Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Adam & Adam on the Fine Line Playing Cards

Adam Farbiarz and Adam Thompson are longtime friends, a friendship that started back at Yale University where they were roommates their freshman year at college.

Their collective backgrounds are the same yet different, Adam T. has been painting and drawing his entire life, starting at an early age and into his college years. During his summers in High School and College he could be found selling his works at galleries on Martha’s Vineyard. After college Adam T. was very focused on conceptual line drawings that would make people laugh and think, most recently having a 45 foot drawing displayed at ArtSlant in downtown Chicago.

Adam F. on the other hand is more of the “Ideas” part of the tandem. He too studied art at Yale, but didn’t make it a full time career, in fact, he’s a practicing attorney. With that being said, he is also the card collector of the pair, which began with one of his favorite possessions, a Svengali deck he received when he was young….and still owns to this day.

The two Adams have recently brought a new custom deck of Playing Cards to Kickstarter called FINE LINE. FINE LINE is the launch release from the duo’s new company “Dear Adam” and has a very unique take on the playing card “Standards”. Dear Adam hopes to focus on fun, beautiful, whimsical products that appeal to design and art lovers as well as regular people who just like “Cool” things.

“Playing cards are the ultimate prop -- everyone knows how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to work.  That's what makes it so fun when they don't look or work that way”

Adam and Adam were nice enough to take a few moments and talk about their Kickstarter project FINE LINES with us and share some insight into its background and development.

How did the concept and idea of the Fine Line Playing Cards come about?
There are numbers all around us.  How many lights on a traffic light?  3!  How many squares in tic tac toe?  9!  How many cans to a pack?  6!  We wanted to take all of that implicit knowledge we have of the numbers around us and highlight it -- what better way to do that than in a deck of cards?  A deck is all about numbers.

Was the choice to not be a “Conventional” deck important to you?
Yup.  When we decided to work together on this, the first thing we agreed on was that this was going to have to be really special, and really different.  We wanted to knock people's socks off.

Fine Line presents conventional suites and numbers in a new way, how long did it take to develop the new imagery?

Really, really long.   We began working on the project on August 25, 2013.  (We know the date because Adam F. took a flight to New Mexico later that day.)  We didn't have all of the cards lined up until about May 2014 -- and even then we made further changes once we got feedback from the focus groups.  

Most artists/designers get very excited about an idea, what excites you about Fine Line’s?

The deck is thoroughly beautiful -- both for the eyes and for the mind.  It's a wonderful experience to solve it.

Fine Line has a unique hardwood “Box” available on this campaign, can you tell us a little about it and why you chose this particular design?

We wanted to make something that showcased the cards as artwork.  We liked the idea of collectors putting FINE LINE on their book shelf, along with their art books and graphic novels.  The box allows you to do that.  We also wanted to create an object that was luxurious and rich and strong in its own right -- the box is solid wood and is a real pleasure to hold and handle.

Do Adam and Adam have any plans for future deck projects?

We have an idea for a very crazy deck.  It's called STORY LINE.  Let's talk about that one in a year!

What are some of your favorite decks or designers?

Jackson Robinson is a great draftsman -- he has an excellent hand and amazing attention to detail.  We have a lot of respect for Emanuel Jose -- his decks are amazingly clever, and we love that his process (paper cutting) is so unique.  We wish there were other folks doing transformation decks -- they're so beautiful and playful.

We want to thank Adam and Adam for sharing some information and their time, if you haven’t checked out FINE LINES, you can check it out on Kickstarter where the project is currently LIVE! You can also visit their website to keep up to date with this project and more.  It’s a beautifully unique idea, so become a backer and help bring this concept to life for “Dear Adam”. We wish both Adam’s all the best on this project and are looking forward to their future concepts and ideas.