Akron on Deck

Akron On Deck is a unique playing card set featuring 54 Akron businesses and landmarks, with cards designed by 54 local artists. Art x Love created Akron on Deck in 2020 as a Kickstarter project to support local creatives and businesses through the pandemic. 40% of the proceeds from card sales go directly to the artists as royalty payments for life.

Following the success of Akron on Deck, we produced Akron on Deck II in 2022, featuring 54 new card designs by local artists and 54 different Akron icons and landmarks. Since 2020, Art x Love has sold more than 12,000 decks and raised more than $100,000 for local artists, businesses, and non-profits with Akron on Deck.

With the Akron Bicentennial kicking off in December 2024, we’re happy to announce that we are currently developing Akron on Deck III: Bicentennial Edition. This third and final playing card set will be available for the 2024 holiday season and beyond.

You can also purchase Akron on Deck from the following retailers:

Steps to Equity

In 2020, The Muldoon Center for Entrepreneurship at John Carroll University engaged Art x Love to support “new programs and projects that empower children and residents to build a stronger, more connected community.” We worked with residents and students from Cleveland’s Buckeye-Shaker and Woodland Hills neighborhoods to research the area, identify areas for improvement, and partner with local organizations and stakeholders to improve quality of life in the area.

Our work began with a Buckeye-Shaker GIS walkability assessment. Residents and students walked every sidewalk in the neighborhood and assessed the condition of roadways, sidewalks, structures, greenery, littler, visibility, perception of safety, and mapped ideas for improvement.

Based on our findings and ongoing conversations with residents, Art x Love produced The Village Activity Book, a free 16-page all-ages educational and participatory design tool designed to help residents share their vision for the future. More than 3,000 copies were distributed across Buckeye-Shaker and Woodland Hills. We received hundreds of submissions and thousands of responses were collected, analyzed, and shared with local stakeholders and leaders to guide and inform future planning.

The data these projects collected proved a valuable resource for Buckeye-Shaker and Woodland Hills residents, as well as local stakeholders and leaders. We were able to refer residents to funding opportunities, inform city planning projects, connect like-minded neighborhood ambassadors, and build stronger community connections.

In 2022, LANDstudio engaged us with an urgent public art opportunity to leverage our findings as a creative extension of the We Wear the Mask project. We met with local artists from the project, developed public art concepts based on the community’s activity book submissions, returned to the streets to test the concepts with residents, successfully pitched our project to the City of Cleveland’s art commission, and worked with Burten, Bell, Carr Development Inc. to produce and install the ARISE/ASPIRE mural on the corner of E. 120th St. & Buckeye Road.

In 2023, the Cleveland Public Library engaged us to produce a collaborative community mural for the Rice Branch Library based on submissions from the The Village Activity Book. John Carroll University generously offered to fund the project as a part of their continuing investment and service to the community.

The map of Buckeye-Shaker and Woodland Hills that appeared on the cover The Village Activity Book was selected as the preferred concept for development. A day was organized for the community to come out and paint, and more than 75 residents of all ages showed up and made their mark. Over the next several weeks, Mac continued painting and adding library patron’s words of affirmation to the mural. The final piece was titled Land of OpportUNITY and serves as both an inspiring point of pride for the community and wayfinding resource.

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John Carroll University is committed to providing its students with meaningful learning experiences that take an equitable approach to community building, and is making a long-term investment to support the Ward 6 area with a focus on the Woodland Hills and Buckeye-Shaker neighborhoods on the east side of Cleveland. These projects are strategically designed to raise awareness of community assets and liabilities, and to help organizations align with residents toward an equitable, inclusive, and enduring vision for the community with real collaboration and meaningful investment.

Art x Love is delighted to continue this partnership to collaborate with residents and local organizations to support equitable, sustainable, and meaningful change for the people of Buckeye-Shaker and Woodland Hills.

Akron Stories

In 2019, Art x Love was engaged by a community of passionate Akron residents to help advocate for a statue dedicated to the people who made Akron the “Rubber Capital of the World.” We refined their strategic plan, and helped secure funding from the City of Akron to commission and install the statue by famous Zanesville (OH) sculptor, Alan Cottrill.

Art x Love created the Akron Stories website, all marketing materials, managed community events, and coordinated commemorative brick sales to fund an oral history project dedicated to preserving the stories of Akron’s rubber workers. To date, we have conducted more than 150 interviews, collected thousands of stories, and produced more than 100 mini-documentary films that bring each story to life using family photographs and archival film.

To share these stories with the public, we produced an all-weather touchscreen kiosk that was installed in the commemorative plaza, allowing visitors to explore the stories and find the exact location of their commemorative bricks. After 3 years of being on display, the kiosk was hit by a service vehicle and had to removed. We are currently working on finding a new permanent home for it.

In 2023, the Akron Stories team was recognized by the Ohio House of Representatives for “their tremendous efforts to guarantee that the past will not be forgotten, and the dedication of this new monument convincingly demonstrates how very much can be accomplished by a group of conscientious people with clear objectives and firm resolve. Indeed, they have distinguished themselves as concerned and responsible citizens and have, with admirable dedication, helped sustain the history of the area."

Quality of Life Day

Art x Love was invited to give the closing presentation on Why Art Matters at “Quality of Life Day” for the City of Green’s Community Leadership Initiative. This program for business and community leaders is designed to foster and encourage community engagement, immersing participants in an in-depth leadership program focused on Green, Ohio.

The program day that included an introduction to Pickleball and presentations from Ohio & Erie Canalway, Summit Metro Parks, Akron Community Foundation, and the City of Green.

We were delighted to learn that participants voted Art x Love among the most valuable experiences of the day, calling the presentation “So eye opening – I did not expect art to be so useful in placemaking and changing the space into something better.”

GSM Silent Disco

Grace Church’s Student Ministries (6th-12th grade) used our @PLAY silent disco headsets for their “Whiteout” blacklight dance party. Everyone wore white shirts, put on a headset, danced, gathered, and glowed with friends through the night. Live DJ’s, food, music, and games kept the party going – it was a blast!

To learn more about our Silent Disco Headsets and book a reservation, click the button below.

WoodRaven

Art x Love created the new brand identity for WoodRaven, an advisor to startups that implements digital strategies, optimizes workflows, and prepares organizations for growth. The new logo suite, marketing collateral, and brand guidelines reflect WoodRaven’s impactful leadership and charismatic approach to tackle business challenges with creative solutions that lay a foundation for future growth and stability.

Will you marry me?

It’s wonderful thing when your work inspires someone else to do something creative for love. In 2016, Mac was contacted by a person who admired his Believeland chalk murals, and wondered if hr could help out with a marriage proposal.

Mac drove up to Cleveland the night before the proposal, cleaned the wall, and created this Will you marry me? chalk mural, including the ring to kneel in. We’re happy to report they said “Yes!”

Northside Jazz

In the mid-20th century, Howard Street was the center of black culture in the bustling Rubber Capital of the World. It was home to many of Akron’s black-owned business and entertainment establishments. In 1920, George Mathews opened his barbershop in Howard Street, and in 1925 opened the Hotel Matthews next door. The hotel became an anchor for the neighborhood, and an iconic destination for the era’s most famous black entertainers, who came to town to perform at many of the “whites only” clubs and hotels, but could not stay there. In the 1960’s, the Howard Street District began to decline and was eventually razed for “urban renewal” in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Art x Love was engaged to create a mural honoring Akron’s jazz heritage in the old Howard Street District of the city. The mural faces the former site of Hotel Matthews, and depicts Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, nightclub dancers, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong playing together. The vision for the mural remains incomplete, but it still serves as a strong reminder of Akron’s past.

Symphony

In 2016, Mac was commissioned by The Historic Warehouse District Development Corporation (HWDDC) to create a new chalk mural underneath Cleveland’s Main Avenue bridge for Ernst & Young. Since 2014, Mac had been creating 10 ft. tall chalk murals at this location across from the main entrance to Ernst & Young Tower, and HWDDC was able to leverage them to raise funds and additional support for their community programs and events.

Ernst & Young’s mural was inspired by brand elements from a range of their marketing materials, and paired with a musical composition to invite multi-sensory consideration and appreciation.

Do you recognize the piece of music?

Rally Together

Major League Baseball TV (MLB TV) wanted to create a time-lapse video of artists painting murals in each of the ALCS and NLCS cities for the televised broadcast of the 2016 playoffs. Art x Love negotiated the location for the Cleveland Indians mural, and created a design that could be completed in 4 hours.

Located in Cleveland's Public Square throughout the playoffs, the "Rally Together" mural went viral as part of a World Series tickets promotion. The painting currently resides with Carlos Carrasco, a former Cleveland Indians starting pitcher and great human being.

Lose Your Marble

Akron kicked off the Civic Commons project  in conjunction with GEHL to collaborate with local leaders and residents to learn about, strategize, and develop innovative solutions for the city center's most pressing challenges. Our team was tasked with "Making Main Street More Fun Between Events," or more specifically, getting students and the local workforce to spend time downtown during off-peak hours. Inspired by Akron's history as the former marble capital of the world, we created Lose Your Marble, an interactive kinetic piece of art that would require teams of individuals to move from station to station in the downtown area. We created two prototypes to see if people would be willing to engage in the activity and were pleasantly surprised by the response. With plans to further develop the concept with an incentivized structure to attract more people, and to use higher quality and more reliable materials, we are confident Lose Your Marble can become a signature team-building feature of the Akron.

MAIZE

SCENE Magazine wanted to take their Fall festival fundraiser up a notch for University Hospital's Kids Kicking Cancer. We created a collaborative mural for the 3 day event, inviting attendees to pick a color, grab a brush, and make their mark on Cleveland. More than 300 attendees contributed to the painting. The final work is currently awaiting finalization for installation in a TBD location.