Bill Moran is a third-generation letterpress printer based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His Letterbugs are printed on 140-year-old presses with type designed in 19th-century. They have a sturdy, “I’m going to be here long after you” attitude, just like insects. (Fun fact: Anyone can make a Letterbug, including you! Click here to make yours and post it on your social media of choice using #letterbugs tag.) He started making Letterbugs in 1999 as a part of Saint Paul’s annual Art Crawl. He describes it as his “cheeky attempt to bring to life art that crawls. I like letters and I like bugs. A hybrid seemed like a good idea and 25 years later I’m still making them.”

From 2002 to 2021,  Bill volunteered and was subsequently hired as Artistic Director at Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin where he founded the museum’s annual Wayzgoose conference, created the Wood Type Legacy Program, and established partnerships with Adobe, Appleton Coated Paper, Chronicle Books, Monotype, Mark Simonson Fonts, Neenah Paper, Hoefler&Co., and P22 Type Foundry. After leading typographic study-abroad tours since 2008, he created TipoItalia in 2023 in collaboration with Sandro Berra at Tipoteca Italiana where they showcase the best of Italian lettering and typography, guiding students through making their own digital fonts. (Steven Heller’s review can be found here.)

Bill’s work is in the permanent collections of the Gutenberg Museum, Tipoteca Italiana, The Newberry Library, The Haley Gallery in Nashville, Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography. As the official archive of the Letterbugs, his HMCT collection will continue to grow as more prints are produced.

All works are letterpress on paper unless otherwise noted.