Greetings From The North Loop
Adam Hirsch and Emma Johnson
A guy who fell in love with the North Loop when he moved here about ten years ago is now producing a line of greeting cards–and several of them feature restaurants, bars and shops from the neighborhood.
MNiCards (pronounced “mini cards”) are smaller-sized cards with simple messages, created by Adam Hirsch with hand-drawn illustrations from his friend, Emma Johnson.
“Especially today with people not being able to travel for holidays, for birthdays, for celebrations, there’s more of a need for that human connection,” Hirsch said, “and if you can’t do it in person, and Zoom just doesn’t cut it, a hand-written greeting note goes a long, long way.”
Hirsch is a full-time financial planner and consultant who would typically travel five days a week, but because of COVID restrictions, he’s had more time at home to develop this side project. While his cards cover everything from birthdays and housewarmings to Pride celebrations, he’s been adding several familiar North Loop scenes to his collection.
“So many of the buildings are historic,” he said. “There’s a lot of history up and down Washington Avenue, so we wanted to capture that in kind of a cartoonish, whimsical fashion.”
The inside of each card is purposely left blank for each buyer to personalize. While they’re available on the company’s website, they’re also being sold in local shops like MartinPatrick3, MitreBox, Jeromeo and Jaxon Grey.
“People have a lot of loyalty to the North Loop, to the community,” Hirsch said, “so we thought there was an opportunity to capture that in a greeting card.”
In October, he plans to run a promotion pledging for every card sold, they’ll send a free card to a front-line worker, which he said includes doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers, teachers and grocery store workers.
And besides the cards, he’s also exploring the sale of larger prints online.
“It’s fun to see this grow,” he said, “fun to see it get to that next level.”
By Mike Binkley, North Loop Neighborhood Association
