His work welcomed tens of thousands to KC: Meet the designer behind City of Entrepreneurs’ bold look

A small business takeover inside Union Station — transforming its historic Grand Hall into a marketplace tapestry of brightly-colored, bodega-style storefronts — is just one piece of a sprawling campaign to rebrand Kansas City as the City of Entrepreneurs, said Max Ayalla.

Team Ecuador fans and Kansas City visitors stream into the City of Entrepreneurs marketplace on gameday at Union Station; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

Going big to launch during the FIFA World Cup was by design, added Ayalla, the creative force behind the look and feel of City of Entrepreneurs and its REP URS call to action.

“We have all of the different cultures and different types of people coming into our city, and I wanted a design language that was pretty universal,” he explained. “Kansas City has people of all shapes, colors, sizes, backgrounds, ethnicities. It’s so diverse. And then you bring an even bigger, more diverse group of people into the city. How do you define a visual language that doesn’t feel boring, that doesn’t feel corporate, that doesn’t feel overdone?”

The City of Entrepreneurs marketplace opened June 11 and runs through Sunday, as World Cup action in Kansas City winds down. Vendors are open to the public noon to 6 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

A project developed by the City of Kansas City, Missouri, in partnership with the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, the marketplace is part of an ongoing City of Entrepreneurs effort to raise awareness — at home and abroad — about the metro’s entrepreneurs and businesses.

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As of Thursday morning, the Union Station activation had already drawn nearly 93,000 visitors over its first four weeks (running Thursdays through Sundays), according to organizers. Providing a welcoming experience for those local and international shoppers required a culture-based vibe that felt more like a music festival, said Ayalla, who used hand-drawn illustrations and eye-catching colors to create the space.

“Making things feel a little bit more human, not so rigid,” he said. “That was the inspiration: let’s make this feel like Kansas City, let’s make this feel authentic.”

But first, that feeling needed to jump from Ayalla’s desktop designs to the real world — hitting Union Station, pedicab wraps, KC Streetcar stops, high-profile public spaces, and a popular line of merch emblazoned with a bold message.

A City of Entrepreneurs wrap designed by Max Ayalla spans a walkway between the Loews Kansas City Hotel and the Kansas City Convention Center; photo courtesy of EDCKC

Ecuador fans jump aboard an E-Z Pedicab wrapped with City of Entrepreneurs branding near Union Station; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

‘Let’s build a city’

A multidisciplinary creative who’s worked with brands ranging from Nike, Hurley and the WNBA to Kansas City streetwear brand MADE MOBB, Fresh Karma and Gray Area, Ayalla began developing concepts for City of Entrepreneurs long before Kansas City learned it would be a World Cup host city, he said.

Nia Webster, assistant director of KCMO’s Neighborhood Services Department and the chief organizer behind City of Entrepreneurs, right, details the meaning behind “REP URS” tees designed by Max Ayalla during a First Fridays event in June at MADE MOBB on Southwest Blvd.; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

The idea surfaced pre-pandemic within Nia Webster’s office at KC BizCare, Ayalla said, where he and leaders crafted a five-year rollout that could scale up from small popups and workshops to full-scale conferences and major events.

“But then COVID hits,” he said.

To be clear, the pieces of the campaign people see today didn’t exist in the same form in those days, Ayalla said, noting that it wasn’t until the city’s Open Doors! program — which helps to get small business owners, nonprofits and artists into vacant storefronts — took shape that City of Entrepreneurs began to regain its earlier traction.

Their challenge: tie together Kansas City’s programming for small businesses and work at KC BizCare into one unified concept and message.

“Once we got our understanding of what Open Doors! was going to be, it felt more like a component underneath the umbrella of what City of Entrepreneurs is to the city,” Ayalla said. “We had to take a step back, redefine, rebrand what City of Entrepreneurs is because pre-COVID had its own look, and we had to update it to make it make sense for today’s world.”

That work accelerated this spring when Webster discovered Union Station’s Grand Hall hadn’t been booked for the World Cup. She issued a pointed plan, Ayalla said: “Let’s build a city.”

“It was a rush, and it was a sprint to get there, but to see where it started, and where it is now … to see all of the creators and city people who love it,” he continued. “I couldn’t have asked for a more successful launch and turnout.”

Max Ayalla stands alongside leaders from Kansas City and the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri, at a ribbon cutting for the City of Entrepreneurs marketplace at Union Station; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

EDCKC’s involvement in the initiative further added depth and scale to the marketplace and beyond, he noted.

“The amount of legs this project had and grew into definitely makes it my biggest,” Ayalla said. “And at this point — just because of the amount of impact it’s had within the city — it’s definitely the most near and dear to my heart now.”

No red vs blue here

Among the most prominent campaign elements designed by Ayalla: a REP URS jersey produced in partnership with MADE MOBB.

Max Ayalla shares a laugh with MADE MOBB co-owner Jesse Phouangphet at the City of Entrepreneurs marketplace; photo courtesy of EDCKC

RELATED: X marks MADE MOBB’s shop: Where the world meets the Midwest

The collared, soccer-style jerseys sport patches for both Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. A blue variant represents the Missouri side of the border; red reps Kansas.

“That was an effort from Nia. ‘Let’s reach across the state line.’ … ‘Let’s see how we can work together,’ because Kansas City is a metro area,” Ayalla said, emphasizing the reality that residents on both sides of the state line spend money with small businesses across their border.

“And the more that everyone in Kansas City can win, the less Kansas City feels like a flyover place. It feels like a destination, especially with the successes we’re seeing in the sports world,” he explained. “Let’s build upon that. Let’s become the City of Entrepreneurs where now it becomes a destination for people, young and old, to come back to — or grow up in — and grow their businesses, grow their professional careers.”

Ayalla rocks the red jersey.

Max Ayalla stands outside the marketplace during a launch event for City of Entrepreneurs at Union Station; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

Born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas’ Argentine neighborhood, he was happy the campaign reached over into his hometown.

“Argentine is a very Hispanic community, and I think that’s where I get this grittiness to me,” Ayalla said. “There’s a lot of different, small subsections in Kansas City, and I think those subsections can define who you are as a person.”

Personal connections like that helped to bring the City of Entrepreneurs project full circle for the designer, he said.

After 13 years creating professionally, he’d lost some of the buzz and excitement from seeing his work out in the wild — catching people he didn’t know wearing a hat or shirt he’d designed. The sight had become common enough that Ayalla had allowed himself to become numb to it, he said.

“It wasn’t something that really resonated the same anymore,” he said, noting City of Entrepreneurs reignited a passion within him he didn’t realize was missing.

“This was all just a file on my computer, and I was like ‘Oh, this could be really cool,’” Ayalla said, standing atop Harvey’s Restaurant at Union Station, overlooking the marketplace. “And now to see all of the hard work, all of the building, each little brick on these frames, and the signs, and to see all of this at scale — pedicab wraps, streetcar stops, all of the little components — to see it all come to life … it brings that feeling back. Like, ‘Man, I did that.’”

“It’s been good to feel that again. It’s been a long time.”