Hallmark Cards — BrandWiki

Hallmark Cards

Overview

Hallmark Cards, Inc.

type	Private
industry	Retail, greeting card, gift shop
foundation	1907 (as Norfolk Post Card Company) 1910 (as Hall Brothers) 1954 (as Hallmark)
founder	Joyce Hall
location	2501 McGee Street
location city	Kansas City, Missouri
area served	Worldwide
locations	1,146 stores (2025)‡R1R‡
key people	Donald J. Hall Jr. (executive chairman) David E. Hall (executive vice chairman) Mike Perry (president & CEO)

Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a privately held, family-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1910 by Joyce Hall, Hallmark is one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of greeting cards in the United States.[3] In 1985, the company was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[4]

In addition to greeting cards, Hallmark also manufactures such products as party goods, gift wrap, and stationery. Hallmark acquired Binney & Smith in 1984, and would later change its name to Crayola, LLC after its well-known Crayola brand of crayons, markers and colored pencils. The company is also involved in television, having produced the long-running Hallmark Hall of Fame series since 1951, and launching the Hallmark Channel 50 years later (replacing an earlier joint venture with The Jim Henson Company, Odyssey Network).

History

Driven by an early 20th-century postcard craze, Joyce Clyde Hall and his older brothers, William and Rollie, began the Norfolk Post Card Company in 1907, initially headquartered in the

subsid	Crayola DaySpring Greeting Cards Hallmark Business Connections Hallmark Channel (Hallmark Media) Hallmark+ Hallmark eCards Hallmark Ink and Main Press Hallmark Gold Crown Stores Halls Sunrise Greetings Hallmark Baby Bernama TV (7%) Mahogany Greeting Cards

Products and services

Hallmark offers or has offered the following products and services:

Greeting cards

Hallmark Cards feature several brands and licenses. Shoebox, the company's line of humorous cards, evolved from studio cards. Maxine™ was introduced in 1986 when she appeared on several Shoebox cards the year the alternative card line was launched. hoops&yoyo. and Revilo are other popular lines. Forever Friends was purchased in 1994 from English entrepreneur Andrew Brownsword, who for four years subsequently was Chief Executive of Hallmark Europe. Image Craft was acquired by the William E. Coutts Company subsidiary of Hallmark Canada in the mid-2000s.

Hallmark has provided software for creating and printing cards. This software has been known as Hallmark Card Studio, with partner Nova Development, and Microsoft Greetings Workshop in partner with Microsoft.[23]

Gift products

• Gifts, greeting cards

• Ornaments (primarily Christmas-themed)

• Gift wrap

• Personalized items

• Party supplies

• Books

• Stationery

• Sentimental frames

• Recordable plush

• Plush figures

• Bookmarks

• Snowglobes

Licensors

Some of the licensors for Hallmark's greeting cards, ornaments, and gift products include:

• Beatrix Potter

• Dr. Seuss

• Enesco

• Epic Games

• Ford Motor Company

• General Motors

• Hasbro

• Harley-Davidson

• Marjolein Bastin

• Mattel

• MGM

• National Basketball Association

• National Football League

• National Hockey League

• Netflix

• Nickelodeon

• * Paws, Inc.

• Nintendo

• Peanuts

Hallmark Visitors Center

The Hallmark Visitors Center is located at the company's headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The Center features exhibits about the company's history including historic greeting cards and postcards, Christmas ornaments, exhibits from the company's art collection, and displays about the Hallmark Hall of Fame programs and awards.[24] There is also a movie about the company's history.

Hallmark School Store

Alvirne High School in Hudson, New Hampshire, operates the only Hallmark school store in the United States. Besides normal food and beverage items, the "Bronco Barn" store also sells Hallmark cards. The store is run by students in Marketing I and Marketing II classes, and is open to students all day and after school.[25]

Subsidiaries and assets

Hallmark owns: • Bernama TV: Malaysian news television network. Hallmark holds a 7% stake in the network.[26]

• Crayola LLC (formerly Binney & Smith): makers of Crayola-brand crayons

• DaySpring Greeting Cards, is the world's largest Christian greeting card company. It was purchased in 1999 from Cook Publishing and is based in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

• Hallmark Baby: Baby clothing, toy, and decor sales website that sells exclusive Hallmark products.

• Hallmark Channel: cable television network—Hallmark Cards owns this now privately held company (Crown Media Holdings), having acquired the stake it didn't own from Liberty Media; the network launched the Hallmark Mystery sister channel (formerly known as Hallmark Movie Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries) in January 2004, and Hallmark Family (formerly Hallmark Drama) in October 2017.

• Hallmark Gold Crown: a chain of independently-owned card and gift stores in the United States and Canada. Certain locations are corporate operated.

• Halls, an upscale department store at Kansas City's Crown Center

• Hallmark+: A premium subscription video on-demand (SVOD) service that is the primary streaming provider of Hallmark films, features, TV series and original productions. As of September 2024 (when it rebranded from Hallmark Movies Now), it also serves a secondary purpose as a loyalty program for Hallmark Gold Crown stores.

• Rainbow Brite: a franchise of children's dolls; includes the TV series produced by DIC Entertainment, with a 1985 theatrical film, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer produced by DIC and distributed by Warner Bros. Discovery.

• Shirt Tales: a franchise of cards, featuring animals with shirts that read different messages; property licensed for a 1982 animated series for NBC created by Hanna-Barbera Productions, whose rights are owned by the Turner Entertainment division of Warner Bros. Discovery.

• Sunrise Greetings: Located in Bloomington, Indiana

• Zoobilee Zoo: a 1986 live-action children's series featuring a number of contemporary Broadway theatre players, centered around a zoo populated by animals with artistic tastes.

In addition, Hallmark Cards is the property manager of the Crown Center commercial complex, adjacent to its headquarters, and the owner of lithographer Litho-Krome Co.

Photographic Collection

In 2006, Hallmark donated its Hallmark Photographic Collection, an extensive collection of photographs by prominent photographers including Todd Webb, to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.[27]

Maxine

"Maxine" is a fictional character featured in a line of greeting cards first published by Hallmark's Shoebox collection in 1986. As of 2017, more than 160 million Maxine greeting cards have been sold.[28] The comic strip-style character, portrayed as an irascible older woman, was created by Hallmark in-house artist John Wagner, and in addition to greeting cards has been featured on t-shirts, coffee mugs, holiday ornaments, and other items. She is often accompanied by her Bull Terrier, Floyd. In 1999, she was featured in an animated holiday television special, "Maxine's Christmas Carol."[29]

Hallmark Music