Hammerpress

Hammerpress is a Kansas City letterpress print shop, design studio, and retail store founded in 1994 by Kansas City Art Institute graduate Brady Vest. Widely credited with originating Kansas City’s modern letterpress scene, it designs and prints greeting cards, posters, and custom work on a collection of antique presses and hand-set type, and is regarded as one of the most admired letterpress studios in the country.¹²³

Description

Hammerpress is a letterpress print shop and graphic design studio that has specialized in fine letterpress printing of greeting cards, posters, custom invitations, and other special projects since 1994.¹ The studio occupies a roughly 5,000-square-foot space in Kansas City’s historic West Bottoms district, where the team designs and prints all of its cards and posters on a collection of antique letterpress machines.¹² Its signature look draws on hand-set metal and wood type salvaged from obsolete print shops, an aesthetic born from working within the material limitations of the trade.²

The business is widely described as one of the most recognizable letterpress printing companies in the United States, with stockists across the country and most of its volume coming from wholesale to other retailers.² Hammerpress products have reached national chains and partners — Urban Outfitters has carried its art prints and Paper Source picked up a stationery line — with distribution extending internationally to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.³

Alongside its wholesale and custom-printing work, Hammerpress operates a retail storefront at its West Bottoms studio and maintains a secondary retail presence at the Made in KC Marketplace on the Country Club Plaza.⁴ It is consistently named among Kansas City’s best paper-goods makers.⁵

Ownership and history

Brady Vest founded Hammerpress in 1994 after attending the Kansas City Art Institute (1990–1994), where he began tinkering with an old letterpress machine in the printmaking department.³ His first space was in the Leedy-Voulkos building, where printmaking professor Hugh Merrill let him set up his press; in 1996 he moved into a first dedicated studio at 2009 Baltimore in the Crossroads.³ Over the following decades the shop moved through several Crossroads addresses — 1919 Wyandotte, 1714 Holmes, and most prominently 110 Southwest Boulevard, a location that became closely associated with First Fridays and the Crossroads arts boom.³

Rising costs in the Crossroads prompted a relocation, and Hammerpress moved to the West Bottoms in the fall of 2019 / early 2020, settling into its current 5,000-square-foot studio and storefront.² Brady Vest remains owner and founder.³⁶ Wholesale operations are handled by staff (Britta Rice managing wholesale accounts).⁶

The seed note cited “~800 wholesale accounts.” A specific account figure could not be corroborated in published sources; sources confirm wholesale is the company’s largest revenue stream and that it sells to retailers nationwide.

Links

• Website: https://hammerpress.net/
• Location & hours: https://hammerpress.net/pages/location-hours-subhead
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hammerpress/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hammerpress/

Sources

Disputes

None recorded.

See also

• _Tier1-Non-Service-Local-Businesses

Footnotes

1. https://hammerpress.net/pages/about-us — asserts: Hammerpress established 1994; letterpress print shop and graphic design studio; specializes in greeting cards, posters, custom invitations and special projects; ~5,000 sq ft studio in the historic West Bottoms district where products are designed and printed on letterpress machines. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. https://mikcexplore.com/home/2020/11/23/profile-hammerpress — asserts: founded 1994 by Brady Vest; one of the most recognizable letterpress companies in the U.S. with stockists across the country; most business is wholesale to other retailers; uses hand-set salvaged type; in Crossroads 1996–2019, moved to a 5,000 sq ft West Bottoms space (early 2020). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. https://www.thepitchkc.com/brady-vest-ushers-hammerpress-into-its-third-decade-with-a-new-crossroads-space-and-a-rising-national-profile/ — asserts: Brady Vest established Hammerpress in 1994; attended KCAI 1990–94; first space in Leedy-Voulkos building, then 2009 Baltimore (1996), 1919 Wyandotte, 1714 Holmes, 110 Southwest Boulevard; products carried by Urban Outfitters and Paper Source; distribution to Australia, New Zealand, Japan; wholesale is biggest revenue stream. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. https://hammerpress.net/pages/location-hours-subhead — asserts: address 1413 W 11th Street, Kansas City, MO 64101; current retail hours; secondary retail location at Made in KC Marketplace on the Plaza (306 W 47th St). Corroborated open status by Yelp listing “Updated May 2026” (https://www.yelp.com/biz/hammerpress-kansas-city-3). ↩

5. https://kansascitymag.com/six-great-paper-goods-stores-in-kansas-city/ — asserts: Hammerpress named among Kansas City’s best paper-goods stores/makers. ↩

6. https://hammerpress.net/pages/wholesale — asserts: Hammerpress letterpress print shop/design studio since 1994; wholesale handled by Britta Rice working with retailers, reps and distributors; wholesale contact wholesale@hammerpress.net. ↩ ↩²