Brady Vest’s never met a mistake he didn’t like. As principal and founder of Hammerpress, the 34-year-old artist readily admits that unplanned printing slip-ups play as big a role in the creative process as do his elaborately mapped out, multi-layered designs. Even the letters that form the Hammerpress logo on the splash page of his website (www.hammerpress.net) are clearly printed off-register, rendering a double-vision effect typically found on color newspaper pages when things go awry.

“Our posters have a tendency to look like there was an accident, whether there was or not,” Vest says. “In fact, I rely on random accidents, and file them in the want-to-do-that-again-someday folder.”

Vest’s process of loose experimentation evolved while he was teaching a letterpress course at the Kansas City Art Institute, his alma mater. The school didn’t have much in the way of equipment, so to keep students busy, Vest directed them to print over each piece multiple times. “It wasn’t intentional, but after that class, there was a big shift in my own work,” he says. “Now I always have stuff on the press, whether I know what’s going to happen or not.”

Vest’s bless-this-mess process seems to be working. When he first started Hammerpress 12 years ago, he made ends meet by working at bookstores, coffee shops, and for the local monolith, Hallmark, where he lasts all of two months. “Everyone who lives in Kansas City ends up working there,” he says. “There are a lot of great designers there, but it’s not the most creative environment.”

Five years ago, Vest happily gave up the side jobs to pursue his own venture full time. He now supports himself with a stream of concert promoter (with whom he’s created spectacular pieces for Yo La Tengo, Modest Mouse, and the Decemberists). The Houlhihan’s restaurant chain recently signed up Vest to turn its dry, homogenous look into a more improved urban design.

However big or small the job, his investment in each piece is apparent. “I’m happy to put 12 hours into a poster I’m getting 50 bucks for,” he says. “It’s really more a labor of love that doesn’t always pay off in an hourly way.”