About Our Company Name and Logo

The last name Kostick is a slightly altered version of the original name Kostiuk, changed after John's father came to the US from Russia in the 1920s.

It often gets spelled incorrectly as Kostik, Costic, etc, so when asked how to spell it, I usually say K-O-stick.  Given that many of our designs are made out of sticks, and that we like to think some of them are knockouts, KO Sticks was a logical choice for a company name less prone to misspellings.  I should add that it's been pointed out to me that puns are ONLY clever if you thought of them yourself, so if you're rolling your eyes, please forgive us for the pun.

The graphic for KO Sticks comes directly from the process of making the wooden Six-Axis sculptures, a design with a composition of triangular cross-section sticks that mimics the bypassing of round rods in John's 1965 Six-Axis Stars.

First you've got to envision the graphic as the end grain view of a board of lumber.

Each edge has been cut top and bottom with the blade tilted 36 degrees.

Next, set back to vertical, the blade cuts off an edge of the board to make one long stick.
The saw kerf is like the first part of writing the letter K.

Then, set at a 36º tilt again, the blade cuts both sides of the next stick and creates two waste pieces.
(These come in handy later on as drying racks for lots of small freshly finished sticks of wood.)

Working from both sides of the board toward the center, you just keep making K's like this to create lots of sticks that later get diced up.

There's a bit more to it than that (jointing, planing, routing, sanding), but this description gives the main idea of how we make these parts and how we came up with the logo.  And if you've gotten this far in reading all of this, you probably will always remember how to spell our name!

Six-Axis Magnetic Assembly in Chakte Viga, Pau Amarillo, and Bolivian Rosewood.

click to enlarge

To see more of this type of woodwork, click here.