Emilie Bauer
Creative Writing, Sophomore

	Alumnus Paul Hawkins creates unique greeting cards designed for a younger audience at Bullfeathers.

Paul Hawkins felt frustrated for days when starting his greeting card company. Laughinstock, the name he'd envisioned from the time he was a Purdue student, was already copyrighted.

After a week of throwing out new names with his wife, Esther, and their other business partner, Jason Dove, Hawkins went to sleep one night. He dreamed of a small restaurant his wife often visited when she traveled in Washington, D.C., called Bullfeathers. When he woke up, his frustration was gone.

His company had a name.

Hawkins, a 1984 Purdue graduate in public relations, started Bullfeathers in the summer of 2001. For him, it's a chance to combine his love of drawing with a love of communicating to unique audiences.

"They're little ads and little one-panel stories for life," said Hawkins of his greeting card line for which he does all the illustrations.

Paul Hawkins

Hawkins tailors most of his cards to college students. Currently, the cards are sold in West Lafayette at Von's Bookstore, and at several universities nationwide, including Colorado State, Michigan Tech and the University of Kansas. Many independent gift shops, including Life's a Beach in Hilton Head, S.C., also sell the cards, some of which have a suggestive nature. He is currently submitting proposals to Spencer's, Follett's and other larger chains.

One line of cards features Fat Man, a character left over from his own college days. In several cards, Fat Man wears a too-small bikini and holds flowers, trying to be romantic but falling short.

He said Fat Man and other cards tell stories in the fewest possible number of words and, he hopes, make people laugh.

For Hawkins, being able to make others laugh through his art is what makes the company worthwhile for him.

"It's our passion," said Hawkins. "It's what we were meant to do."

Hawkins has drawn his entire life, but did not formally study it until after graduating from college. He grew up in Lafayette, where his father was a civil engineer and a Purdue graduate. He attended Purdue football and basketball games as a child with his family.

"You grow up thinking it's the only university," said Hawkins.

After graduation, Hawkins worked for a time in retail, though his creative side found little fulfillment in this area. After 10 years of working in retail, his frustration reached the point where he knew he had to change his career. He later got into advertising, but after a few years in that field, Hawkins ended up in Columbus, Ohio, and got laid off at a time when advertising jobs were scarce.

Urged by his wife to find another career, Hawkins began planning his own greeting card company. He drew on his experience not only as an artist, but as a trained communicator and a longtime observer of people.

Hawkins said learning to read people was the most valuable lesson he learned at Purdue. He learned to detect people's emotions from their faces and the way they carried themselves around campus.

This has helped him try to relate to potential customers.

"I'm a 43-year-old guy," said Hawkins, emphasizing his need to understand other groups of people. "I don't get my hair done, I don't get my nails done and I don't do aerobics."

In addition to people skills, Hawkins has had to learn management skills, which he says has been the most difficult part of being in business. "It's been a learning curve of epic proportion," he said. "I wish I had taken more classes at Krannert."

Both Hawkins and Dove would like to see the company expand in the future. Dove has training in computer animation and hopes to put it to use in creating a line of e-cards. Hawkins would like to reach more people, especially on college campuses around the world.

"We don't just want to reach the people of Mount Vernon," Hawkins said of the Columbus, Ohio, suburb where his company is based.