A brief history of the slightly 3D Knock Knock letters. 1. One of our early tradeshows. 2. One of our later tradeshows. 3. And an even more recent tradeshow. 4. The stairs above our offices south entrance. 5. Our office mailroom.

At Knock Knock, we love our K’s. Letterform-wise they’re unique, with their splayed horizontal V’s branching out from military-erect I’s. Since ours repeat, they reduce to a convenient abbreviation: KK. One of the reasons I named the company Knock Knock is, as previously outlined in some of our marketing materials,* because of those graphically flanking K’s.

At the time and for the following ten years, however, I had no idea that K’s could kill. Or at least maim (this blog post is putting the “May” in “maim”; now that I’ve achieved official timeliness, I can move on).

I was at home. It was evening. The house was a mess. I put off doing anything about it for a few hours, but finally it was time to bust a move. And a move I busted, along with a body part. Despite my procrastination, once I started cleaning, I was a dervish who whirled. One of my goals over the last few months, for a variety of reasons, has been to reduce stress, to slow down, to not take on so much (the latter two being linked to the first). But I have two speeds: sitting and watching TV or moving fast, obsessed with velocity and efficiency.

After a little while, everything was basically clean. One of my knickknack shelves, however, was cleared of its objects. Earlier in the week, while my housekeeper was dusting, my three 3-by-3-inch cubes of the travertine marble used to build (or, more accurately, clad) the Getty Museum had fallen from the shelf and broken a ceramic bowl on the credenza below. Ofelia pointed out to me that the shelf was leaning downward and was therefore not adequately supporting its contents. As I finished my cleaning, I saw that she’d placed those objets not back on the inadequate shelf, but on the credenza below. Since I had moved the offending and heavy travertine cubes elsewhere, I thought, “Why ever did she not reload the shelf?” and took it upon myself to do so. These objects included a decommissioned plywood Knock Knock O and a decommissioned plywood Knock Knock K. ( As a general matter of collectibility, I like physical letterforms, and specifically I liked that these two spelled OK.)

Since our very first booth at the 2003 National Stationery Show, we’ve had our logo laser-cut into individual wood letters made of plywood, with a lovely exposed striped edge, that we’ve then painstakingly painted either white or orange. Those of us who’ve set up tradeshow booths or overseen office decor have had the misfortune of painting them and hanging them, each letter with its four-or-more keyhole mounts requiring perfectly positioned wall screws. The individual letters range from about 8 inches in height to perhaps 13, depending on their intended location. They’re about 0.75 inches thick. They’re not only iconic, they’re heavy.

My housekeeper was right—the shelf was inadequate. As soon as I hefted up the letters, they and a few other objets came crashing down. The K landed on my right foot. On one of its eight corners. With a force akin to that of a stiletto heel, i.e., with the same effective weight as an elephant, because, as we all readily know and discuss at cocktail parties, pressure equals force divided by surface area.

My foot, about to give birth to an alien.

My first response, if I recall correctly, was “motherfucker.” I figured this was one of those eye-watering whacked shin or stubbed toe moments that hurt like the aforementioned motherfucker but subside relatively quickly. I kept cleaning. While I was leaning down to pick the objects up from the floor, something caught my eye: a light blue hemisphere on top of my right foot, somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball.

I thought about sitting down at this point, but I remembered that earlier I’d set water and dishwashing soap to boil on the stove in an attempt to clean a recalcitrantly gunked-up pot. I hobbled into the kitchen and took the pot off the stove, poured it out partially, and then burned myself while attempting to scrub. That’s when I said to myself, “Stop. Just. Stop.”

The scene of the krime. 1. My knickknack shelves; please don't judge. Note that the top one is empty save for the feather-light origami pieces (constructed out of KK Pads, I might add). 2. The O and the K, ill-placed on the credenza under the thought that the shelf may be too unstable to hold them. 3. Three-quarters view of the kulprit K, held in order to demonstrate (a) the beautiful striped plywood edges; and (b) the lethality of its heft and corners.

It was about 9:00 p.m., and the last thing I wanted to do was go to the emergency room. When does anybody ever want to go to the emergency room? So I called a friend I thought might know what was going on. This swelling had literally ballooned. When I’ve broken bones or incurred sprains, the swelling is always much slower and more all-over. She suspected it might be a burst blood vessel. I did not go to the ER.

In the morning, the goiter had flattened and the black and blue had spread. To the ER I went. X-rays showed that nothing was broken, and the doctor confirmed that I had indeed burst a blood vessel and incurred a hematoma; the injury was to soft tissue. Over the course of the following week and a half, the swelling shifted across my foot, immobilizing my toes, and the black and blue traveled all the way to my ankle. I couldn’t put on a regular shoe for a couple weeks, and a month and a half later there’s still some pain at the point of impact. (By the way: I do not recommend doing a Google image search on “hematoma.”)

Why, you’re now no doubt asking if you’ve read this far, am I telling you this story, illustrated with gruesome pictures of my long-without-a-pedicure foot? Because it’s ironic (but in the incorrect, Alanis Morissette meaning of the word, not the gap-between-words-and-meaning literary definition). Because it’s so very me. But mostly because it’s ironic. And iconic. I don’t know that I’ve ever had an experience that was so simultaneously ironic and iconic: basically, during my partial leave of absence and my attempts to slow down, reduce stress, and not take on so much, the very essence of Knock Knock fell on and injured me.

1. A day later; please note that my toenails are not fungally yellow, but instead bear the remains of a months-old pale pink pedicure that looks yellow in this light. 2. A few days later. 3. A few days after that. Note that the bruise goes all the way up to my ankle; the difference in coloration between the two feet is not the result of lighting.

The lesson I’m drawing from this incident is mostly to slow down, because it’s when I move quickly that I make mistakes and have accidents. (FYI: I very rarely get sick; I have accidents and injuries and structural afflictions and surgeries.) But the kicker of it is that my speed mostly helps me in life. I’m really fast at a lot of things, so I get a lot done. Do I accept that speed works for me but periodically results in injuries and accidents (and not just of the physical kind), or do I slow down, reducing my efficiency and my life satisfaction (because I’m so impatient, slowing down is a nightmare) but possibly managing not to kill myself? I don’t have the answer to that. But I will tell you that the shelf has subsequently been fixed, and I have not moved the O and the K back up from their temporary position on the credenza. I’m also cleaning less. And that in itself is nothing if not slow-down-and-smell-the-roses self-improvement.

*Why the name Knock Knock? Well, first off, Knock Knock’s founder, Jen Bilik, had glued plastic letters that spelled out “KNOCK KNOCK” to the outside of her front door (and “WHO’S THERE” to the inside), and when she decided to start the company, she looked around and the words popped out at her. When she thought about it, she realized that “Knock knock” is a call-and-response command that invites a “Who’s there?” question. Knock Knock also reminds us of childhood, which we hope to honor with our glee, open-mindedness, and purity of purpose. Because Knock Knock is one word repeated twice, it lends itself nicely to the design of letterforms. Graphically it’s a palindrome, with consonants flanking a center O, the odd K at either side, and the N and C tweaking what might otherwise constitute cloying symmetry. Also, Jen thought it would be fun to answer the phone “Knock knock.” And by the way, we’re actually Who’s There Inc. D/B/A Knock Knock. Long story.

Knock Knock's namesake front door (which, oddly enough, I now live next door to).

Every once in a while, the time comes when nothing but a paradigm shift will suffice in charting the future of a company. For Knock Knock, I’m excited to say, that time has come. For ten years now we’ve been toiling in the salt mines of wit and clean, contemporary design (of course, sometimes with a retro flair). When I launched Knock Knock, in 2002, I was motivated in part by the fact that the commercial world had grown increasingly homogenized. Everything was designed for the lowest common denominator and it appeared to be illegal to have one’s own voice, especially in something for sale in the marketplace.

How gorgeous is this sky, and the sense of accomplishment one gets from standing on a not-quite-summit? Plus a simile about icebergs. I don’t know if we can achieve this kind of excellence, but we’re certainly going to try.

A thought that drove me in starting Knock Knock (other than not to suffer any clients) was that there had to be enough smart people in the world to support a small paper products company founded on the strength of the written word and good design. I was right, and it’s been an amazing run of blood, sweat, paper cuts, and success.

Now, however, when I look around at tradeshows, in boutiques, at Target, on Hallmark.com, all I see is voice. I see snark, I see humor, I see self-referentialism. A clean, bold contemporary design sensibility is almost the default setting now. I’d like for Knock Knock to take credit for this sea shift, and perhaps we are a small part of it (I am certain, for example, that the proliferation of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank humor was inspired by us), but responsibility doesn’t matter here. What matters is staying ahead of the game and distinguishing ourselves from crowd.

We don’t know who Brandon is, but we also miss his morning snuggles. How sweet are those hearts?

Today that means something very different from what it meant in 2002. It means a return to bunnies, bows, and cursive. It means swallowing our pride and using Papyrus, Comic Sans, and Remedy. It means being earnest and sometimes rhyming. It means poor typesetting. It means writing “everyday” when what we really mean is “every day.” But most of all, it means very little.

I have to say, I’m slightly relieved that we’ll be making this shift. It’s exhausting being smart and funny all the time. It’s eye-strain inducing to be kerning letters to set them just so. It’s frustrating having brainstorms and coming up with so little with which to continue making our mark.

I would like all of you to know how proud I am of what we’ve done over these years, when what we were doing was still original and unique (in our future incarnation, we will say “very unique”). We are most grateful to you, our FOKKers, for embracing us in all of our experimentation. But just because we’re changing doesn’t mean we won’t still be thinking of you. It just means we’ll be thinking of you in shades of purple, embossed cursive, and maybe a dash of glitter.

We would also like to make a return to the handcrafted. This blue dog, hand modeled from dog hair, lint, and old phonebooks, is eco-friendly as well as cute. Such an inspiration!

OMG, so kewt.

We still plan to keep the fun in functional, as with this rainbow of sand pails. They tote and they put a smile on your face!

As you know, we’ve tended to shy away from photography in favor of vector art and illustration. What a missed opportunity! Our twist will be in the context and substrate, like this photo on an actual tapestry!

Affluent people tend to spend more money on products. Affluent people are more likely to have second homes. What does that mean? Signage! Plus cute embroider pillows and golf paraphernalia.

I can’t wait to spray some perfume on this stationary and write to my BFF.

Speaking of cute embroidered pillows . . . We’ve always loved a good pun, but now we’re going to embrace bad, trite puns as well. We’re inside ourselves with joy!

Finally, nothing we do in the future would be complete without the Bible. Did you know it’s the bestselling book of all time? Bible + affirmations + cursive + huge = the new Knock Knock.

What a great segue. With our new identity, it’s only fitting that we should end with a biblical reference: “And on the first day of the fourth month, God created April Fools.”

KISS—“Keep it simple, stupid.” Not my forte. I like things that have complexity and interest to them, and you may already know that one of my mottos (and I say “my” because successive Knock Knock writers and editors are delightfully more terse than I am) is “Why use fewer words when you could use more?” Even if you don’t know that, you may have noticed that my blog posts are way too long. Way.

Our turned-out-to-be-too-complex contribution to a calendar consisting of one page/month each from different designers. Do you get it? If not, check out the asterisk at the end of the post.

Years ago—maybe seven—we were asked to contribute a month to a calendar that would comprise twelve individual cards. The design was to embody that month in some way; we were assigned March. I thought what we did was so very clever, and I still love it. A huge version of it, mounted onto foam core, looms above the office’s “editorial horseshoe” (what we call the place where the KK wordsmiths sit).

Nobody got it.

Perhaps you wouldn’t characterize our calendar page as unsimple, or as complex, but the mental leap from visual to verbal certainly turned out to be. And therein lies one of Knock Knock’s continual balancing acts: we want to make products that are as smart, unique, and non-dumbed-down as possible, but if they’re too smart, unique, and non-dumbed-down, enough people probably won’t get the concept to sustain it in the marketplace. Another example of this: we frequently hear from potential PR outlets,  “We love it, but it won’t read on the page” or “We love it, but it’ll require too much explanation.”

The best products hit both marks—smart, conceptual, and accessible. To me the Personal Library Kit (our only product still in print from our very first release, in 2002!) is an exercise in perfection there.

Die-hard FOKKers do sometimes love these more complicated, non-selling products. They’re certainly some of my favorites. But if they don’t sell, we don’t pay the rent. In some ways they’re more like collectibles than products. At times I notice our list veering more toward the broad, the gag, the ba-dump-bump, and I know we need to get some über-smart stuff in there to balance out the WTFs. But it’s a difficult juggling act—what sells vs. what you love.

We apologize for the overcomplexity of this concept, name, and packaging. But from it we learned, “The more complicated the product, the simpler the name and presentation have to be.”

We came up with a bit of a rule of thumb for this in reference to our Fete-a-Tete party packs. We think these are splendid, smart, and fun—just add a bottle of wine and you’ve got an instant party. We also love the graphic design of the packaging and feel it’s very Knock Knock, what with the how-to infographic-like drawings and all. But people don’t get what they are at a glance, something we learned early on when we had to explain them at some length in our tradeshow booths. From this product, we concocted a KK rule: “The more complicated the product, the simpler the name and presentation have to be.” With Fete-a-Tete, that means we should have used photography on the front, showing an explanatory vignette, and we should have called them “Party Kits for Two” or some such.

We refer constantly during works-in-progress meetings and in orienting new creative employees to the three-second rule (no, not the one that involves dropping food on the floor). Our three-second rule is that someone has to understand the basic essence of a product in three seconds. A more complex version of that is that they have to get it in three stages: (a) from across the store; (b) from right in front of the product; and (c) when they then pick up the product. You don’t get to B without A, and you don’t get to C without B. You have to imbue the packaging with clarity and appeal for each of those three stages. People inexperienced in product design will often say, “But they’ll understand what it is when they pick it up and read the text on the back!” Ah, the innocence of those who’ve never designed product.

I really want to go into the over-complexity and at-least-120-second requirement of one of my favorite products we ever did, the Wishing Kit, which was included in our first release, in 2002 (since this years marks our tenth anniversary!), but I’m going to take my own KISS advice and hold that for another post.

In the meantime, I’m trying really hard to bring KISS into my own life for March 2012. I’ve actually just started a personal leave of absence to attend to a few top-secret personal projects as well as focus on some work-related writing projects. Since one of the main goals of the leave is to bring down my stress level, KISS could very well be my friend. How to KISS when you’re juggling both work and the rest of your life? I haven’t solved that one yet. But for all of us, a little dash of KISS would probably be an improvement—at least for March 2012.

*The calendar page illustrates the saying “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”

It’s pretty telling (but hopefully not for all of 2012) that my monthly Head Honcho Hello is late. I had such plans for productivity over what seemed like an endless work break, from Christmas Eve to January 3. Of course, me being me, part of the thrill was being able to cross some things off my work to-do list. It’s sad, really, how much satisfaction I get out of doing that in my supposed off-time—until I don’t.

And I thought I’d be getting all these things done while I followed through on my “vacation” plans, which included no fewer than eight days spent with visiting family (fortunately, I like these particular relatives). I’m always advising people not to overpromise and underdeliver, yet time and again, and most especially with myself, that’s what I do.

What am I thinking to create a daily to-do list (yes, I divy everything up onto particular days) that (a) would take a good 18 hours to execute fully; and (b) doesn’t account for any interruptions, meetings, or potty breaks? I’ve gotten much better at managing the delays back to the people who are expecting things from me, but I could still use some work in that area.

When I talk about this at work, the people to whom I’m delivering something (repeatedly) late often say, “Oh, it’s okay—you have so much on your plate!” This is true. But having a lot on your plate doesn’t mean you can’t realistically assess what you have on your plate, managing expectations and deadlines as you go. I feel especially guilty because I feel I’m supposed to be setting an example. How can I ask others to do things if I don’t do them myself?

Oddly, there’s such optimism among those of us who overpromise and underdeliver—we so want to get it done that way, in that timeframe! But being unrealistic benefits no one and puts the entire team in a constant state of fire-drill mode. Craig and Trish and Jim and Carolyn are great at being more realistic in plotting out project schedules. You should see our master product development schedule—it’s got some 200 projects on it at any given time. Believe me—I am so not the one to make those trains run on time.

But there’s a role for the overoptimistic Jen Biliks of this world, too. Sometimes things need to be goosed to run a little quicker. Sometimes the more cautious among us need to be pushed to produce faster and better than they ever thought possible. I once saw a Craigslist ad that said simply, “Visionary seeks functionary.” Craig and Trish and Jim certainly have both visionary and functionary qualities, but I’m definitely the one who says “We can do it! We can so finish that book in two weeks! We can so release that thing a season early! We can so add to the product list! We can so introduce a new product line! We can so implement a new server file-naming protocol.” And to their credit, except when they convince me it’s a really bad idea and will screw up too many other things we’ve got going, they always make it happen.

I think you’ll see what seems like more of the eyes-bigger-than-stomach Jen Bilik than the sane and rational others at Knock Knock this year. Our Spring 2012 (to launch on the website in early February!) and Fall 2012 releases kick some serious ass with their breadth and depth. Not to mention a top-secret entirely new thing you’ll be hearing more about very soon. But just because it looks like we would have had to be out of our minds to take all this on doesn’t mean, in this case, that it was a case of the crazy lady pushing everybody ragged. Nope—this was a team effort, a team commitment, and it will be a team success.

Rest assured, however, that I will soon be pushing everybody to do something else that seems, on the face of it, patently undoable, because, much as I continually try to improve, this overoptimistic, overpromise-and-underdeliver leopard isn’t changing her spots anytime soon.

Oh—and happy new year.

December is a very special holiday month for me and Knock Knock—because it’s Maisie’s birthday. It’s the whole month rather than a single day because when I adopted her from the South Central LA Animal Shelter, in February 2000, I was told she was eight weeks old.

Sweet Maisie as a puppy, soon after her homecoming. I don’t know what was up with those awful streaks in my hair, but I do know I was in the middle of organizing or housework or something.

All the young puppies were kept together in one kennel area, and as I watched them, Maisie stood out. The other puppies were either bullies or fearful wallflowers, the latter almost catatonic, shivering in the corner as the bullies picked on them. Maisie was the only one who was neither. She had this sense of self-possession that has carried through in her character to this day. She would play and wrestle happily with the bullies, but if they started to get rough or bratty, she would just walk away without engaging. And she’d approach the poor terrified pups and lick them or lie next to them.

I asked to take her for a test drive, and when she was put in my arms (only 15 pounds—now she’s 75), her whole body wagged and wriggled as she exuberantly licked my face. Then, all at once, her whole body went trusting and limp and her head plopped decisively onto my shoulder as if she’d snuggled in for the long haul.

I found the Knock Knock office complex while I was walking with Maisie. I’d just decided to put aside the book I’d been working on for a couple years and make a go of this Knock Knock thing. In December 2001, when Maisie turned one, I signed a lease to start in February 2002, which made Knock Knock real for me. Maisie was the charmer of the complex, playing and romping with her favorite soccer ball in the parking lot when we worked outside.

When we did portraits of the team for Knock Knock’s first catalog, Maisie posed as well. I always think of this as her nude picture because she’s not wearing her collar. Maisie was one and a half here.

Now Maisie’s eleven, and Knock Knock’s almost ten. We have a few dates from which to choose Knock Knock’s anniversary: January 1, 2001, is the date of our incorporation. We started work in earnest in March or April. Our first products came out in October 2001. I personally think of our anniversary as starting in March and lasting through October.

Maisie was featured prominently in our early catalogs and website, in particular her formal portrait for our first catalog in which she looks breathtakingly dignified (FYI, like me, she’s never really enjoyed being photographed). Paco came along six years later, and while he’s an important part of life here, Maisie’s the heart and soul of the place. Maisie’s just one of those special dogs. She’s got wise eyes and somehow gets the ineffable “it.” Everyone notices that about her. And Maisie’s starting to get really old, and it’s breaking my heart.

I also can’t believe that Knock Knock’s going to be ten. We were the young upstarts for so long, and now within the gift industrial complex we’re almost part of the establishment. With both Maisie and Knock Knock, as with raising children, the saying comes to mind “The days crawl by but the years they fly.” Every day at Knock Knock has an intensity and density to it that make every last few months feel like longer ago than they ever really are, but oh my god, where did the years go? Like in Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game,” one of my favorite camp songs (Camp Kee Tov was pretty comprehensive in its musical repertoire), the teenage boy is told, “Take your time. It won’t be long now / ’Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down.”

Maisie today, with her whitening muzzle. She’s always loved to wriggle under the covers—every morning after she eats her breakfast. Often she’s all the way under, head and all.

So even though we’re supposed to think about the holidays during the holidays (and sell some products—buy, kind readers, buy!), the end of the year is also about endings and upcoming new beginnings. I find myself contemplating what it is to lead more of an institution than a scrappy startup, how to keep the freshness but combine it with greater reach and more business acumen and sophistication.

And with my dear sweet Maisie, I’m pre-mourning what I still have (an awful trait of mine—I seem to have no capability to live in the present). Her arthritis slows her down and her hindquarters have to be lifted into the car. She’s had a variety of health problems, any one of which could be her downfall. Her muzzle is almost completely white. Her personality has evolved as she’s gotten older—she’s kind of crotchety now, while still being the sweetheart she’s always been. She’s really insistent about the things she wants, including letting me know she’d like me to take away the bone that Paco’s chewing and give it to her or get Paco out of her bed. She’s been with me through almost all of my thirties, and all of Knock Knock, which for many years was no easy thing, so her loving constancy really meant a lot to me.

Though I am woefully prone to nostalgia (“hypochondria of the heart,” as someone characterized it)—even before something has ended—my pre–New Year’s vow* for Maisie, for Knock Knock, and for as much of life as I can muster, is this: enjoy where we are at this moment, because soon enough I’ll miss where we’ve been.**

*It’s unlikely to work, mind you, but I’ll definitely try.

**This is a little corny for me and Knock Knock, but Maisie’s one of the few forces in my life that can bring me to corn.

Knock Knock was formally incorporated on January 1, 2002, but we didn’t release our first products until October 2002, so somewhere in between is where I count our anniversary. In 2012, we’ll be ten. Ten! Just like humans think they’ll never get older and it takes a long time to reconcile oneself the fact that one is, indeed, older, I still think of Knock Knock as a young upstart and have to remind myself that in fact we’ve been around the block and there are many companies younger than we are.

Long shot, medium shot, mediumer shot, and closeup of the door that launched a very, very small empire.

I was procrastinating about starting a book when I started Knock Knock. For a while I’d been saying to myself, When I finish the book, this is what I’ll do. Finally I admitted to myself that, in all my procrastination (during which I made all kinds of things that would later become Knock Knock products or inspirations), I was actually pursuing this nebulous company idea and not writing the book. One day I was sitting in my living room thinking, If I were to do this, what would I call this company? My eyes swept around my living room, where I was sitting on the couch with my laptop. My front door was open so that Maisie, then just under a year old (she’s eleven now, my sweet girl with the rapidly whitening white muzzle) could run in and out of the house to greet passers-by.

On my front door, which was painted in what would later become Knock Knock orange (my orange phase had just begun) were plastic letters spelling out “KNOCK KNOCK.” (On the inside of the door I’d mounted “WHO’S THERE”). In one of those fits of procrastination, I’d taken letters more familiarly used on those black felt-corduroy-ish grooved signboards, cut off the prongs that slide into the grooves (in the process slicing up almost all my fingers with my X-Acto knife, and not for the first time), glued them to the door, then painted over them, because if you’re going to do something cute, it’s got to be subtle, right?

As I did my “What to call this thing?” sweep around the room, my eyes landed on the KNOCK KNOCK, and I loved it immediately. It evoked childlike play and glee. It was almost compulsively call-and-response (“Who’s there?”), which to me seemed the height of interactivity. In its association with joke-telling, Knock Knock was all about humor. I knew that the repeated word would make for a good logo and liked the letterforms—”KNOCK” is almost a palindrome, with the N and C offsetting what might otherwise constitute cloying symmetry. And of course Ks are pretty interesting-looking letters. Finally, I thought it would be loads of fun answering the phone “Knock Knock” (I probably should have anticipated, however, that after years of this, we’d get a little bit sick of people responding, “Who’s There?” and this, of course, would be all my fault, not theirs.)

Soon it was time to incorporate as Knock Knock with California’s Secretary of State. I found out something astoundingly unlikely—there was a defunct law firm in the San Fernando Valley that had incorporated under Knock Knock. I never found out why (and assumed that part of the reason they were defunct was because of the name-business mismatch), but when I wrote them a sweet, naive letter asking their permission to share the name, I got, naturally (these were lawyers, however defunct), a cease-and-desist letter.

What’s inside the Knock Knock? Why, Who’s There (Inc.), of course!

There was a brief period of brainstorming about alternate names (Whorligig was one of them—don’t ask), but fortunately we were able to file as Who’s There Inc. D/B/A Knock Knock. (D/B/A means “doing business as,” kind of an official and acceptable business alias.) There was someone squatting on knockknock.com (and still is—again, don’t ask, as it adversely affects my blood pressure), and minutes after I looked at knockknock.biz someone else purchased it (you guessed it—don’t ask, but obviously I was able to buy it, though we still wobble between that and knockknockstuff.com, another don’t ask).

About a year and a half after starting the company, I moved away from the house with the KNOCK KNOCK on the front door (though would over the years would run people by so they could see the founding inspiration of the name), but strangely enough, in April 2011, I moved into the house next door. So now I see it almost every day. Unfortunately, the new tenant hasn’t kept the house up like I did (I’m an inveterate home-improver, even in rentals), and the orange paint has worn off the letters, making them less than subtle and hence annoyingly cute as well as cheap and plasticky looking. I love my new house, though, and it feels like coming home to live next door to the house that sheltered so many good things. I have a fantasy of taking over that house, too, however, so maybe someday I’ll be able to restore the orange paint to the plastic letters that launched a very, very small empire.

Sometimes tourists take pictures of these signs—oh, so LA.

Many people think there are no seasons in Los Angeles. The transitions are subtler, of course, and the two yucky ones are infinitely more bearable than those of other climates, but they exist nonetheless. In autumn the air takes a turn toward the crisp and carries the smell of over-eager fireplaces. In winter the light is bluer, rain makes a welcome appearance, and nights actually merit jackets. Spring is announced by the sweet smell of jasmine; we are elated at springtime but much less than those who have just endured a true winter. Summer’s light gets round and yellow and the dry heat sets in, bringing a sense of slowness and playtime. Right now it’s totally summer here in LA.

In Venice on a summer weekend, it seems like the whole world is on bikes. I just got a new one, in Knock Knock orange, and I feel like I’m flying. Errands seem more fun, and I’ve learned that the Viceroy Hotel has an incredibly crowded bike rack. The Viceroy’s bellmen wouldn’t valet my bike but there are actually bike valets in Los Angeles, at events like the Sunday Santa Monica Farmer’s Market (where the valets often find themselves parking fancy baby trailers and fielding requests for Bugaboo storage so the children they contain can ride the ponies) and the Twilight Music Series at the Santa Monica Pier. In a not-unsurprising turn of character, I had never, in thirteen years in Los Angeles and twelve in Venice, gone to the Twilight Music Series. I thought it would entail standing around with people on the pier. It turns out you bring a picnic and wine and sit on the sand looking up at the pier after parking your bike in the most orderly way possible. I can’t believe it took me twelve years to get there (a friend was visiting, of course; otherwise I never would have tried it).

At work, we have every other Friday off between Memorial Day and Labor Day, our Summer Fridays. After Labor Day, the resumption of regular Fridays feels a little like when it’s dark early right after daylight saving switches back over—a bummer. Though this year we’re inaugurating two new practices to foster inspiration among the creative team: Freedom Fridays and Afternoon Delights. Freedom Fridays will fall once a month. For the first half of the day, we won’t be allowed to do any assigned work. Instead, we have to pick a non-work-related creative activity, whether reading a few of the gazillion art and design books in the office or sketching out a new, unassigned product idea. Then at lunch we’ll come together and share what each of us did. Afternoon Delights (in our definition) will be field trips to museums, Color Me Mine (just joking—but we do want to try a craft class), and shopping areas (for corporate espionage, i.e., understanding the marketplace), and will happen once every three months on a Wednesday. With all our deadlines—and we pump an awful lot of work through a lean, productive, talented group—sometimes we have a hard time remembering to feed and replenish our creative juices and think more freely.

I have no idea how well the bike valet industry pays, but its workers seem committed.

It always takes new Knock Knock team members a while to wrap their heads around our business seasons, which are completely different from the life seasons at hand. Right now we’re putting the finishing touches on our release for Spring 2012, which will hit the trade show circuit in January and find its way into stores and onto our website in early February. All the products for Spring 2012 need to go to manufacturing by Labor Day. At the same time, we’re starting work on Fall 2012, which will go to manufacturing by Christmas and will make its debut at the National Stationery Show in May. I’m no longer confused by our product seasons, but I sometimes forget where I myself actually am in the year.

From a business perspective, about halfway through a year, at the six-month point, it feels like the year is effectively over because we tend to know how the year will finish in terms of revenue and our products for the year are all released. At the nine-month point, we start convincing ourselves that the year to come is the one that will bring all the good things, all the successes, that we didn’t necessarily have in the current year. After Labor Day, we start projecting and budgeting the following year, a process that used to be infinitely more arduous before our financial statements became almost entirely formula driven and before we started projecting in a rolling (vs. trailing!) way, meaning that we constantly update our projections so that we have twelve months of visibility at any given date, not just on January 1.

And because I’m a self-flagellating neurotic, around Labor Day I start regretting all the summer things that I didn’t do and transition to theoretically looking forward to them for the following summer, even though I probably won’t do them then, either. You know, stuff like hiking every weekend and swimming in the ocean once or twice.

But I love the fall, and I love transitioning into work on a new product season. By this point in the development of the Spring release, all the products are known quantities, many of them finished. To be honest, at the end, we’re kind of sick of working on them. So turning to the new list is exciting and reinvigorating. I look forward to dropping teasers about it in the near future. We’ve got some exciting and surprising (truly!) new things on the docket for 2012, some of them top secret, and we look forward to your reaction as they emerge.

Note: One of my favorite quotes is “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead,” variously attributed to Samuel Johnson (a dyspeptic-looking man, it seems, at least in his Wikipedia portrait) and Mark Twain. Have you noticed that’s my approach to writing?

Howdy do, delightful readers! We are honored to welcome you to our inaugural blog post, the first of many.

This whole social media thing is such a brave new world, is it not? We finally found our voice on Facebook and Twitter after being dragged there kicking and screaming (now, of course, we mostly love it). What’s left? A blog! It’s the now of 2004, and we are so there.

Hello from all of us to all of you!

So much of the Knock Knock creative output is writing. We have an amazing editorial team that toils to bring you verbal content you’ve come to know and love. Then there’s writing all the marketing materials we put out, whether product labels, catalogs for retailers, or the website. For a long time we’ve thought, “What else is left to say, and however will we get it done?”

Until now. Because it turns out we’ve got plenty more to say. So we put our minds to it and thought about what we wanted the Knock Knock blog to be. Here’s what we came up with:

• We want to reveal Knock Knock’s personality, focusing on what we stand for in addition to what we do. We want Knock Knock to be a company with a face—yes, we also have an ass, but our face is prettier. We want to introduce you to the Knock Knock team and to our beloved Venice, California.
• We want to inspire our readers by posting things that are useful and fresh, helping ourselves and you be in the know all at the same time.
• We want to cultivate our relationship with all the FOKKers (Friends of Knock Knock) out there. It’s been so great getting to know you on Facebook and Twitter, but there’s so much more dialogue we can have here.
• Most of all, we want to bring you “aha moments” of humor, surprise, and intelligence—hopefully making you laugh or think every day. Or at the very least have something to help pass the time while you’re eating lunch.

In my first conception of Knock Knock, the company was going to create both a magazine and products. The magazine was going to be a “catazine” or a “magalog”—a great publication with only one advertiser, us! I quickly realized that starting a product company was enough work for an army and decided we’d best focus on the stuff that might earn us money in order to keep the whole operation going.

Look! A blog!

But now, with the blog, we’re kind of realizing that dream, and to that end, we’ve come up with more repeating “column” ideas than a whole passel of newspapers. One of them, as a matter of fact, is the “Head Honcho Hello,” in which I, Jen Bilik, will be writing directly to you on a monthly basis, whether or not you care to read it (please—I get tired of hearing myself talk, too).

In the early days, actually, you’ll be hearing a lot from myself and from our fabulous marketing and digital coordinator, Melanie Gasmen (she writes our Facebook and Twitter, too), but as we get our feet under us, you’ll be hearing from others chez Knock Knock.

At the root of it, this is a blog for its readers. We want to hear from you. We want you to comment and share and link and give feedback. Don’t like a column? Tell us. Love a post? Tell us. Have an opinion on an opinion? Tell us. Because we’re Knock Knock—we have a blog, and we’re here for you.