Kansas City, MO

On Wednesday, Dec. 10th, I left my house in Stillwater, OK, at 6:00AM destined for Kansas City, MO, by noon. After navigating some trademark Oklahoma winter roads, I was able to reach the Hallmark parking lot just in time for my lunch meeting with one of Hallmark’s Creative Directors. Up until then, I can honestly say that I had no idea the scope of the Hallmark Company. That building is virtually exploding with creativity and I had a great time walking the halls and discussing the industry.

Since my wife and I are hoping to move to the Kansas City area in May, it was nice to experience how welcoming the industry was and to see just how artistic Kansas City was in general. I had no idea the downtown area was so littered with unique galleries and shops.


HAMMERPRESS is an amazing little design shop that specializes in off-set printing. I had completely forgotten that it was located in Kansas City and should probably apologize to the desk clerk for bombarding him with my 20 questions, but I would recommend visiting this shop to anyone who finds themselves in the area. They have a great little retail section in the front of their store where you can pick up great posters, stationary, books, etc.


The Art of Pizza isn’t the trendiest spot in downtown Kansas City, but what fun are those places really? About 5 minutes in the door I was locked into a full on conversation with the owner, Vic, who was a huge photographer at one point. Over a great piece of cheese pizza and a Red Strip, I got to hear about his time shooting cheerleader calendars for most of the major NFL teams and even got to see some of the work that he had stashed behind the bar. It’s always hard to tell exactly how much of a story like that is true, but either way, it was a great time. If you stop in, tell Vic I said “Hey”.


After eating my pizza it was time to feed my love of old signs. If you look, you can actually see The Art of Pizza and Barkley in the background.