Production/Shipping Update 
Keycap Legend IssueAlso shared on the
Drop product page:
We have identified an issue on the R4 1u <> ISO key, and wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention as soon as possible. The legends on this key are vertically swapped - it should be ‘>’ on top, ‘<’ on bottom, but is reversed. In order to fix this issue we took our existing keycap molds offline (the molds have multiple keys on a single mold) and replaced the problematic mold. The issue has now been resolved, and all future DCX WoB, BoW, and Genesis sets produced will incorporate this fix. There are a number of DCX WoB and BoW sets which have already been produced with the original mold (to be clear - no Genesis sets will be affected by this).
What does this mean for any sets that were produced with the swapped key? We will be creating fix kits for this particular issue, which can be requested once they are available. We will communicate this process further after the kits are available and ready to go. We apologize for this oversight and thank you for the understanding and support so far.
I think that's still the issue though. Instead of a modular setup, like what SP and GMK use, designers are locked into the DCX kitting and legend choices. New tools are coming, sure, and that will definitely help with compatibility. But for artistic expression? Kitting and legend choices are often an integral part of a keycap set's design, and this goes beyond just novelties.
Instead of just having a low cost per each new legend, every variation on that default kitting is going to require new tooling instead. Drop will have to have a meeting where they decide "Is this good for the business?" instead of just saying, "Yes, Mr. / Ms. designer, we can do that; it will cost 50 bucks per legend."
You're not wrong about the implications to kitting and artistic expression. Ultimately this decision was made as it produces an entire set of keycaps in one injection process, rather than a bin of each key that then need to be manually sorted after the fact. Each process has its pros and cons, and someone else might arrive at a different conclusion when presented with the same information.
And while I don't know allll of the nitty gritty details, do bear in mind that tweaks to specific legends are significantly cheaper than an entirely new tool (with new overall cavities). So custom/modified legends are definitely possible, and we are actually working on a few variations currently.
Plus there's the question of things like gradients and non-standard accents. Are these all-in-one kits going to support per-key color differences? Or are they just broken into mods and alphas? What if someone wants to do RGB accents on Shift, Control, and Alt, with no accents on Escape or Enter?
Gradients and non-standard accents are not currently supported without some creativity or compromises - you're correct again here. This one does bum me out personally, but again it's the tradeoff that was decided upon.
The one workaround here is that designers would be able to create "rolling" gradients where there are as many different sets offered as there are colors in the gradient. Keys would then be mixed and matched to create each iteration and nothing goes to waste. Certainly not ideal, but might be a suitable compromise for some.
This just seems like DCX is poised to compete with Domikey and JTK rather than SP or GMK. It's not going to be a great option for designers who are looking for the ability to work with the finer details of a set. I'm just surprised that Drop would invest so much into something that will have to be a second-string option for designers.
I think this remains to be seen. I mean, what you've stated as far as designers not being interested if they need to work the finer details is true, but how much will that impact the viability of DCX? I'm not so convinced that it's a big problem. We do support custom novelties and other customizations, just not quite as far-reaching as SP or GMK. It then becomes a tradeoff decision for the designer - we all know that none of the existing profiles and manufacturers are without flaws either.
Moreover, because this design isn't modular, it means that kitting errors / eccentricities are enshrined forever. Like your spacebar kit: you have just one each of 2u and 1.75u. With 2u bars, it's preferable (though not necessary) to have two of them; this is similar to the reason for having 2x1u bars (as that kit does). But with 1.75u bars? There aren't many boards using those, and the majority that do also use a pair of them. 1.75u bars should always come in pairs or not at all.
I think you're right that this is the biggest risk here. Do note that there is
some modularity and room for tweaking things (we are already working on including some additional keys that have been requested) but yes, it does have some fairly strict limitations in the grand scheme of things.
Likewise, the Mac kit appears to have been copied from a GMK GB that made an error (or just chose to include something highly nonstandard): there is no such thing as R3 1.75u Command in a standard Mac layout. Command isn't a swap for Control. There may be some user layouts like that, but historically Apple keyboards that don't use Caps Lock in that slot will put Control there instead. By locking into that kit, you've de facto standardized a highly niche choice within an already niche kit.
Hmm, interesting point - thanks for the callout. I'm curious what the broader Mac community would prefer here. I personally
use Command as if it were Control on a Windows PC (though I haven't remapped it as such, but functionally it is the same key in my mind). I wonder if the majority of Mac users might view it similarly, even if it's not officially considered as such. I don't even know what I would do with the Control key in the Caps Lock position, I use that key so rarely.
Legends look pretty great although that shif t bothers me a little
This has been discussed elsewhere, but I think it's worth addressing here as well. This kerning artifact is a result of the manufacturing method used to produce these keycaps. Rather than an insert molding method used for some other keycaps, DCX is manufactured with true doubleshot manufacturing techniques, which have slightly different "gap" tolerances. This means that we can't squeeze material through a gap between legend features which is any narrower than what you see on the keys as they currently exist. The only way to address this would be to increase the kerning on the other legends/keys to match, which arguably would make the set look even worse overall.
