The first monograph from Daniel Eatock, is a brilliant escape into the reductive problem solving mind of a young British Artist.

The book has a wonderful handmade touch to it, where Daniel traveled to the Indiana warehouse of the printer and inked his thumbprint on the spine of every copy. He also inserted a hand-drawn circle page randomly into the pages so that each book would be different. It is likely that these two things alone made me instantly spring for the book. However, I wasn't disappointed that there wasn't more than that when I got it. Very much like the way he presents himself online, there are straightforward answers to questions about himself and his work. And what might look like, from a distance, self-indulgent spreads of silly illustrations or bad photoshop artwork, like other monographs are prone to doing: Eatock is giving you close-ups of his artwork and work. I never realised he'd done the Big Brother logo, so I was surprised to see it as a spread. But it was accompanied with a story on how he came to collaborate with Channel 4 over a period of time.

Daniel is both an artist and graphic designer, having set up the firm Foundation 33, that merged with Boymeetsgirl and now works under his own guide of Eatock Ltd in London. Eatock talks of collaborations, and is very liberal with referencing others he's worked with, how they've helped him as well as littering his book somewhat in a disorderly fashion with his Picture of the Week project, each photo with the particular photographer's name and often "thanks" from Daniel. I'm skipping over a lot of background details you can get elsewhere—but the young fellow is interesting, his work instantly accessible, but also provoking. Appeals to my reductive approach to problem-solving, yet is a pleasurably jab at reminding me to go further with my ideas, be more risk-adverse and spend more time making stuff that has nothing to do with business.

Buy the book—if you don't, I might just have to send you one.

Enjoy the photos from the book—and these links.

Book Details:
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (August 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1568987889
ISBN-13: 978-1568987880
Product Dimensions: 12 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds

Buy the book for much much less than directly from Princeton Architectural Press, from Amazon.com.
(until we set up our own Amazon referral link, why not give Design Observer some pennies for buying it from their amazon link).
Imprint from Amazon.com and Imprint from Amazon.co.uk

Imprint Project on Daniel's web site here

Picture of the week project on his web site.

Design Boom interviews Eatock





The thumbprint.













There's a story here about being a good illustrator, but at one time early in school, he was only the "second best" and being competitive, it forced him to take a different direction in drawing what he saw.







Randomly inserted hand-drawn circle. Between pages 64-65 in my book. 94-95 in the book Eatock shows on his web site. What pages in your book?





















Book Details:
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (August 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1568987889
ISBN-13: 978-1568987880
Product Dimensions: 12 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds

Buy the book: Imprint from Amazon.com and Imprint from Amazon.co.uk