Biography

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Harriet Russell is a London-based illustrator who is known for incorporating quirky hand lettering into her publishing and editorial assignments. Brought up in a twelfth-century priory, she studied visual communication at the Glasgow School of Art and went on to get her postgraduate degree from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She lives in London, on Route W2 2 RH, and is part of a collective auspiciously entitled "Happiness at Work".
    Her book ENVELOPES (Random House; Publication Date: November 8, 2005) is a beautifully illustrated collection of seventy-five witty and eccentric postmarked envelopes that made it through the postal system against all odds.
    Inspired by a multitude of misspelled and otherwise illegible envelopes addressed to her longtime family home, Russell decided to see just how far she could actually "push the envelope" of the U.K. mail system. ENVELOPES includes illustrations of the wide range of work, from her early envelopes with the address written backwards, to the increasingly complex envelopes with hidden addresses, crosswords, wordplay, and even entirely pictorial riddles.
    Aside from the beauty of the envelopes themselves, the charm of this project lies in the surprisingly delighted participation of the postal workers who methodically hand sorted Russell’s envelopes, filling in crossword blanks, unscrambling words, even writing “Solved by Glasgow Mail” on the backs. This engaging book of illustrated envelopes should appeal to puzzlers, punsters, artists, and of course to heroic postal workers all over the world.