorts from West Coast to the eastern Med (and the key airport hubs in between).

For more information,  click here.

Sarah Trotter is a designer and stylist, Romy Ash is a writer. None of them are cooks. Yet, the wonderful thing is they joined up to create beautiful looking delicacies and great tasting foods. Both are self-taught cooks, an affirming fact to tell us that everyone can go into the kitchen and actually cook good food. You must try their recipe for cinnamon doughnut, which has the light as air interior and a perfectly sugar encrusted, crunchy crust – as quoted from them. Or try the hearty braised ox tail if you are daring enough to cook that part of an ox. Even their baked eggs are great as a hung over breakfast. Dip it with a crusty toasted sourdough and there you go; your day will be as great as the sunshiny melting egg yolk.

Grab their recipes here.

A quick stop at a book store in Roppongi district led me to this funny and interesting book called ‘Happy Victims’ by Kyoichi Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki, who’s famous with his book about tiny and packed Tokyo apartments titled ‘Tokyo Style’, continues his exploration of Japanese culture. When you skim through the book, you might think that this book is about consumerism and fashion victims. But when you slowly read the text, it is about collectors, dedicated fashion fans of different brands. You’ll find inside the book, different individuals sharing their stories about collecting their favorite brands and wearing none other than that brand. One funny story that I read was about this monk who lived in a temple up at the mountains, and during the weekend when he visits Tokyo he will be dressed in Comme des Garcons from top to bottom. Now that’s what you called fashion conscious.

Available at Amazon for US$49.49

Print magazines are slowly becoming obsolete against the various emergence of online publication offered. However, no one can deny that print is still highly sought to the general public. Thus, with its tangible existence, print publications are finding various ways to be appealing. Newwork Magazine for one is offering an aesthetic solution to newspaper. With their fifth issue, Newwork Magazine features contribution from Rudolf Hostettler, Jost Hochuli, TGG Hafen Senn Stieger, Gaston Isoz, Jürgen Bergbauer, Taka Mayumi and Lillian Bassman.

Via slamxhype

Speaking, writing, and signing are ways in which a language lives and breathes. Languages are being passed on from one generation to the next, and this process in on-going from a parent to their children, who is passed on to their children and so on.

So when does a language die? A language dies when the last person who speaks of it dies. And this is what’s going on in many parts of the world. For example, tribal languages spoken by the people in Brazil and Indonesia are only spoken by a handful of people, whereas English, Spanish and Chinese are healthy languages spoken, written, and signed by people of the world.

One the world’s leading linguist David Crystal introduces us to our most critical mode of communication. With this book he hopes that everyone who have a real interest in language will try to preserve the worlds language in rich variety. Most importantly today, he explains that we should understand that how we shape our language and how language shapes us. A Little Book of Language shares to us Crystal’s knowledge about spelling, grammar, diction, and the influences of new kinds of linguistic style (computer language and texting) Interesting for those with an appreciation for language.

With collaboration by Jacob Kenedy and award-winning designer Caz Hildebrand, they’ve created a cookbook unlike any that you have seen before, and that is their intention. The Geometry of Pasta showcases over 100 authentic pasta recipes from featuring vector illustrations of pasta shapes in black and white, revealing science, history and philosophy behind the various pasta dishes across Italy. Telling us how to cook and eat pasta like a true Italian. Check out the website at Geometryofpasta.co.uk.

Source: Grafik Magazine

The Geometry of Pasta from Pan Marketing on Vimeo.

Prefabricated house often referred as prefab houses are mass-produced houses constructed off-site in advance.  Often regarded as realistic housing solution by the average consumer and synonymous with the word cheap has evolved into an ambitious design with sophisticated detailing solutions. Current prefab homes are inspired by postmodernism or futurist architecture. Via TASCHEN.

The book covers the following detail below:

The amazing history of prefabricated houses started in England in the 1830’s with a building kit for emigrants moving to Australia. Even today, prefabricated houses provide a high percentage of living spaces in many countries of the world. This book covers prefabs from the USA via Europe to Asia and Africa, giving insight into the various industrially prefabricated components, the difficulties of delivery to the building site, and the intricacies of assembly and completion. As well as tracing the liaison between modernism and industrialization that evolved to produce the latest prefabricated solutions, it also features a unique compilation of one-off prefabricated houses by well known international architects, as well as successful dwellings manufactured off-site for everyday modern living.

Written and photographed by Rin Tanaka (publisher of the My Freedamn series) this book compiles the extremely rare pieces from the collection of Larry McKaughan, owner of the Seattle-based vintage, earned his “No. 1″ reputation as the denim specialist during the Japanese denim boom in the 1980s. Featuring over 200 pieces from McKaughan’s collection.