For years, prostitutes' graphic advertising cards have been derided as the sleazy scourge of seafront phone booths.

The postcards advertising the services of prostitutes, brothels and massage parlours - dubbed 'tart cards' - have been the subject of countless crackdowns by police and politicians.

In the 1990s it was estimated up to a million cards a year found their way into the city's kiosks.

But in a new book, graphic designer and lecturer Caroline Archer has attempted to give the saucy calling cards artistic status.

Hundreds of cards taken from the city's phone booths were sifted and a selection feature in the glossy tome, called Tart Cards.

They range from crudely scribbled phone numbers to sophisticated computer-enhanced images, all promising exotic delights at the other end of the phone line.

Caroline said she was inspired to write the book because, as a design professional, they represent a hidden world of evolving typographic taste.

She said: "Love them or loathe them, they are an intriguing slice of English social history."

The book opens with a history of 'carding' which began in Victorian London when scented envelopes were distributed to theatres and music halls and gained momentum in the early 20th Century with suggestive notes placed in newsagents' windows.

But the boom began in the 1980s when a loophole in the law meant it was not technically illegal to advertise in phone booths.

The loophole was closed two years ago with tough legislation introducing a maximum of six months imprisonment and fines of up to £5,000 for anyone caught carding.

Caroline said: "Carding is a particularly English phenomenon specific to London and the seaside resorts of Brighton and Hove were they serve a flourishing tourist trade.

"Behind the cards is a vibrant and well-organised industry that comprises prostitutes, punters, pimps and printers. It is an illicit business but one that is thriving."

Brighton Pavilion MP Dave Lepper and Hove MP Ivor Caplin were at the forefront of a campaign to reduce the number of cards in the city's phone boxes in 2001.

It followed protests from residents that the large number of cards in local phone boxes degraded women, corrupted children, discouraged tourism and lowered the tone of parts of Brighton and Hove.

The new laws have drastically reduced the number of cards being put in telephone boxes in Brighton and Hove. Prosecutions by Sussex Police have also reduced the number of cards put in telephone boxes.

But there are still some people willing to risk the fines to advertise Brighton and Hove's sex industry.

Caroline, 42, said: "The main difference in the Brighton and Hove cards is the size.

"London cards all tend to be the A6 postcard size, whereas ones in Brighton and Hove tend to be off differing sizes, some of them as small as business cards.

"Girls working together in Brighton and Hove are more willing to make it obvious on their cards they are working together, sometimes making it clear they are offering a 24 hour seven day a week service. I have only seen that in Brighton."

She says designs on the London cards and the Brighton and Hove cards and descriptions of the services are often similar, indicating girls are using the same printing company.

Caroline says printers like to get the cards off the premises as quickly as possible in case they are fined for producing the illegal cards.

Sometimes the girls do not have the name and address of the printers and have no idea where they are produced, only dealing with the printers via mobile phone numbers.

Tart Cards by Caroline Archer is published by Mark Batty price £19.99.