Here's the whole philosophy, in one sentence: the joke works on two levels — the people who grew up with it get it immediately, and everyone else gets curious. Every design decision this brand makes runs through that filter.
Why the two-audience model works
Explaining a joke kills it. Everyone knows this instinctively — it's why nobody laughs at a bit that needed a footnote. But for a generation of kids who grew up translating between a culture at home and a culture everywhere else, there's a second, quieter cost to over-explaining: it flattens something specific into something generic, so it's safe for an audience that was never actually the point.
We'd rather keep the specificity and let the audience sort itself out. Some people will read a shirt, a print, a phrase, and get it instantly — the recognition of something they've lived, not something they've researched. Other people will read the same thing and feel a small, productive itch of "wait, what does that mean?" Both reactions are correct. Both are the design working exactly as intended.
Curiosity is a better compliment than instant comprehension.
What this means for what we make
It means you won't find a translation printed under the Cantonese phrase, or an explainer tag hanging off the joke. It means some of what we make will occasionally go over someone's head, and we've made peace with that trade, because the alternative — sanding every reference down until it's universally, blandly legible — isn't actually more inclusive. It's just less interesting, for everyone, including the people the joke was for in the first place.
If you're reading this and you already got the joke somewhere else on the site: hi, welcome, glad you're here. If you're reading this because you got curious: also hi, also welcome. That's the whole system working.
If you would like somewhere to start, what six seven actually means and the Cantonese art of making no sense on purpose are two good doors in.