Special Edition Co.

What is the story of your studio ? Special Edition Co. is a design and art focused collective comprised of two designers and makers — Sam Small and Trent Roach. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, our mission is to collaborate on innovative and experimental projects with creative thinkers internationally. We enjoy interacting with artists, designers and other like-minded people; cultivating unique relationships, understanding their background and means of making and creating really fun, collaborative work. The overlap of different industries and mediums, paired with different cultures and backgrounds results in exciting outcomes. Carrying this multidisciplinary, inventive mindset into our client projects, we strive to create unique work that is truly impactful and special. We use the term collective to reference the collaborative mindset we focus on heavily. We like to work for different people through different media; magazines, spatial design for events, posters, visual campaigns or even ceramics.

You have a strong and particular style. Can you describe it in a few words ? How do you display it on various projects and media ? We often utilize a mixture of filtered and unfiltered aesthetics. We embrace both a messy and clean style. We try not to overthink things, letting compositions shift organically, but with a general clean form in mind for the final product. If we had to describe our style… imagine a night or a twilight juxtaposed with neon lights and electricity. Coming primarily from the digital realm, it seems to harness our interpretation of city life. We bring really any medium to the table during our creative process. Our work is constantly evolving through experimentation and every day inspiration from the outside world.

You work a lot with colors. How color takes place inside your daily work ? Where do you find your inspirations ? We are inspired by a lot of different things. Music, nature, textured objects or materials, geology, molecules, cells and other microscopic shapes. Video and motion of all types are also super inspiring. We often find even a single sequence of motion in a film exciting. Colors and gradients of all types find their way into our work. We are always capturing color palettes from the real world and searching for beauty in unexpected settings. 

How would you describe the design/creative life in Kansas City ? Is there particular places you would recommend to visit ? The creative scene in Kansas City seems to be picking up quite a bit. We both went to art school here, so we’re connected with a lot of the up and coming artists and designers in the city in one way or another. There are some great firms and agencies, consistent gallery openings and a ton of talented creatives! Some recommendations would be: — 50/50 Gallery, a super rad little gallery constructed from shipping containers (5050kc.com). — Front Space, small contemporary gallery (frontspace.info). — Vulpes Bastille, gallery space always showing great work (vulpesbastille.com). — Drugstore, an old drugstore turned studio space (thedrugstorekc.com). — The Ship, a rad old speakeasy turned bar. — YJ’s Snack Bar. — Chez Charlies, a super rad old bar. Interview conducted in May 2016 ©ktlg