We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this design-related emergency.

If you want to see how to do a brand extension with a new product correctly, look to the CRKT Squid II. If you want to see how to destroy a brand, look to the light.

The Ferrari Luce (LU CHAY or “light” in Italian) is a huge design mistake. It is also a mistake that has lessons that resonate in the gear world. The fundamental problem with the Luce is simple—this is not a Ferrari. It might (and probably is) a great vehicle. It has an array of innovative features. The interior is inviting and the seats are almost certainly buttery soft and accompanied by that delightful smell of Ferrari leather. And with equivalent of 1050HP it is not going to be slow. So it is probably a very, very nice car. But not all nice cars are Ferraris. And the Luce is NOT a Ferrari. It might be a Nissan or a Logitech. If you want a good walkthrough of the car and to hear two of its designers patting themselves on the back so hard they break their arms here is a good video from Cleo Abrams (always great videos) where they blow smoke for nearly an hour.

Ferrari is a brand that has a very powerful, almost iconographic brand identity. It’s such a powerful design language that it’s almost like an ancestral memory. You know a Ferrari when you see it even if you have never seen it before, even if you haven’t seen that yellow and black badge. The Ferrari Daytona SP3 is a perfect example of a new design that is unmistakably a Ferrari. The muscular curves, the aggressive stance, and the grilles and strakes all make it clear, even without the Prancing Pony, that this car is a Ferrari. The Luce, on the other hand, looks like a very nice, well-designed Hyundai. Knowing what your brand is and what it means is critical in understanding how to make your products. Failing to understand that is a recipe for disaster, as the launch of the Luce attests to.

Of course, there is a new reality that many Tifosi are unaware of or at least ignore—worldwide more than half of all new cars being sold are electric. In North America, the rate is significantly lower than that. In the EU, it is around 45-50%, even with the repeal of the ICE ban. But in China, with its continuously swelling middle class, EVs are dominating, with nearly 60% of new cars being electric. And Chinese EVs are spectacular, outpacing American options by a significant margin. So much for free markets, I guess. EVs are cheaper to make, easier to make fast, allow for refueling at the only place you have to go, and use cheaper and less polluting fuel. The world is not going to be going down the ICE path much longer, other than out of a sense of nostalgia of exclusivity. EVs are the future and ICE cars are the horses of the second half of the 21st Century. With that inexorability, it makes sense that Ferrari would make an electric car. It does not, however, make sense that they would produce the Luce instead of something like the Rimac Nevera R.

There have been similar missteps in the gear world, of course. One such example in the gear world is the infamous CRKT Sebenza from the early Aughts. You read that right; not the CRK Sebenza, but the CRKT Sebenza. This is a design that was made with the belief that a plastic frame lock would work. After a few dealer samples were released, everyone came to their senses and abandoned the project. This seems like a foregone conclusion, but it clearly wasn’t. Someone out there thought: let’s make a Sebenza that has none of the hallmarks of a Sebenza, call it a Sebenza and see what happens. Cooler heads prevailed and the CRKT Sebenza never went into production, but the fact that dealer samples were made, plastic locker and all, is really remarkable. Fortunately, CKRT has significantly scaled up their production quality since the Plastibenza. Now, we get stuff like the Squid II, which I will get to in more detail below.

But we still get ideas like this all the time—a slipjoint gent’s folder from a tacticool brand that specialized in half pound cutters, folders from fixed blade companies that preached the virtues of “non prebroken knives,” and knife brands that want to be lifestyle brands instead of tool makers. The problem isn’t so much the designs themselves, but the way in which the design fails to mesh with the brand’s identity. Ferrari makes fast, high performance, curvaceous sports cars IN RED. The Luce appears to be none of these things, including red. And it was aquamarine blue, not even the stately and shimmering blue of, say, the 1964 Ferrari 500 Superfast.

Ferrari, of course, is innovative, but it is not a tech company, despite what Tech Bros (see video above for Jony Ive trying and succeeding in spouting Tech Bro nonsense) want to sell to everyone—this silly notion that EVERY business is, in some way, a tech business. Unfortunately the Luce indicates that Ferrari bought what the Tech Bros were selling. Now, having released it into the world, it is readily apparent that no one else is.

But just like a product can betray a brand, a product can bolster a brand, too. Building a product that carries the brand’s fundamental characteristics into new spaces is the perfect way to expand into new designs. In my mind there are two really good examples of this in the gear world, one from Spyderco and the other from CRKT.

The Spyderco Rock Salt is unquestionably a Spyderco and, at the same time, unquestionably different. Spyderco made its name with folders. The Rock Salt is a fixed blade. Spydercos are also known for their form-follows-function ethos that all but guarantees that most of their folders are on the reasonable side, size-wise. The Rock Salt has no proportion or dimension that is “reasonably sized.”

But the through line between the Rock Salt and the rest of Spyderco’s lineup is simple—utility. The Rock Salt looks bulbous and silly, but it is an impeccably design knife that achieves its purpose—big chopper—with so much ease that it brings a smile to your face when you are trimming back hedges by dropping limbs like the knife in your hand was a lightsaber. The Rock Salt, on that account, is the anti-Luce.

Similarly, CRKT banked on the Squid II. CRKT has always been a brand that highlights designers. From the Halligan KISS to the M16, CRKT made its name on bringing faithful production versions of custom designs to the masses. And now they are pairing that approach with top shelf materials and fit and finish. No knife signifies that change better than the Squid II. It is a Burnley design through and through, but it is also affordable at a remarkable $195 price tag. Like the Rock Salt and unlike the Luce, this is a continuation of brand identity that makes sense. We get the thing that makes a CRKT a CRKT but in a new spot in the market. Is the Squid II going to sell as well as the D2 M16 with a sliding bar lock? Probably not. Does it need to? No. But even in this higher end space we still see a bit of value that is CRKT’s second brand hallmark. This is not a $100 knife with 8Cr steel. It is a real, high end folder with high end touches that stays faithful to the original and still keeps a few bucks in your pocket for a coffee. This is all why the Squid II is one of my favorite knives still in production and my favorite CRKT ever. It is a brand extension done perfectly.

Ferrari go make a rival to the Yangwang U9, not the Nissan Leaf. And fix the vaguely sexual name of the Yangwang. I’d love a RED Ferrari Velocita.

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CKRT Squid 2