How to Traumatize Your Children: 7 Proven Methods to Help You Screw Up Your Kids Deliberately and with Skill
At Knock Knock our sensibility is proudly distinct, in contrast to the overwhelming homogenization and conservatism that characterize committee-created corporate product. We believe that many people are intelligent enough to appreciate wit, wordplay, and conceptual thinking, so we strive not to dumb down as we create.We believe in the Golden Rule, friendly customer service, and shipping quality merchandise on time, though occasionally we are grumpy, and circumstances beyond our control result in tardiness. We suffer fools not gladly, but for the most part we actually like other human beings. Our customers comprise the impish, the dapper, the droll, the young-at-heart, those who prefer the humor of the truth to false feel-good affirmations.On the highfalutin front, Knock Knock seeks to integrate art and commerce creating original, authentic, noncynical products that support themselves in the marketplace. Our inspirations are Charles and Ray Eames and Tibor Kalman, designers who refused compartmentalization and brought intelligence, aesthetics, and creativity to everything they touched.Rather than a product category, material, or target market, Knock Knock s unifying force is a sensibility. We channel that sensibility into designing and manufacturing original products, selling primarily to retailers. Also, we read a lot. Following are a few things we believe:Ethics and decency are immeasurably important.Products should be created with care, whether mass produced or handmade.Things should be both beautiful and useful, but they can also be beautiful and frivolous.Beautiful, useful things should sometimes be affordable.Every once in a while it s good to notice quality design.Craft is important for the soul as well as the hands and eyes.Art is not necessarily superior to craft.Humor makes everything better.Not everything should strive to be accessible to the lowest common denominator, or any common denominator, for that matter.Smartness is fun.Empty feel-good affirmations are an instant gratification of diminishing returns slyly interpreted truths last longer.Despite the rise of the screen, much that is interesting and innovative can be done with printed matter, though paper should be recycled whenever possible.Idiosyncrasy, eccentricity, humor, controversy, and opinion are infinitely more interesting than corporate homogenization, committee-decision-making dilution, and widest-possible-audience scheming.Renaissance prowess is more interesting than individual skills specialized to the point of contextlessness.Passion, curiosity, and enthusiasm can make anything interesting.Good should be rewarded.Problems should be discussed and resolved.Self-awareness is underrated.Mistakes should be admitted and learned from.Common sense is uncommon.Ego is annoying.Turn signals should be used.Even though it's possible to use fewer words than more, why?