Cool thing: Ryan (my hubs) is a graphic designer who loves all things typeface, minimalist and designy. (Yes, designy.) A little over a year ago he designed a sweet deck of playing cards based on the Swiss font Helvetica and called them Helveticards.
It’s kind of a cool story, actually: One afternoon early Spring 2010 we were sitting on our back patio eating lunch and chatting. He mentioned some playing cards he’s been messing around with designing and that he wanted to call them Helveticards and have a few decks printed. He thought maybe he’d even try to sell them (as in, “would it be totally crazy of me to order 100 decks of these?”)
He’d designed two of the 52 cards at this point and, in fiddling around, set up a little shopping cart site for them. I thought it was a great design but I knew he had a lot on his plate at the time (Hazel was about 8 weeks old here, as a frame of reference) and I gently suggested that maybe he hold off on taking on a new project until fall – once he’d knocked out some of his current projects. Just trying to keep things sane in my home, you know.
He agreed and we both thought that was the end of the idea at that point.
Only it wasn’t.
The morning before our chat on the patio he’d sent a link to a couple of his design buddies to show them what he was working on. They bounce ideas off of each other all the time, so it was no big deal. Except that one of the guys misunderstood that they weren’t actually for sale and tweeted about them to all of his followers with a link to Ryan’s little shopping cart page.
The next day, orders started pouring in. What a surprising inbox to wake up to!
Within a week we had almost a thousand orders for a deck of playing cards that only had a five of clubs and a king of diamonds.
So much for waiting until the fall!
Fifty more cards were designed, wholesalers were contacted, samples were ordered, and massive amounts of playing cards were delivered onto our living room rug. We spent the next month printing shipping labels and filling orders for this inadvertent venture that had taken off and we were along for the ride.
And, crazy as it sounds (it sure was crazy to us!), the following month Ryan started receiving emails from Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), CB2 (a sister company of Crate & Barrel) and a number of other retailers who wanted to carry Helveticards in their shops. We were floored. And honored, and humbled and excited!
Things slowed down a bit after the holidays, but every once in a while somebody with clout in the design community would tweet about them or blog about them (usually a design blog or website) and we’d be swamped with orders again. (Remember when I enlisted Oliver’s help and we used shipping Helveticards as an impromptu geography lesson?)
And that brings us to now. Just as we thought that maybe this crazy blessing of a ride was maybe winding down, Ryan was contacted by Fab.com about selling his cards on their site. (If you’re not familiar with Fab.com, it’s a lot like Zulily or HauteLook – they offer daily deals for products geared toward your interests. Fab is geared toward folks who love cool design stuff.)
Helveticards will go on sale on Fab.com beginning this Saturday, October 1st. And the cool things is, if you sign up to shop on Fab.com (which is free, of course), you get $10 off your first purchase and (I think) free shipping. And since Helveticards will be selling for less than $10 (not sure I’m allowed to say how much since it’s not listed on the site yet), feel free to hop over there and get a free deck of cards shipped from my home to yours!
And that, my friends, is one crazy story about how sensible decision-making can be thrown to the wind with just a Tweet and a splash page. God sure does have a sense of humor, doesn’t he? (And maybe a little appreciation for Swiss design?)
What a cool story! I love the cards, and have some friends who I think will love them too. Off to sign up and spread the word! :)
Oh, glad you like them! Thanks for spreading the word, too, Alysa! Can’t beat that kind of deal, can you?!
I ordered a set for a Christmas gift for a friend last year!:) He loves them! I just checked out the Fab.com site and it says the free membership is by invitation only. Do you know how that works? Do you have a reference number I need to use or something along those lines?:)
Becky: use this link as your private invite: http://fab.com/f05ko0
I think you posted about these once before right? I think I fell in love with them then before they were ordered in mass quantities withouttellingyourreaders *ahem* Anyways I will be ordering them when they go on sale! I’m excited. I like crisp and clean and all of that comforting-ness. I’m making up words now, I should probably stop rambling….
I stopped by MoMA while I was in NYC last year. I searched each floor until I finally found the cards in the gift shop upstairs. What a feeling to see them! Ryan was a professor of mine and I can’t say how proud I am to know the guy!
What an amazing thing to happen! And I agree, God has a sense of humor for sure! I think I’ve seen the cards before too. I love that they are different than the norm.
i already love my FMF B&B favor deck and i will doy pick up a freebster, but i am reeeeeally holding out for a wacky jacky packy. when they come up on ebay i am all over it.
I signed up but it doesn’t say anything about getting a $10 credit :/
Same here, I signed up but I don’t see any credits in my account. Does it take a day to show up maybe? Either way, thanks for sharing with us!!
I was at your house when you guys were sending out shipments and just hearing from CB2! Cah-razy it’s been that long. Cah-razy that Ryan could wake up to an inbox like that. Did he ever forgive his misunderstanding friend? :)
Haha – yeah, I’m guessing they’re definitely still on speaking terms. I never even asked him who it was – maybe it was all a ruse and really he was the one that tweeted them! :)
His friend may need a Christmas bonus from Santa this year after that slip up
What a fun story! My hubby will totally love to find some of those in his stocking. Are the glasses that are on there now the same that your hubs had in a picture the other day? The Sempli? My guy would be geeked for those. May have to snag some before they expire.
Those aren’t exactly the same glasses (ours are from Crate & Barrel and they just tilt one way or the other instead of swiveling around), but same cool idea, for sure!
Does the $10.00 show up as a credit or does it just come off when you check out?
Debbie (and others) – I’m not sure how it shows up. Try logging in tomorrow. In the right top corner of your screen it should show your credit amount as $10. Let me look into it…
Looked into it – it’s possible that they may have ended that offer, but as far as I know it’s still going on. Hm…
That is such a cool story. And a beautifully designed product! What talent you two have!
I googled the $10 credit and found this link. It works if you follow the link in that blog post, my credit appeared immediately.
Okay, this helps. I’ve been in touch with Fab.com this morning and while I haven’t gotten a lot of feedback that the link isn’t working (hopefully that means it IS working for most), we’re going to try to make sure everyone gets credits that have already signed up!
No ten dollar credit here, either. :( I signed up yesterday and just checked and it’s still $0. Either way, the cards are awesome.
Hey Kennedy – I’m hearing this from a few people, so I contacted Fab.com and I’m hoping to get things straightened out. They have a record of everyone who has signed up through the link I gave, so I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll be able to credit y’all’s accounts anyway. I’ll keep working on it!
I’ve been eyeing Helveticards since the first time I found your site (and non-stalkerishly tried to find out more about you and Ryan…)! So exciting! Thanks for sharing.
Haha – well then this was a very enlightening post, wasn’t it!? :) Glad you’re excited!
Thanks for the update. I didn’t receive the credit either. Hopefully they will still offer it.
Hmm..no $10 credit for me either. I just signed up though, so maybe it will show up tomorrow? It never asked me for the invite code. Did I need to use that somehow to get the $10 credit? Either way – I love the cards – and what a fantastic story!
same here!
Some people aren’t getting it. I’ve been in touch with Fab.com and am hoping they’ll be able to help us straighten things out! I’ll keep everyone posted.
how in the world did i not know about this before now?! i’m sure you’ve blogged about it before, though.
congrats to ryan anyways; this is such a big adventure!
Still no credits. Gotta say I’m a bit disappointed.
It took me 2 days after registering to get my $10 credit, but the cards were still available this morning.
I bought 5 decks to gift my designer friends for Christmas!
Great! Can’t beat the price! :)
I am an architect, and a believer. This is a great gift for architects. I’ll post this page on my FB page. Thanks!