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Cards stacked in firm's favor Detroit-based Avanti Press' designs have worldwide appeal

BY JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

When you think of love, Rick Ruffner hopes it looks like a cat with lipstick and pearls, or a Chihuahua with shades and an anatomically corrected canine bikini.

Ruffner, a 51-year-old Grosse Pointer, presides over Avanti Press, a downtown Detroit greeting card company with a high quotient of wacky critters, wry babies and frisky geezers. The cards are printed on recycled paper with eco-friendly inks in detail sharp enough to cut you and with eye-popping colors.
The cards are in 18,000 locations around the world from Detroit to Russia, South Africa and Australia.
Ruffner says there's a secret that's taken him from a kitchen table operation to sleek offices in the Murphy-Telegraph Building and a Soho studio in New York City: "A dog in boxer shorts works anywhere."

The son of Fred Ruffner, founder of the Gale Research publishing company, Rick Ruffner started with cards that showed bikes, flowers and balloons. He developed a signature graphic style -- lean, sharp, colorful and appealingly off-center animals.
Just about any animal is cute, but he said he looks for "characters that have an attitude, a personality -- an expressiveness that engages you."
And it's easy to engage with a pit bull flashing a blinged-out grin with a gold-capped, diamond-studded front tooth.
There is computerized exaggeration of the animal, Ruffner said, but within some biological limits. Dogs, he said, don't have thumbs, so don't look for them gripping the steering wheel if they're driving a pickup.

"The image attracts, but it's the verse -- the words inside -- that sells," Ruffner said.

Chip Owen, Avanti's executive vice president, said the idea is to make the copy "smart, without trying too hard."

"You know, it's a challenge to write copy for a dog with a doughnut on his face," he said.

Avanti also is developing 3D cards and a high-end line of Detroit-themed cards using vintage photos. Those products are not ready for market yet.

There are about 45 people at Avanti's headquarters, a small-ish creative office in New York City and a distribution center in Taylor.
It takes many hands and minds to come up with the 150-or-so new cards that come out each year.
"
You have to like to have fun -- and work really hard," said Lora Parlove, a creative consultant who recruits for Avanti.
Employee Athena Inempolidis agrees.

"Rick takes being funny very seriously," she said.

 
 
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Antonia Press, Inc. Announces it’s Debut at the 2010 National Stationary Show in New York

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