Author Topic: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海 - LIVE AUGUST 1  (Read 150763 times)

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Offline grundlemere

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[IC] GMK Houhai 后海 - LIVE AUGUST 1
« on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:46:11 »
GMK Houhai 后海

A sense memory of misspent Beijing nights

Coming August 1 from vendors around the world



In the heart of Beijing, tucked behind the Forbidden City thronged with tourists, and the party compound heavily guarded, there is a small lake. At night this lake comes alive with neon lights piercing the city haze, advertising every pleasure under heaven, plied by pedal boats in the summer and speed skaters in the winter, redolent with the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. They call it Houhai (pron. HOH-high): 后海.  In this place, a photo negative of Pleasure Island, the ancient, the modern, and the futuristic live side by side.

GMK Houhai is an ancient-futurist keycap set design inspired by the sights of the Chinese capital at night, and will be the first GMK set produced with full Chinese character legends. Rendered in custom RAL colors, GMK Houhai (pron. HOH-high) evokes the Beijing night sky in a warm, hazy grey, with alpha legends in the fluorescent red of the Chinese city sidewalk reflecting neons after a rain, and modifiers in shades of cobalt, aqua, jade, gold, and clean white that can be found in both the ornate woodwork of historic sites and in the kaleidoscope of city lights.

The GMK Houhai set legends are based around the Cangjie (仓颉) typing system, first among many methods of typing in Chinese using Chinese characters. The set is fully functional for Cangjie typists, as well as Pinyin and Latin character users.



Complete the IC form to share your feedback
See a full gallery of board renders

Follow me on IG @fort_stevens for photos and project updates, and feel free to reach out on Discord at grundlemere#1126 with questions or to say hello.

Vendors

US: Cannonkeys
China: Zfrontier
SE Asia: iLumkb
Europe: CandyKeys
Australia: Daily Clack
Canada: Deskhero.ca
UK (non-EU): Prototypist.net

What's changed?

  • Renders have been updated to more closely depict physical colors
  • Set colors have been updated to include more well-matched GMK stock colors and fewer custom colors
  • Number of colors in base kit have been reduced by 1 (dark purple/blue accent color now appears only in novelties)
  • Novelties have been updated to match GMK specs, and icons have been thickened and improved
  • Kitting has been updated to match GMK Shanshui kitting - No English or icon mods this time around, though it's possible for a future run
  • Novelty icons have been modified or swapped out to reflect a theme more specifically Beijing and less generally Chinese
  • Deskmats have been updated to reflect new icons
  • Kit branding has been refreshed

Tell me about the kits!

In the base kit, Latin legends and Cangjie Chinese sublegends, while the num row displays Chinese numeral sublegends, all rendered in brilliant fluorescent red on hazy dark grey. The numpad features complex financial characters used on money and in transaction records to prevent forgery. Simplified Chinese (as used in Beijing) and Traditional Chinese (used in overseas territories and increasingly popular on the mainland) base kits are availale. Perhaps most eye-catching, the other kits offered include clean Cangjie monolegend alphas + Chinese character arrow sets to complete the look, and a novelty kit I hope will knock your socks off. Novelties are rendered in seven kit colors, with the famous sights, legendary bites, urban transit highlights of the Chinese capital...plus a ghost story.

燕京 Yànjīng (Capital of Swallows) SC base kit


琉璃廠 Liúlíchăng (Culture Street) TC base kit


小吃 Xiăochī (Little Snacks) novelties kit


(Icon art is a collaborative work with my sibling, Maho, an artist and musician who lives down the street from me here in Washington, D.C., and a few modified stock icons we loved purchased from artists on thenounproject. Maho has done plenty of album cover and poster art in the music world, and now brings her talents doing art for the mechanical keyboard community. She expects to release new deskmat and banderole art soon.)

笔顺 Bĭshùn (Stroke Order) Cangjie Monolegend Alphas Kit


太空人 Tàikōngrén (Taikonaut) Spacebars Kit



See a full gallery of kit renders


Collaborations

Luxe Cables for a custom aviator cable
Salvun
RAMA WORKS
Destroyer Caps
Landcaps
Mastonon Caps
Lo-Ki Caps
rtg caps
Frumpzkeys
Bhomasx Caps
Sway Caps
Hungry Hustlas
Zero Keycaps
A.X Studios
Froueloop
Fraktal Kaps
Rejecks Caps
Faded Caps
ILumKB for apparel
More to come!

Acknowledgments

NathanAlphaMan for the incredible collaborative partnership, the gorgeous renders, and the critical design feedback early in the process
Exclusive for the the cultural translation help and the permission to use his beautiful e8.5 in our renders (can't wait for mine!)
My sibling, Maho, for putting up with my management style and still turning out such great work and taking my calls
The MK Community for supporting GMK Shanshui 山水 and helping me make this set a reality
Phatty, MoesToaster,Alex, Louis, and Jerrolds for their immediate passion for this project and being the best hypemen
Nero and the Matrix Labs team for talking me out of a bad decision
Digital Carpentryfor being my first partner and my biggest sounding board through all of this
energieschleuder for convincing me this could really happen
The people of Beijing for opening my eyes to what is possible


Thanks for reading this far and thank you for your feedback.

Show your support for GMK Houhai with this sig banner!

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« Last Edit: Wed, 23 June 2021, 08:31:17 by grundlemere »

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #1 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:46:51 »
Reserved

Offline jackzyg

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #2 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:47:09 »
First!


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Offline jackzyg

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #3 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:47:53 »
Finally!!!! Been waiting for this!!!! Good luck man!


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Offline Solotov

  • Posts: 366
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #4 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:50:05 »
Can't miss this  ;D
Flex is love, flex is life.

Offline DukeEsquire

  • Posts: 596
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #5 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:54:08 »
I’m in for sure.

Any idea on pricing given the large number of custom molds you’ll need?

I am not 100% sold on the colorway—reminds me of metropolis—but I will support the project in hopes we can get a WoB or BoW set next.

Offline baksbaks

  • Posts: 16
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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #6 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:57:48 »
This is a very well developed set with a rich backstory. Thanks for putting this on the map for next year; will be waiting to pick it up.

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #7 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:57:55 »
Finally!!!! Been waiting for this!!!! Good luck man!


Thanks, Jack! Been great talking to you on IG!

Offline Capsy

  • Posts: 346
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #8 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:58:35 »
Thoroughly enjoyed reading through your OP. Nice IC. Need to see more renders to be sold on the colors but looks good for now

Offline yoot

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #9 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:59:33 »
Damn it's still 2020 and the best set of 2021 has already been shown

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Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #10 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 08:59:40 »
I’m in for sure.

Any idea on pricing given the large number of custom molds you’ll need?

I am not 100% sold on the colorway—reminds me of metropolis—but I will support the project in hopes we can get a WoB or BoW set next.

Hope to have some more ballpark pricing info over the weekend. Lead vendor's been under the weather, but hopefully we'll talk soon and will let you know.

WoB is already looking like it will happen if this one runs. Renders of that kit look AWESOME.

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #11 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:01:20 »
Thoroughly enjoyed reading through your OP. Nice IC. Need to see more renders to be sold on the colors but looks good for now

Thank you! I'll post some photos of physical RAL samples in different light situations today or tomorrow but wanted to get this up. The alpha legend red is a RAL fluorescent, UV-reactive color. VERY high contrast.

Ope, renders link: https://imgur.com/gallery/FKXHbSz

Offline Auracity

  • Posts: 57
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #12 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:03:13 »
Big fan

Offline ilouis_07

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #13 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:05:02 »
I love those novelties!!!

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #14 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:09:58 »
I love those novelties!!!

Those novelties love you!

Offline harlekein

  • Posts: 464
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #15 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:12:42 »
Please consider making the Cangjie Kit a full alphas kit. That way they can be combined with any of the mod kits, and in my case, I can use them for ortho layout with the novelties.

Offline nxxinf

  • Posts: 13
  • Location: China
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #16 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:23:53 »
The novelties look great! Definitely gonna buy them. One thing I am a bit worried about is the contrast between red and black on alphas. Could you provide more renders in the future to show this?

Offline devils-door-bell

  • Posts: 3
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #17 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:27:51 »
Gorgeous!

Offline nxxinf

  • Posts: 13
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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #18 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:31:58 »
Also I think a kit of light alphas (red + white/light grey) will look dope with the colorful mods and novelties  :cool:

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #19 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:38:28 »
[Yeeto deleto]
« Last Edit: Fri, 23 October 2020, 08:52:13 by grundlemere »

Offline cowsareverywhere

  • Posts: 3
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #20 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:47:43 »
This looks uh expensive! I am all in.

Offline Chuttau

  • Formerly botallu
  • Posts: 100
  • Location: United Kingdom
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #21 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 09:58:04 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show
« Last Edit: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:08:28 by botallu »

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #22 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:00:51 »
Damn it's still 2020 and the best set of 2021 has already been shown

Wow that is a huge compliment! I can't wait to see what else comes out next year. (Mostly I just can't wait for this year to be over!)

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #23 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:10:31 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show

That's all really good feedback and I will be thinking about what you've said. For the most part, we expect sales to be higher in mainland China which is why we used simplified characters for mods. (Also, I can't read traditional characters very well!) The Chinese mods are not intended to be Cangjie, because Cangjie only applies to alphas. Finally, please understand that the reason we've included a lot of Chinese characters on areas like numerals for example is because the western audience thinks they look cool. The numbers aren't really supposed to be part of the Cangjie system as much as they are a decoration. Thanks for the catch on the 陸 legend. That was simply a mistake and I'm not sure how that happened. We will fix it!

Feel free to reach me on discord or IG to talk about any other thoughts you have.

Offline nxxinf

  • Posts: 13
  • Location: China
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #24 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:10:52 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show

For your first point, I think even though Cangjie is more widely used in Taiwan & HK, there is nothing weird about using Simplified Chinese to better capture the culture & vibe in Houhai, Beijing. And I don't know why it is "insulting" to you.

Again, hope no one turns this into a political debate on the complex Mainland-Taiwan-HK issues looool. Love the set :thumb:

Offline senryo

  • Posts: 319
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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #25 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:17:18 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show

For your first point, I think even though Cangjie is more widely used in Taiwan & HK, there is nothing weird about using Simplified Chinese to better capture the culture & vibe in Houhai, Beijing. And I don't know why it is "insulting" to you.

Again, hope no one turns this into a political debate on the complex Mainland-Taiwan-HK issues looool. Love the set :thumb:

Because from a linguistic perspective, Simplified Chinese(SC) is a cultural backward of Traditional Chinese(TC); it gutted a lot of Chinese cultural characteristics for easing the illiteracy rate in China.

Cangjie was made under the foundation of TC and binding it tgt with SC isn't really that appropriate in a cultural context.
« Last Edit: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:18:52 by senryo »

Offline grundlemere

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Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #26 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:21:59 »
This looks uh expensive! I am all in.

That's the spirit!

Offline nxxinf

  • Posts: 13
  • Location: China
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #27 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:23:40 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show

For your first point, I think even though Cangjie is more widely used in Taiwan & HK, there is nothing weird about using Simplified Chinese to better capture the culture & vibe in Houhai, Beijing. And I don't know why it is "insulting" to you.

Again, hope no one turns this into a political debate on the complex Mainland-Taiwan-HK issues looool. Love the set :thumb:

Because from a linguistic perspective, Simplified Chinese(SC) is a backwards of Traditional Chinese(TC); it gutted a lot of Chinese cultural characteristics for easing the illiteracy rate in China.

Cangjie was made under the foundation of TC and binding it tgt with SC isn't really that appropriate in a cultural context.

Yeah Simplified Chinese is indeed a simplified version but also the one people in Beijing use (not trying to argue which one is superior).

The set is named Houhai instead of Cangjie. If the set is called "GMK Cangjie" I would also vote for using Traditional Chinese.

Offline Geeky_A

  • Posts: 1
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #28 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:24:45 »
Simplified Chinese sucks, no offense  ^-^

Offline vocal118

  • Posts: 32
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #29 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:25:43 »
丑就一个字

Offline Chuttau

  • Formerly botallu
  • Posts: 100
  • Location: United Kingdom
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #30 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:26:07 »
That's all really good feedback and I will be thinking about what you've said. For the most part, we expect sales to be higher in mainland China which is why we used simplified characters for mods. (Also, I can't read traditional characters very well!) The Chinese mods are not intended to be Cangjie, because Cangjie only applies to alphas. Finally, please understand that the reason we've included a lot of Chinese characters on areas like numerals for example is because the western audience thinks they look cool. The numbers aren't really supposed to be part of the Cangjie system as much as they are a decoration. Thanks for the catch on the 陸 legend. That was simply a mistake and I'm not sure how that happened. We will fix it!

Feel free to reach me on discord or IG to talk about any other thoughts you have.

I don't think the simplified/traditional mods will make a big difference in sales numbers, just my 2 cents.
Maybe you can also use the traditional chinese numerals in the num row in base kit and the alpha child kit? just to keep the legends more consistent.
Besides these I don't really have more questions on the set other than the price, there are A LOT of new molds needed for making the kits.

Offline senryo

  • Posts: 319
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    • Thic Thock
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #31 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:32:20 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show

For your first point, I think even though Cangjie is more widely used in Taiwan & HK, there is nothing weird about using Simplified Chinese to better capture the culture & vibe in Houhai, Beijing. And I don't know why it is "insulting" to you.

Again, hope no one turns this into a political debate on the complex Mainland-Taiwan-HK issues looool. Love the set :thumb:

Because from a linguistic perspective, Simplified Chinese(SC) is a backwards of Traditional Chinese(TC); it gutted a lot of Chinese cultural characteristics for easing the illiteracy rate in China.

Cangjie was made under the foundation of TC and binding it tgt with SC isn't really that appropriate in a cultural context.

Yeah Simplified Chinese is indeed a simplified version but also the one people in Beijing use (not trying to argue which one is superior).

The set is named Houhai instead of Cangjie. If the set is called "GMK Cangjie" I would also vote for using Traditional Chinese.

Personally I don't really mind if the runner chooses SC or TC, but if the runner wants to incorporate cultural context into the theme, I'd suggest him do it properly.

And you were asking why it was insulting to accompany SC with Cangjie, I was just answering that question, theres nothing to do with whether SC is more widely used or not.

Offline nxxinf

  • Posts: 13
  • Location: China
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #32 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 10:43:16 »
mixed feeling about this set
Nice combinations of colours, very versatile base kit and good child kits. The Kits will be very expensive to do in GMK because all the new molds.
Very nice indeed, but there are so many parts of this I don't understand.

First- the Simplified Chinese in the base kit. Cangjie/倉頡 was invented as a Traditional Chineseinput method at first, the way it works is by chopping the chinese letter into different parts, a really simple example is the word"明", it splits into "日" and "月", -A and B on your keyboard. Simplified Chinese can't do this for more complicated words because the, well, "simplified letters".
Simplified Chinese compatibility wasn't even added before 1987. Using simplified chinese in the mods is kinda ironic (or rather insulting imo), I would switch to Traditional Chinese if you really mean to theme this after the cangjie input method .

Second- the cangjie radicals monolegend kit, Cangjie input method, fyi, DOESN'T use the num row at all, really feels weird to me that you included the monolegend numbers row in the kit
BUT I guess it keeps the alphas cleaner with one type of legends, so whatever.

Third- the traditional chinese numerals in the numpad. If you are using simplified chinese in the mods, use the modernised chinese numerials instead(零一二三四五六七八九).
If you wis to use the traditional chinese numerals, the legend for 6 is 陸, not 柳 (unless its some regional difference mumbo jumbo in beijing or whatever"
上下左右 and 東南西北 are also not really necessary but to add more cost to the kit, arrows are fine (to me)

Lastly, the naming of the spacebar kit, just name it the "taiko kit" if you want to add the Shenzhou spaceship reference

Cangjie is also invented in Taiwan by a Taiwanese at the time so I feel really weird about the novelites kit

and fyi cangjie is REALLYYYYYY rarely used in China(and they don't teach it in school), people in Hong Kong-like me and Taiwan uses it more often than the people in china which usully sticks with piniy, ignore me if you count HK and TW as China, don't wanna make this post into some political ****show

For your first point, I think even though Cangjie is more widely used in Taiwan & HK, there is nothing weird about using Simplified Chinese to better capture the culture & vibe in Houhai, Beijing. And I don't know why it is "insulting" to you.

Again, hope no one turns this into a political debate on the complex Mainland-Taiwan-HK issues looool. Love the set :thumb:

Because from a linguistic perspective, Simplified Chinese(SC) is a backwards of Traditional Chinese(TC); it gutted a lot of Chinese cultural characteristics for easing the illiteracy rate in China.

Cangjie was made under the foundation of TC and binding it tgt with SC isn't really that appropriate in a cultural context.

Yeah Simplified Chinese is indeed a simplified version but also the one people in Beijing use (not trying to argue which one is superior).

The set is named Houhai instead of Cangjie. If the set is called "GMK Cangjie" I would also vote for using Traditional Chinese.

Personally I don't really mind if the runner chooses SC or TC, but if the runner wants to incorporate cultural context into the theme, I'd suggest him do it properly.

And you were asking why it was insulting to accompany SC with Cangjie, I was just answering that question, theres nothing to do with whether SC is more widely used or not.

Thanks for the explanation! Though I still don't know why it is considered "insulting" to use SC just because it is a simplified version of Chinese characters. It is personal preference after all. In the context of this set, using either of them makes sense :)

Offline stickerliu

  • Posts: 8
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #33 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:10:04 »
丑就一个字
出国秀智商?,真长脸啊!
The theme is nice. like the 老外 and 小吃 kits。 :thumb: but i think the red on alpha is not good,what about yellow or other colors? ;D
« Last Edit: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:15:03 by stickerliu »

Offline Mekanist

  • Posts: 30
    • Archetype
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #34 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:23:22 »
Not really my style, but loving the novelties!

Offline easy_rider

  • Posts: 14
  • Location: Spain
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #35 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:36:46 »
I'm getting some Blade Runner vibes here

Offline Audiobs

  • Posts: 90
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #36 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:37:25 »
Beautiful set! Will this be the first ever GMK set with Chinese characters? (Not talking about Hangul and Hiragana)

Offline Audiobs

  • Posts: 90
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #37 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:39:55 »
And thank you for going with the 'right' icon mods.

Offline grundlemere

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 253
  • Location: Washington, DC
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #38 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:48:10 »
Beautiful set! Will this be the first ever GMK set with Chinese characters? (Not talking about Hangul and Hiragana)

Thank you! As far as I am aware, it will be the first GMK set with Chinese character legends, but not the first GMK Chinese language set. GMK Zhuyin ran on NK in March. Zhuyin is sort of a weird system where stroke elements (not even radicals) were extracted from Chinese characters to create a sort of alphabet called Bopomofo. They're not Chinese characters but they can be used to type Chinese.

I know there are sets using Cangjie and other typing systems that are planned in other profiles, but none to my knowledge has been made yet. If I'm missing someone's design, please forgive me!

And yes, why have bad icon mods when you can have good ones?

Offline mcRewind

  • Posts: 14
  • Location: Las Vegas, NV
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #39 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 11:52:29 »
Unique set, I appreciate the time you put into the kits. I would be interested to see instead of RAL 3024-HR as the alpha color, possibly having RAL 160 70 50 or RAL 1028-HR? The topdown E8.5 render shows that contrast you are talking about, but others don't do it much justice.

Offline konstantin

  • Formerly constexpr
  • Posts: 1756
  • Location: Serbia
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #40 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 12:12:16 »
Not an expert, but wouldn't it be better to have 功能/Fn instead of 菜单/Menu for all of the Fn keys, both Chinese and English? As far as I can tell, 菜单 refers to a restaurant/food menu...

Offline grundlemere

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 253
  • Location: Washington, DC
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #41 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 12:57:14 »
Not an expert, but wouldn't it be better to have 功能/Fn instead of 菜单/Menu for all of the Fn keys, both Chinese and English? As far as I can tell, 菜单 refers to a restaurant/food menu...

I worked on these mod translations with Exclusive and based them on older existing boards and mod stickers available for the Chinese market. I had the same question as you but decided to go with menu. The word 菜单 applies to both restaurant and computer menus in Chinese as it does in English.

Offline woyaodapian

  • Posts: 51
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #42 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 13:00:43 »
This set kind of draws me to it the more I look at it.
Would prefer if the set has alpha as the Base set. this set looks very expensive with a lot of wasted keycaps.

Maybe look at the kitting for Kat Cyberspace. my 2 cents.


Offline konstantin

  • Formerly constexpr
  • Posts: 1756
  • Location: Serbia
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #43 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 13:03:39 »
I worked on these mod translations with Exclusive and based them on older existing boards and mod stickers available for the Chinese market. I had the same question as you but decided to go with menu. The word 菜单 applies to both restaurant and computer menus in Chinese as it does in English.

Alright, thanks for the info.


Offline Owl

  • Posts: 238
  • Location: United States
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #44 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 13:06:35 »
This is tremendous. This is a must have for me. Thank you.

Offline grundlemere

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 253
  • Location: Washington, DC
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #45 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 13:08:44 »
Unique set, I appreciate the time you put into the kits. I would be interested to see instead of RAL 3024-HR as the alpha color, possibly having RAL 160 70 50 or RAL 1028-HR? The topdown E8.5 render shows that contrast you are talking about, but others don't do it much justice.

I am fairly sure at this point that the lack of contrast has to do with the rendering, both "sexy" low-light environments and the angle of the lighting that picks up a "shine" off the surface of the keys. That's evidenced by the issue you're pointing out not showing up in any of the top-down renders. I do think it's worth fixing. However, I am definitely not going to remove the major theme color and a critical element of the backstory from the set.

Offline NathanAlphaMan

  • Posts: 289
  • Location: Finally Evolved
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #46 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 13:17:44 »
This set kind of draws me to it the more I look at it.
Would prefer if the set has alpha as the Base set. this set looks very expensive with a lot of wasted keycaps.

Maybe look at the kitting for Kat Cyberspace. my 2 cents.

GMK =/= KAT. The kitting philosophy behind the two is completely different as the MOQ systems are completely different. With KAT there's a global "unit" MOQ, wherein if enough keycap units are bought, all kits are made, regardless how many people bought them. With GMK MOQ is per kit, if a particular kit doesn't get enough sales, it doesn't get made.

Grundlemere and I spent a lot of time working on this kitting in order to get the most out of these legends for your money, likely some changes will come, but this is largely how it will stay I'd assume.

Offline hangul

  • Posts: 14
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #47 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 13:42:55 »
Interested

Offline PotatoTM

  • Posts: 329
  • Location: ON, Canada
  • ...
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #48 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 15:00:06 »
Strangely into it, il probably pick up a set! Not looking forward to the pricing of the kits though :P
.

Offline grundlemere

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 253
  • Location: Washington, DC
Re: [IC] GMK Houhai 后海
« Reply #49 on: Fri, 19 June 2020, 15:45:01 »
Strangely into it, il probably pick up a set! Not looking forward to the pricing of the kits though :P

Gotta be honest, I don't think anyone is.  :-X  But I really created the kit I wanted, and every complexity is there for a reason. I hope people love it as much as I do, and I hope they can stomach the price. We will look at ways we might be able to split and simplify if the pricing is a nonstarter.