First of all, kudos for all the effort you put into both the keycap set design + the IC. Lots of attention to detail and illustration efforts.
I do want to preface that I understand this is your interpretation of Dieter Ram's design principles -- it's your creative direction to do it however way you like. There's no right answer, so only take what I say as suggestions. His principles are guidelines, not rules. Great designers break them every day. Design would be boring as hell if there was only one way to do things.
But let's get get to the feedback.
1. Legibility
I think this is the biggest issue with your set right now. I understand the intent to use what I am guessing is Helvetica Neue Light (or even Ultralight) in your legends. But the legibility is incredibly low, even after I expand the image. I'm not a fan of lower case fonts for legends. If you look at the Magic Keyboard from Apple (which is heavily inspired by Rams' work, and also a keyboard I own), they use all-caps + centered legends for alphas. The font weight is also higher, although not as thick as default GMK fonts.
While Helvetica Neue Light/UL is a very aesthetically pleasing weight, it was never intended for great legibility. You'll rarely see it used in places where readability matters (and in legends, it matters). It's often used as an accent font, or in large illustrations.
Suggestion: Capitalize the legends (to increase consistency of legibility) + increase the font weight.
2. Attention to detail
From my cursory look into all your individual sets, I found a few instances where legends aren't properly horizontally and vertically centered. This is something you must fix. For a set inspired by Rams, you really shouldn't be violating "design is thorough down to the last detail".
3. Novelties
I can see you spent a lot of time on the novelties and they look beautiful.
However, I'm personally not a fan of novelties. One of Dieter's design principles (of the 10) is that "design makes a product useful", "design makes a product understandable", and "is unobtrusive". I see that you are borrowing details from some of his most popular products as an homage to his iconic designs, but in doing so, violates those principles because they don't add anything to the design other than as an aesthetic homage. Rams aims not to add design for just the sake of design (such as purely aesthetic choices). There's few reasons to have those design details in the novelties.
Suggestion: Dig deeper into the 10 design principles, and really explore what would make sense as novelties.
4. Color dots
As an opposite, I think the color dots makes sense - they are both aesthetically pleasing and useful. The dots will replace keys that have axillary uses that aren't labeled. They let the user define the utility. It's both aesthetically pleasing and serves as a function. I love them. Good work here.
5. less
This is the one group that I am really not a fan of. The text "less, but better" serves as a complete anti-thesis to what the text itself is trying to say. By adding that text, you aren't introducing less, nor are you adding anything better to the design. Dieter himself would never add text like this into his designs. Never.
Suggestion: Remove this.
6. Manufacturing
Let's say you do choose to go ahead with manufacturing (and it seems like you have, considering you've already chose ePBT), the legibility will be my biggest concern. ePBT is quite flexible when it comes to the type of designs + fonts, so it'll be better for you, but I would order samples of the Helvetica Neue Thin/Ultrathin to make sure the print does not bleed, and/or is legible.
Suggestion: Order samples and make sure readability is emphasized.
7. IC post suggestion
Due to the small font weight + lots of whitespace in your renders -- I found it quite hard to get a read of your keycap set in general. I would reduce the whitespace in your renders more, so people don't have to zoom into each picture as much.
Your hero shot (the first image with all the renders at once) is essentially unreadable even while the image is expanded.
I would personally also take out the "less, but better" in every render. I understand this is the name of your keycap set, but it's a little redundant and even stretches into corniness when overused.
I would also start both a Discord and Instagram account. The former helps you build your community and provide instant updates to your supporters. Instagram helps you build an audience for your set. A design language like this will get you quite a good number of followers if you keep your posts consistent.
Suggestions: Reduce the white space in your renders so us readers can quickly scan your IC post with minimal interaction. Start a community via Discord and IG.
All in all, I think your IC is very very polished. My feedback does not take away the effort + heart you put into this design.
I actually tend to write a lot when I see something that has a lot of potential but can use a bit of a push to become even better. I especially love the small Rams details you included in the IC such as the radio dial-type design details that is signature to his style.
Rams' design principles are like he says.. principles. They're not rules. Some of the best design in the world may not even follow close to Rams' work. It is up to you, the designer, to make these design choices. But since you said you are designing something inspired by Rams, I applied my feedback through the lens of his principles.
Really looking forward to what you do moving forward and any further updates.
GLWIC.
loop @ esc lab
