Trading Maps

Six Quick Lessons in How to Read a Landscape

Things I’ve learned about life from a year of distance running

Principles of CW&T In 2017, 8 years after we started this studio, we finally decided we should write down our guiding principles. It's a nice little document that we can check in with once in a while to make sure we're still on the right track (or maybe it's time to fork off onto a new track). Anyways... here they are. (subject to change always and forever)     🏢 🏠 🏢 Stay Small We’re just two people making lots of stuff. We like it that way and don’t want to grow. Growing means being responsible for the livelihood of more people. That’s more overhead, more managing, and less fun. With all the incredible software and hardware out there, we’re in a golden age of getting things done.  Two people can get a lot done. More importantly, two people can move from concept to product faster than a boardroom full of gremlins.     ✌️ Share Everything It’s important for us to share because we value transparency in our work and our lives. We like products, processes and systems that are legible. When we make something you buy, we want you to feel like it’s really yours. As an owner, you should know how the thing arrived into this world.     🎟🎟🎟 Buy lots of lottery tickets We’re not suggesting you should gamble, but launching a project often feels like rolling dice. Hard work doesn’t always pay off. There’s no correlation between how much time is spent working on a project and the ultimate payoff. That’s why we try lots of things. We make tons of stuff. And once in a while we get lucky. (Watch this talk by Darius Kazemi about buying lottery tickets) Privilege is also a form of luck. The two of us come from supportive families that fed us, educated the shit out of us, and made us feel safe enough to chase dreams.   🔨❤️ Make What You Want We’re not devoted to any particular medium or way of making. If we want something, we figure out how to make it. We’re medium agnostic. There are so many resources out there to learn whatever skill you need to get something done.     ⚙️ The Proof is in the Prototype The only way to truly tell if something is worth making is to hold it in your hands. Our workshop is built to be as friction free as possible so ideas can easily take shape. We often have a proof of concept within a few hours of sketching an idea. Everything in our studio gets prototyped a million times before a product release - if any. We almost never generate renderings, because renderings are like crack.  It tricks your brain into thinking you finished building the thing and when you finally get around to building the thing, you’ve already crashed from your high and the prototype doesn’t quite get you as high anymore. You can't replace the real thing with anything but the real thing.     👍 Make it Good If you’re going to bother making something, make it properly. Pick the right tools for the job. Don’t cut corners. We’d rather make it the right way once than spend energy and time making it the wrong way only to realize later that we should have made it the right way the first time.     🕰 Make it Last Everything should be over engineered. It feels better, it works better, and it will last longer. Value engineering is often short sighted. Products can and should last more than a lifetime. That’s what we want to see in this world, so we strive to make things that withstand time. The things we make are designed, engineered and manufactured to last forever.      👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Keep it Real We’re a business, but we’re also a family. It’s just the two of us working every part of our operation, and there’s no hiding that. We’re not a big company and we're not trying to act like one. If a baby ends up in a meeting or on a conference call, that’s just how it’s going to be.     🚷 Never Exit We’re never going to sell out. This is our life, our work, and our passion. We don't really think about what we do as a choice. It's who we are. And we hope to keep this going for as long as we can.    Hi there! You made it all the way here! Did you read everything? Well, if you did. Thank you! And as a small gesture to say thanks, here's a 10% discount code off anything in our shop.  Code: PRINCIPLES   XOXOoooxoxXXo CW&T