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Creative Industry

cre· a· tiv· i· ty   - the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.

Creativity is KC’s greatest commodity. As the home of Hallmark Cards, the world’s largest creative expression company, creativity and innovation is truly in our DNA.

In its broadest sense, creativity can be applied to almost any industry. In this section, we’ll use the traditional definition to profile our graphic and interactive design, photography, film and advertising industries.

• KC ranks 4th in the country for its concentration of visual artists
• KC ranks 6th in the country for commercial/industrial designers
• KC ranks 7th in the country in the number of visual artists
• KC ranks 12th in the country for its concentration of architects
• KC is home to the nation’s 6th largest Ad Club chapter

More on KC’s Arts and Culture

Made in KC

• McDonald’s Happy Meal
• Hallmark greeting cards
• Naming rights for City of Hollywood
• Mickey Mouse

Professional Organizations

• The Advertising Club of Kansas City
• The Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City
• Arts Council of Greater Kansas City
• Business Marketing Association of Kansas City
• Greater Kansas City Public Relations Society of America
• Kansas City Direct Marketing Association
• Kansas City International Association of Business Communicators
• Society for Marketing Professional Services

MBA programs are offered at most colleges in the KC area. Visit Higher Education for a list of schools.

History

KC’s Film Row
Hollywood has always had a connection to the Heartland. It gets it’s name from a retired Topeka couple who bought property in the foothills west of Los Angeles and, in 1887, established the City of Hollywood.

When moving pictures made the move from East to West Coast, filmmakers from around the world flocked to Hollywood. The actors soon followed. And many of Hollywood’s brightest stars came from Kansas City including Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Ginger Rogers, and Ed Asner.

Needing more centralized distribution points to ship their features nationwide, Hollywood chose Kansas City as one of its largest and Kansas City’s Film Row was born. The industrial enclave occupied nearly twenty buildings in a four square block area of the Crossroads District near downtown. Film Row counted as tenants such major studios as MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, and United Artists. It also housed peripheral suppliers to the industry, most notably the Manley Popcorn Company the makers of those wonderful popcorn poppers that made popcorn the “must eat” snack of moviegoers everywhere. 

The roots of Hollywood animation reach to Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram studios in Kansas City, where he started making animated films in 1922. The character Mickey Mouse is said to have been inspired by a pet he kept at the studio ... a loveable little local rodent.  

Generations of talented and experienced directors, producers and support crews honed their skills in Kansas City, including native son Robert Altman.   Altman returned to shoot “Kansas City” in 1995, and hastened the renovation of Union Station, now a Kansas City centerpiece.  

Altman is far from alone in choosing Kansas City and it’s surroundings as their backlot.   There’s Joshua Logan’s “Picnic” ... Richard Brooks’ Truman Capote classic “In Cold Blood” ... James Ivory’s “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge” ... Howard Deutch’s “Article 99" ... Ang Lee’s “Ride With The Devil” ... and ABC-TV’s “The Day After”, which is still considered to be the most-watched and highest-rated TV event in the history of television.

Cards to Comics – KC’s Rich Graphic Art Heritage
Hallmark Cards is the oldest and most well-known creative company started in the KC area. Beginning in 1910, 18-year-old Joyce C. Hall famously traveled around the Midwest selling postcards out of a shoebox. By 1915, the company known as Hall Brothers sold Valentine's Day and Christmas cards. In 1917, J.C. and his brother Rollie invented modern wrapping paper when they ran out of traditional colored tissue paper. In 1928, the company adopted the name "Hallmark,” after the hallmark symbol used by goldsmiths in London in the 14th century. It began printing the name on the back of every card and promoting it in ad campaigns, a practice the company continues to the present day. In 1944, Hallmark adopted its current slogan, "When you care enough to send the very best,” created by a salesman at a meeting. The cocktail napkin on which it was originally handwritten is on display at the company headquarters. In 1951, Hall sponsored a television program for NBC that gave rise to the Hallmark Hall of Fame, which has won 78 Emmy Awards.

The advertising industry started in KC much like it did everywhere else in the world. However, sometime during the 1960s, things really took off. Bernstein-Rein opened in 1964 and has vaulted such global brands like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart to their current status. Credited with the creation of McDonald’s “Happy Meal,” Bernstein-Rein is today one of the largest independent ad agencies in the country.

In 1970, Andrews McMeel Universal was founded as Universal Press Syndicate by Jim Andrews and John McMeel. Garry Trudeau—then a student at Yale—was the first major talent to be discovered when Jim Andrews read his strip, Bull Tales, in the Yale Daily News. Trudeau's Pulitzer Prize-winning strip, Doonesbury, went on to become one of the biggest success stories in comic-syndication history, and Universal Press Syndicate became a world leader in newspaper syndication, publishing, production of calendars, gift and stationery, and the development of new media.