Spyderco Forums

In a recent OT post, our friend SolidState brought up an idea. Having the person who designed a knife explain why certain things were done. What they were thinking.

I thought this was such a great idea that I think Spyderco should set up a new area on the site hosting a review of each knife by the designer.

I for one would love to "meet" the designers and hear their thoughts when they were coming up with their designs. Would you?

Ken

kbuzbee wrote:I for one would love to "meet" the designers and hear their thoughts when they were coming up with their designs. Would you?

Yes.

Yeah, I love when the designers on the forum (Ed Schempp, dialex) describe what they've done. Expanding that to all collabs would be great.

The downfall is you're in a way giving away trade secrets. Some that were very expensive to figure out.

If they could do it otherwise I love "behind the scenes" stuff! :D


Edit: this was based on an early pre-coffee read. Sorry!

Blerv wrote:The downfall is you're in a way giving away trade secrets. Some that were very expensive to figure out.

If they could do it otherwise I love "behind the scenes" stuff! :D

I thought about that, Blake. Not sure if it's a real thing but if someone feels a particular design point is top secret they could skip it, I suppose.

On the other side, I bet there are lots of intended "features" that go mostly unnoticed by many of us. Great way to point those out.

Ken

I think you have a good question, however, are you talking about Spyderco producing videos or providing a special forum section here? The answers don't exactly follow the name of the thread.

Lucky for us here most new designs are covered well by posts on YouTube, thanks you very much.

I really like it when a designer explains the reason for a particular Spyderco design, both in house and collaborations. Sal and Ed Schempp's posts about various designs are great reading.

As a user and collector of all things Spyderco I love reading, listening and watching anything about the company, the people and the products. This true not only for my own enjoyment, but when I give a Spyderco knife to someone I can explain what it means to have a Spyderco knife and what went into the design of that particular knife they now own.

Yes i would also see and hear the comments of the Designer´s.Would be interrest,if i remember me back to Mr Janich.

I think that it would be interesting to hear why design features/steel choices were made...

Hey Ken,

Reading the post again while awake makes way more sense! Sorry, I thought more as a blueprint approach.

What Ed, Sal, and Michael do at the SHOT and Blade shows is awesome. It's prob more production than they would prefer to do but I agree official videos would be terrific. Even if that means am official YouTube account. Even watching a designer mumble through a review (because they aren't actors) would be better than most other folks just guessing and spreading misinformation.

A big thumbs up!

I think this is what the edge-u-cation papers are about but I would love to hear more from the designers. As an artist myself I appreciate hearing that sort of thing from the artist behind the work.

I really enjoy reading the insights from the designers that are often posted on the forum, or in the box with the knife. So the more of that the better. It really increases appreciation of the design.

Great idea Ken. I would enjoy the heck out of something like that.

I love the idea

Pinetreebbs wrote:I think you have a good question, however, are you talking about Spyderco producing videos or providing a special forum section here? The answers don't exactly follow the name of the thread.

Well, my thoughts were hosted by and produced by Spyderco, and linked to it's own Spydie page. Consistent style and similar format/content. But the actual mechanics can be figured out once/if we get official interest. I just though I'd gauge OUR interest up front.

Ken

Absolutely. Would love to hear Breedon's thinking behind the Captain :)

kbuzbee wrote:Well, my thoughts were hosted by and produced by Spyderco, and linked to it's own Spydie page. Consistent style and similar format/content. But the actual mechanics can be figured out once/if we get official interest. I just though I'd gauge OUR interest up front.

Ken

Thank you for the explanation. As much as we would all like this idea, it would cost Spyderco time and money that would need to be be balanced by more sales or higher prices.

Pinetreebbs wrote:Thank you for the explanation. As much as we would all like this idea, it would cost Spyderco time and money that would need to be be balanced by more sales or higher prices.

Except if they did it on Youtube and put any advertising they could easily make money if not cancel out the cost. Nutnfancy doesn't thumb-flick knives and make sound effects for free.

That doesn't even touch tax-deductible company advertising aspect (but I'm not their CPA).

Exactly what I was thinking. The biggest problem would be springing someone's time to do it (college intern?) and scheduling the designer's time. Still, as a marketing tool, I really can't think of anything better.

Ken

Online chat would work too. Also, I don't think there will be too much cost involved when you consider that the designers and Spyderco are looking for their product to sell so I would not be surprised if they did it for nothing. Also, if its in an online chat format, the maker could be anywhere and could post pictures during the discussion.

I don't think it would be unreasonable if Spyderco said, we're going to do this knife colab with you but we'd like you to write a short piece on your thoughts behind the design so we could pass it along to the buyer, even if it's just part of the edge-u-cation paper. In fact i really think more designers would be inclined to do just that..i know i would. I don't know many artists who like having their work improperly critiqued. Maybe there's something about the Captain that i just don't see, but if Breedon wrote a couple paragraphs about why he designed it the way he did, it would make more sense to me. A good example is Mike Janich and the Yojimbo 2...the "Filipino grip" had never occurred to me, and if i didn't see Mike using that grip in the video, i might be trying to use the Yo 2 with a saber grip, which in my opinion turns a fantastic knife design into complete garbage. Seeing and hearing Mike talk about what he was thinking and how he intended the knife to be used when designing it made all the difference in the world to me when it came down to using it.