The Sweet Creative Life

Customers walking into Boom Town Creamery in Life Oklahoma City, OK are greeted by oversized ice cream cone sculptures in the window; a neon sign that says, “ice cream is always the answer;” and a sleek mint green display case showcasing long, shallow gelato trays as opposed to a case of deep ice cream tubs that require customers to stand on tiptoes to get a peek. These are all thoughtful design choices made by the owner, Angela Muir 08 AP, a former bridal designer who opened the first of her three small-batch ice cream shops in 2022. A fourth will open in 2025.

“People eat with their eyes. So, the quality of the product must be superior—and it is—but design matters just as much,” says Muir, who graduated from the Apparel Design department in 2008. “I always tell our new staff that we don’t actually sell ice cream. If someone just wanted ice cream, they would go to the grocery store and buy some. We sell memories, connection and happiness.”

Boom Town Creamery is more than just a place to grab an ice cream cone; it’s a hip after-dinner date night spot where you can sit on a glossy wood banquette and get to know someone better, or it’s a core memory of childhood, the place where you get excited for the special spring flavor after a winning softball game. This is all part of Muir’s careful design. While Muir didn’t plan to move from fashion to ice cream, she says, “When I look back, everything was a stepping stone to where I am today. I’m not doing apparel anymore, but design is still one of the biggest parts of my every day.”

She grew up with a creative and entrepreneurial mindset and was always making things with her hands. By third grade, she was charging to paint other kids’ nails on the playground. By eighth grade, she was going to the wholesale market and buying and reselling T-shirts. But wedding dresses were her greatest inspiration. With a mother in the wedding business, Muir spent a lot of time at wedding trade shows, and by age 15, she knew she wanted to be a bridal designer.

Getting into RISD was a dream come true, Muir says. “The idea that I could go to college and make things all day and then share those things with other people who loved making things, that was a revelation.”

While at RISD, Muir interned for the queen of bridal design herself, Vera Wang. Her senior thesis was an original wedding dress collection. After graduating and settling in Kansas City, she realized her childhood dream by designing a line of bespoke wedding dresses. Then she pivoted in 2012 and launched an eco-friendly accessories line; in 2013, she debuted a creative lifestyle and food blog called handmadeintheheartland.com. (Her recipe for crock- pot pulled pork is still in the top two to three spots on Google search.)

While Muir’s accessory line was doing well—selling 3,000 to 4,000 pieces a year—she was disillusioned by the ways scaling up a business can lead to less creativity. “Many artists realize that when production ramps up, creativity suffers. I came to understand that I didn’t want to sew things to sell anymore, yet I wanted to keep using my creative brain,” she says. Muir’s design creativity moved in a sweeter, more edible direction.

“I’ve always been a foodie with a sweet tooth... My blog was a great creative outlet for me and while immersed in that, I realized that Kansas City didn’t have one of my favorite sweet treats, gourmet shaved ice,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can do this really well.’ All you need for a great business is great design. Make it really cool with the right marketing and, obviously, a solid product, and you can be successful.”

In 2017, Lilo’s Shaved Ice was born with an opening day that saw a line down the street. Muir fell in love with the dessert and experience business.

In 2020, when Muir’s husband, a dentist, got a job in Oklahoma City, and her family (with four kids) settled there, she sold Lilo’s. In Oklahoma City, Muir had a thought: their new home was missing really great, homemade ice cream. She traveled to New York City to learn how to make ice cream with Malcolm Stogo, an ice cream legend. At the same time, she was reading Boom Town by Sam Anderson, a book about Oklahoma City history and its rapid growth. Hence, the name of her now wildly popular chain of local ice cream shops.

RISD played a critical role in shaping how Muir approaches the creative—in life and business. Looking back on her time as a student, Muir described the college as “a whole world” and an “immersive experience,” one that pulled her out of her bubble in her native Tennessee and exposed her to a wider, more creative way of being—one wrapped in art, design and making.

“From the professors to the students, from the classes to the work,” she says, “RISD can’t be described in parts for me, but rather as a whole immersion that gave me depth, knowledge, skill and a critical eye that I’ve carried with me. It helps me create a multisensory experience where my customers feel welcomed, curious, delighted and surprised.”

Words by Katelyn Silva. Images Courtesy of Angela Muir.