From fleas to beetles, from bed bugs to flies, Bugs and their numbers can be quite a surprise. Their feats are amazing and, believe it or not, there are more than 10 quintillion; that’s saying a lot. Did you know that an earthworm can be 22 feet long, or that a bed bug can live for 540 days without food or that a cockroach can survive for 168 hours without its head! Fact finding made for some squeamish days at Werner Design Werks. Of course, these books had some additional typographic muscle from our interns, Meghan O’Hare and Lori Benoy, and some modern wordsmithing from Joe Weismann.

We stumbled into the role of kids’ book creator-author-designer-illustrator, which is a long story. What began as a single children’s book about typography, Alphabeasties and other Amazing Types, has expanded into three books, two sets of flashcards, an activity book, an app and limited edition pillows, with hopes of more to come. Demonstrating to kids (and grown-ups!) that typography is fun, that type has a personality and can express more than simply the words being spelled.