About
SUE HARRISON
I have researched, designed and illustrated large format postcards for about ten years. After leaving school I trained as a cartographer so have always had a love of maps, an interest in calligraphy and a fascination with old illustrated books and unusual postcards. After moving to a house in the centre of Bath, opposite a residence in which Jane Austen had stayed with her family, I became intrigued by the sight of tourists trying to identify the actual house. It occurred to me that a map-based postcard illustrating the family’s many moves, together with aspects of Jane’s life in Bath, might be of interest to her many admirers.
Postcards illustrating Jane’s novels, a series on Dickens then Shakespeare followed. Family visits to First World War battlefields inspired the first card of a military series. I now live and work just outside the beautiful city of Bath.
Hand Drawn Postcards
My Literary, Military and Historical map-based postcards are the result of very careful research. I have visited and photographed nearly every place featured on the cards during research trips in the UK and Europe. Then begins the challenge of fitting the illustrations and informative details into a design. Many cards have been checked by various experts in their field before being printed locally, in Bristol.
Although designed for mailing many of my postcards are now collected or used as teaching aids. They are sold throughout Europe in museums, historic houses, cathedrals, literary centres and bookshops - and individually to private buyers.
