Hello! Big round of updates today, have summarised the key points at the top and included detailed thoughts on the new keyset and deskmat samples below. A few photos are included in this post, the full set can be viewed here:
https://imgur.com/a/DP93Viy Obligatory disclaimer: while I've tried my best to get accurate, representative photos in different lightings, it's still not the same as seeing the samples IRL. Final decisions will be made based on the samples in front of me, not the photos.
Keyset: Received R2 samples, am thrilled with how they came out!- The lightest three blues have been tweaked to be lighter. The gradient is now much more visible, I'm very happy with the new colours 💙 But will be considering a bit more before approving.
- Alphas alignment has been fixed - letters now have consistent baseline as per design (R1 samples had each letter individually centered)
- Other legends have also improved, including fixed 6^ key, fixed scissors novelty, and improved alignment
- New samples of novelties not included in R1 samples - tomato, stork scissors, zigzag and X stitches - all turned out great
Deskmats: Going in to production, estimated to arrive at US vendor in October- Received R2 samples! From the R1 samples, I had previously approved the "Sewing Tools - Yellow" mat but asked for the "Cookie Parade" and "Sewing Tools - Blue" mats to be tweaked to be a bit more purple.
- The R2 sample for "Cookie Parade" was good but the R2 sample for "Sewing Tools - Blue" over-shot and was too purple.
- Important note: The appearance of the deskmat varies a lot depending on the lighting, you can see this in the warm lighting vs indirect sunlight photos. The purple tones shows up better under warm lighting, and also doesn't show up as well in photos.
- I decided to approve the R2 "Cookie Parade" colour and the R1 "Sewing Tools - Blue" colour ☑️ the mats will be going into production in the next week or two
- Estimated ~20 days production + ~40 days shipping to the US (likely faster to other vendors) = estimated arrival October
THOK Knobs: Shipping to vendors from THOK, estimated to arrive with vendors in 2-3 weeksPreviously, the production of yellow knobs was complete but the brass knobs were delayed. THOK has now received the brass knobs and has shipped out all knobs to vendors.
Asero collab artisan: In production, estimated completion late August / early September
Detailed thoughts on keyset samplesI had requested 5 main changes from the R1 samples, they were addressed as follows:
1. Tweak colour matching for the lightest two blues (make them a bit lighter/brighter). In fact,
all colours were updated - the three lightest blues are all noticably be lighter. I originally thought the third lightest blue was already a good Pantone match, but this new gradient is definitely overall better. This also means the alphas are a bit brighter, since the legends on the alphas are the third lightest blue.
The other colours (darkest blue + yellow) look almost the same but are
very slightly different - it's not very evident from a top view, but more obvious when comparing the keycap sides together. The yellow is a little less orange, while the blue is a bit more saturated.
It turns out that Keyreative used a new colour printing software for these samples, hence why all colours were adjusted. I'm very happy with the new gradient but am taking a bit more time to make sure before locking them in. I have been checking the colours under different lightings and overall I feel they match the Pantones and the vision for the set very well, much better than the R1 samples.
There are some small tweaks that could be made to the individual colours (in particular, making the lightest blue a bit more purple), but when I consider the overall gradient, I'm very happy with it right now. One thing I will call out is that the darkest blue is a tad more saturated than the other colours - not too noticable when the keys are on a board, but more noticable with a "full gradient" layout (there's a picture in the album showing this.)
2. Fix alpha/letter alignment (vertically align letters with each other instead of individually centering each letter) - this is all fixed!
3. Update 6^ alignment - fixed!
4. Fix scissors novelty (hole should not be filled in) - fixed!
5. Fix cookie tin novelty (make the text slightly thinner) - unfortunately it doesn't seem like this was possible with the reverse dyesub.
Additionally, I had pointed out some issues with mis-aligned novelty legends and a couple of keys with faulty stems - no such issues in this round of samples.
The new samples also included the tomato, stork scissors, zigzag stitch, and X stitch novelties (weren't in R1 samples) which all turned out great. The printing quality continued to be very nice and crisp - all the thin lines in the novelties turned out well.
The remaining legends that haven't been sampled are the cursive text mods, other alphas (from Iso/Norde kits) and a couple of misc. novelties. I will be getting high definition pictures of samples for all kits to confirm before production.
One disclaimer about alignment - the alignment was much better in this round of samples, but some small variances are expected with due to the dye-sub process. Legends in the final production run may have small variances of <1mm.
Detailed thoughts on deskmat samplesEven more so that the keyset samples, the appearance of these mats varies a lot depending on the lighting. The purple tones shows up better under warm lighting (and also don't show up as well in photos). I've decided that the final approved colours match the set & my vision well enough either way, but to set expectations, the deskmats aren't going to be a perfect match to the renders for most lighting/setups.
The R2 900x400mm Cookie Parade sample had an issue with a non-square corner. We've confirmed with the manufacturer that the corners will be controlled more tightly during actual production.
I did consider asking for a R3 sample for "Sewing Tools - Blue" that would be in between the two existing samples, but decided against it as 1. I'm happy enough with the current colour: it matches the set well and 2. Given the overshoot with the R2 sample, I wasn't confident that a R3 sample would be worth delaying deskmat production for.
