mr,men

Mr. Tickle was the first Mr. Men character created by Hargreaves after his son, Adam, asked him what a tickle looked like: a round, orange figure with long, bendy arms. Each book in the original Mr. Men and Little Miss series introduced a different title character and their single dominant trait in order to convey a double simple moral lesson. The Mr. Men and Little Miss characters would frequently reappear in the later books of other characters. The books' simple and silly stories, with bright-coloured, boldly drawn illustrations, made them quite popular, with sales over 100 million worldwide in 22 languages.

In 2001, a competition was held in the Sunday Times for children to submit their own Mr. Men character, which was to be published in a limited edition to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series. Mr. Cheeky by 8 year-old Gemma Almond was the winner, and her creation was then published and sold only in branches of W H Smith, with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity for children's leukemia.

In April 2004, Hargreaves' widow, Christine, sold the rights to the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters to the UK entertainment group, Chorion.

In 2006, to celebrate 35 years of Mr. Men (and 25 years of Little Miss) Mr. Birthday and Little Miss Birthday were published. There was also an art exhibition at The Art Animation Gallery^[1] in Central London, and in October 2006, Adam Hargreaves created the first Little Miss character based on a real person; 'Little Miss Stella', based on Stella McCartney, appeared in a limited edition of 1,000 books produced as fashion show invitations.^[2]

The typeface for the Little Miss books from Bossy to Star is Univers; the books from Busy to Sommersault use Helvetica; and all the other books in the series use Optima.