Maria Berg on the Puzzle Design for the Haeckel Sea Squirts Puzzle :

"I find puzzle design exciting for many reasons, but what I enjoy most is what I learn from the images. For example, when I first started the design for the Sea Squirts puzzle , I hadn’t even heard of sea squirts before. The way that the colonies of tubular creatures create such lovely designs on the coral reef made me think of fractals that occur in nature. After researching fractal art for a while, I used one of the sea squirt colonies from Haeckel’s painting as a base and emulated a fractal image. Then I started researching the sea squirts’ environment. I looked for creatures that interact with the sea squirts and stumbled upon the blue dragon sea slug . I also spent some time attempting to create puzzle pieces that would look like the coral itself and the polyps that it creates during reproduction. I enjoyed the challenge of telling the life of the sea squirt through puzzle design."