Hallmark Card Creators Tackle Father's Day

June 20, 2004 — -- At the Hallmark headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., 5,000 people are taking pride in the cards you bought for this year's Father's Day. And why not? You bought about 100 million of them.

"It's an important occasion for a lot of consumers out there," says Dave Mihanovic, Hallmark's director of consumer research. "They really want to acknowledge their father and the significance that their father has in their life."

In terms of card-buying, Father's Day ranks fourth behind Christmas, Valentine's Day (or as the Hallmark folks say, "Val"), and Mother's Day. Not bad for a holiday that's only been official since Richard Nixon signed a presidential resolution in 1972.

At a design meeting, artists and writers work on next Father's Day, a year ahead of time, and one starts to see how much the company has boiled it all down to a science.

Team leader Emil Kornfeind holds up color palettes specially created for different types of dads — outdoor dad, traditional dad, weekend dad, business dad — then asks for ideas and images.

"On weekends, he made Mickey Mouse pancakes, with two little ears" says one woman at the meeting.

Another grew up believing only her father knew how to make chocolate milk. A memory of one dad's smoking rituals is conjured up, and so is tagging along to the office on Saturdays, working on the car, even the smell of an overcoat.

Some of these bits of paternal history will evolve into cards, from the highly sentimental to the fondly sarcastic: This year, Hallmark put more than 800 different Father's Day designs on the shelves.

Most of the art is produced in a collection of cubicles on the ninth floor, each one inhabited by an artist assigned to a variety of "sending situations."