Nathan
Not a brand story. Just the person behind the knives, and why they look like that.
I got bored of black knives. So I stopped making them.
I work alone, in a small shop with bad light and loud music. I came to knives sideways — through drawing — and mostly because I didn't want to make anything I wouldn't keep myself.
I started posting works in progress with no plan and no audience. The audience showed up anyway. They weren't reacting to marketing — there wasn't any. They just liked that the knives didn't look like everyone else's.
Now the drops sell out in numbers I can count on my hands. Every knife is signed, and none of them match. Some people call that a limitation. Those people can go buy a black one.
Color isn't a gimmick
Everyone else went black. I went the other way — on purpose. If you can't spot a Lohki across a room, I did something wrong.
One at a time
No batches. No 'line.' Each one gets made start to finish before the next one starts. It's a terrible business model and I'm keeping it.
It still has to work
Yes, they're loud. They're also knives. Ground thin, sharpened properly, built to actually cut. Pretty and useless is easy. This isn't that.
Not for everyone
Some people want a black blade that disappears in a pocket. Great. There are a thousand of those. This isn't one of them, and that's the whole idea.
Why is every knife different? Because making the same one twice sounds miserable.
— Nathan Khol