Hate Mail : The Definitive Collection is the ultimate retrospective of London-based illustrator/designer, Mr Bingo and his hugely popular Hate Mail project. Since 2011 and starting off on Twitter, Mr Bingo has sent 928 vintage postcards embellished with offensive messages to recipients around the world. This book, the ‘Rolls Royce’ of books, is a beautiful, high production, clothbound volume showcasing 156 illustrated postcards from the Hate Mail project, selected specially by the artist.
Hate Mail was conceived in April 2011 when the ‘Master of Pens’, Mr Bingo took to Twitter drunkenly offering to send a vintage postcard from his personal collection, lovingly illustrated with an insulting message. The recipient, selected from a mass of replies, was Jonathan Hopkins from Forest Hill, who received a postcard with the hate mail message ‘Fuck you Jonathan, fuck you and fuck your shit legs’. Since its inception, the Hate Mail service has been consistently popular with each edition selling out within minutes or you can get signed personalized copies which are available here and that feature a personal hate mail message to a recipient of your choice, we advise you to get your hands on a book while you can.
As an illustrator, Mr Bingo’s clients include publishers like Dorling Kindersley, the New York Times and Wired, not to mention the Byron burger chain and Runners Need. However he says that despite the ‘sweary’ nature of the book, his clients are pretty chill, he is known for being a bit ‘edgy’ and we like that he’s a bit edgy too. With 3,732 backers pledged to date and over £135,146 raised on the Kickstarter this has been one seriously successful project, with Mr Bingo saying it could be in fact as popular as the bible.
Mr. Bingo will be joining us next year for OFFSET Dublin in 2016, with tickets available on our website now. In the mean time you can check out Mr. Bingo and his bemusing rap video about his generous offer to verbally abuse strangers here as part of his Kickstarter campaign.
Images: Lauren Pritchard