Card Wearing Your Heart on YourX Sleeve By Gioia Patton
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Photo Credit Ted Schafer
t all began one evening at a Manhattan restaurant a little over three years ago. Lori Cheek’s male friend/dinner companion scribbled the words ‘wanna have dinner with me?’ on the back of his business card while Cheek was in the ladies’ room, and as they were leaving, slid his card onto the dinner table of the woman sitting next to him. “I realized what a stealth move that was on my friend’s part, and came up with the idea of Cheek’d by taking it to the next level of mystery behind that card,” begins a very friendly Lori Cheek, who squeezed in a phone interview from her Greenwich Village studio apartment/office. Cheek’d subscribers receive 50 eye-catching calling cards that can be handed out to captivating strangers encountered in every day (or night) life. Recipients of the card can use the identification code printed on them to log onto www.Cheekd.com and send a message to his or her admirer. Each card has a different ‘cheeky’ phrase, i.e., ‘I’m totally cooler than your date,’ ‘I’m hitting on you,’ and Cheek’s personal favorite: ‘I just put all my drinks on your tab.’ “Even I had a hard time meeting people before I started Cheek’d in May of 2010,” sighs the 37-yearold unmarried Taylorsville, Ky. native, who moved to Manhattan 15 years ago after graduating from the University of Kentucky’s architecture school. “And I had a lot of beautiful and successful friends asking ‘where is he?” she continues. “I lived and breathed the idea of creating Cheek’d for three years from the moment that event happened in the restaurant, talking about it nonstop. And the feedback I received from people whenever I mentioned the idea was always ‘that’s a genius idea!’” she recalls excitedly. Cheek laughs, then remarks, “I’ve had so many people say to me, ‘I wish I had those cards last week when I noticed this guy on the subway.’ I also hear a lot of, ‘I can’t believe someone didn’t think of this idea sooner,’” she continues, admitting that her reaction is similar. Cheek, who until Thanksgiving still had a day job working as a furniture representative in a high-end Tribeca neighborhood furniture store (selling furniture to
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Go Red For Women
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designers and architects), mentions that her architecture degree actually comes in handy since she created her business. “One reason my dating website is kind of hip is because I do have this design background so it has a really clean feeling to it,” she explains, “along with the design and branding of Cheek’d.” Eighty percent of the Cheek’d lines are created by Cheek herself, she says, and the remainder courtesy of “some of my very funny friends. I’m also coming out with a dog deck theme, with lines like ‘My dog thinks you’re cute’ and ‘My dog made me do this.’” As to the ages of Cheek’d clients and whether they’re interested in finding ‘Mr./Miss Right’ or ‘Mr./Miss Right Now’, Cheek says: “Subscribers’ ages range from 20 to 50, and I’d say it’s a little bit of both interests. Although a lot of people in my age group are looking to settle down,” she adds. For a business open only seven months at the time of this interview, I was impressed when Cheek answered my ‘Are there plans to take Cheek’d international?’ question with “We’re already international for free, and gotten the word out to over 10 countries — where you can customize your own deck of cards to say whatever you want (within reason) in your own language.” “It’s just really exciting!” she enthuses, “because I feel like everywhere I go, someone is either saying ‘I was just reading about Cheek’d’ or ‘my friend was just telling me about it.’ I’ve even given cards to people who’ve responded ‘I just got one of these cards on the subway the other day.’ So there’s a real buzz about Cheek’d right now…especially in New York City as it’s so big here.” Cheek concludes, “I just think this little idea of mine is kind of an answer to the online dating fatigue, because there are so many dating websites out there and none of them really have a sense of humor. And Cheek’d is kind of light and playful, and kind of bringing the online off-line and back to the streets.” GIOIA PATTON IS AN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT CELEBRITY PROFILER. *Locally, Cheek’d cards can be found in the gift shop of the 21C Hotel in downtown Louisville.
Today’s Woman