They’re the Faces Behind the Greeting Cards : Holidays: The creative staff at Hallmark goes to unusual lengths to try to make the messages meaningful.

Forget the neckties, suits and tidy work spaces. In the huge, concrete Hallmark Cards office complex lies the unfettered world of greeting card writing.

The dress code: sweaters, jeans and faux army boots. The neatness policy: whatever inspires the creative juices, including almost anything from hamsters to jumbles of plastic toys.

No daily quota, no deadline, no homework. It’s an atmosphere designed to cultivate creativity.

And when it comes to holidays--Christmas is the biggest card season of the year--keeping energized is especially important. The Greeting Card Assn. projects 2.6 billion Christmas cards will be sold this year, more than three times the number of Valentine’s Day cards, and more than a third of the year’s projected total.

A private company, Hallmark won’t disclose how much it spends to keep the 670 creative staff members--artists, writers, editors and designers--fresh. But employees say everything from research trips around the world to workshops to free movies helps.

The company has libraries, a creative center, and a farm and farmhouse, which are located in Kearney, about 30 minutes from downtown Kansas City, where workshops and creative sessions are conducted.

That’s where Jim Howard, a senior writer at Hallmark Cards, plans to take a group of writers in January to work--if you can call it work--on next year’s line of Christmas cards.

“I’m hoping for bad weather so we can tramp around in the snow,” Howard said. Writers will walk through the woods “with the express intent of composing spontaneous haiku,” a Japanese form of three-line poetry. The best poems could become part of Hallmark’s Christmas Naturals line.

“It’s one way we try to keep the newness happening, because in the woods, it’s always a little different than when you were there the last time,” Howard said.

Hallmark, which claims 45% of the overall greeting card market, has come up with more than 2,500 individual Christmas card designs and about 550 boxed card designs for this year.

Many ideas are drawn from the writers’ own memories as children, awe-struck by a glorious Christmas tree or eager to dive into a mountain of presents.

“I try to continually see the events going on from the point of view of my kids,” Howard said. “Even the little things, remembering what it’s like to be really small and have a big tree.

“If you lie down on the floor and look up at it, it looks much bigger. It’s a marvelous, towering thing as a kid. If you get any of that stirring up in your mind, it feeds your writing.”

Evoking that feeling in the office involves viewing classic Christmas movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and discussing Christmas memories with other writers--even those of friends and relatives.

“I have written more than one piece on somebody else’s memory,” Howard said. “Everything’s grist.”

Hallmark protects its loose, unguarded atmosphere year-round. For Allyson Jones, who writes for Hallmark’s humorous Shoebox Division, it is ideal.

The walls of her gray cubicle are lined with posters--some of which she’s doctored to insert her own face--and goofy pictures of friends and relatives. She’s moved in a wicker table, an upholstered chair and her own coffee maker. Every morning she gets a list of needed card ideas, pours herself a cup of java, slips on headphones and tries to come up with 10 or 15 good card ideas.

Jones described writing for the Shoebox line as “short, punchy.” If an idea doesn’t work, “you throw it in the trash,” she said. “You never rework anything. Because if it’s not funny, it’s not going to be funny. It’s like if you keep hearing your dad tell the same jokes.”

Hallmark Chairman Donald J. Hall said that, when he started full time with his father’s company, he toured different firms that involved creative work. Each ran its creative staff differently.

“I did find it needs nurturing and mentoring,” Hall said. “I think the best thing we can do is create an atmosphere where it’s appreciated and where they can see results.”

Renee Duvall, who does romantic as well as humor writing for the company’s main line of cards, said her ideas come from various sources.

The most sincere sentiments she pens come when she’s low. She asks herself: “If I were my own guardian angel, what would I tell me?

“I think, ‘I’m so lonely and pitiful and no one will ever love me--but if someone did, what would I want them to say?’ It’s really kind of fun.”