Zac Whitmore (USA)

About

Overview: My hope is that the three elements of design, great build quality, and a name with some meaning behind it will make the Yonder Knife not just a great tool for those who pick it up but a trusted companion for wherever the road may take them. Design History: In the Fall of 2023 I was on a trip with some good friends of mine helping with the product launch for my knife designer friend Ben of KNAFS. We have both worked in the knife industry for years and Ben had been encouraging me to design a knife for a long time but I had been hesitant because I did not want to create a knife design just to create a knife design. I have had some success with an EDC (Every Day Carry) YouTube channel and I didn’t want to put out a design just because I had an audience, if I was going to create something I wanted it to mean something. After a day of working on Ben’s product launch in the woods of Montana we all ended up going back to Ben’s family cabin. That evening Ben said I could not leave and we were not going to bed until I had a knife design and concept sketched out. In essence my friends kidnapped me and held me hostage in a cabin so the Yonder could be born. It was a great night of talking about what knives I really loved and what elements I was not currently seeing in the knife industry. We landed on something medium sized, tough, ergonomic and useful that could fit any budget. After the first sketches it was time to find a partner to help me make the knife. At the top of the list was CIVIVI knives. I have had a great working relationship with that whole team for years that has grown into a good friendship. Having worked in the industry for so long I knew that they make some of the best production knives in the world. The CIVIVI team was immediately excited to work together on the project and we started work right away. After a few emails back and forth on my sketch and the engineering of how knives actually go together we landed on the final version of the Yonder and