The Art of the Crown

At the beginning of the year there was an art show in one of our galleries called "Art of the Crown" it helped kick off Hallmark's centennial year (we blogged about it here a little bit). Hallmark artists created 250 uniquely diverse works of art, all starting with the same white resin crown (á la Kidrobot). Jeanee, Josh and I have crowns in the show!

Read more at the Centennial Blog.

Sourdough Bread

Every Tuesday of this year the Centennial Committee has been posting a video giving us a glimpse into Hallmark's history. I enjoyed this one a lot- one of our bakers tells the story of the sourdough bread recipe J.C. Hall brought back from San Francisco in the 1960s. Enjoy!


Watch other Crown Minutes on the Hallmark Youtube page

Cards Reflect Our Culture

I have never really thought of a greeting card as a sort of "time capsule", but when you think about it...they really can be a freeze frame of world events, slang, social norms and design styles. The Hallmark Centennial site has a really great section where they showcase cards from the past 10 decades, they are grouped in themes. With Valentine's right around the corner, the album up right now shows the different ways people used to say "I Love You", and how they say it today.

While you're there check out the past albums.
• Tough Times, Good Wishes
• Cards Are Groovy, Man

Crowns honoring Hallmark's 100th Birthday!

Remember Jeanee's post awhile back about the crowns that Hallmarkers could create to help celebrate Hallmark's Centennial? Well, one of the gals on my team here in Hallmark's Licensing Design Studio created a series of five Centennial Crowns to honor one of Hallmark's Licensing partners, Lucasfilm. She has been a fan of Star Wars since she was a child, so the project was also a personal one for her. Here are her crowns: Yoda, Darth Vader, Leia, Chewbacca, and a Star Wars tribute crown.



Each of the Star Wars crowns features a sound clip (or several!) from the character and/or music from Star Wars. You can read more about the crowns and the artist behind them on Star Wars.com.

Centennial Colors

It's starting to look like a celebration wherever you look around here ! Loving these colors everywhere. 

This is a photo of the Visitor's Center and Kaleidoscope.

KCUR Covers Hallmark Centennial Celebration

I'm an avid NPR listener, especially while I design during the day. I like to listen to the local Kansas City Station KCUR. One of my favorite local shows is Up to Date with Steve Kraske of the Kansas City Star.

I wanted to give a heads up about tomorrow's show - Steve will be talking with Hallmark's Historian Lynley Farris about how the need for emotional connection has stayed consistent over the decades even while the means by which we connected - the images and editorial used in Hallmark's greeting cards - changed to reflect the times.

It sounds like an awesome show, if you're in the listening area you should tune in tomorrow Friday 15th 11am - Noon on 89.3 FM, and even if you're not you can still listen online.

EDIT

Here's a Link of the show archive.