I don’t know if there is any point providing feedback so close to GB opening, but I only signed up to geekhack yesterday, and this theme is very near and dear to me, so I’ll share my thoughts.
I’m looking at the base set, and it seems to be missing an R2 home button. This is mandatory, and I won’t even consider such a large base set with so many keys if it is missing R2 home. It also strangely seems to have 2x R3 pgUp and 2x R2 pgDn. Is this a mistake?
User DotMatrix had made some great observations in a much earlier post. I agree with all the points there. I can see you have obviously addressed some of the issues raised.
Looking at the early posts from others, it appears a previous version of this set had a paper plane? This immediately tells me that little to no thought and research has been done on the theme, and gives me the feeling the extent of the effort extended only as far as searching for ‘origami’ on the noun project and randomly selecting good looking ones.
Origami has both a historical, traditional and cultural significance in Japan, as well as many modern artists from all over the world. Look up Robert J. Lang and google image, he is from your State. After that you could check out John Montroll, or Gonzalo Garcia Calvo, and so many more. I have to mention Akira Yoshizawa (RIP) the father of modern origami. I would expect an oragimi themed key set to acknowledge and pay respects to the lifelong contributions of such masters.
For a set with this specific theme, to me it would be all about the novelties. The current set is not there in my opinion. For a well crafted set of ‘origami novelties’ I would happily pay double of what the current one is priced at, but I would like to see a few more keys so I have options with my customisation. The R4 novelties have the right idea. If I want to use one of those R4 keys as my esc, I have choices. I can chose from 3 images, and I can have each in either light or dark. This is not the case for the R1 keys, which I find somewhat lacking. I would like to see dark versions of these keys. I also want to see the 1.5 icon on the 1.25, and vice versa. Also, the R3 1.5 buttons, they are exactly the same. Maybe on in dark? I know every combination would be asking too much, but maybe something more that what there currently is?
Maybe I’m nuts, but I’d be happy to even buy multiple different sets of novelties. Origami is a broad enough topic that you could develop multiple origami sub-themes into their own novelty set (keys where the model is specific to an artist, keys where the logo is origami diagram instruction symbols, keys depicting the relationship of origami to mathematics, keys showing origami applied in engineering etc.). This is where I see the bulk of the “work” going into designing for such a theme.
Having said all that, when the GB opens, I will probably pick up the novelties anyway, because it’s origami on keycaps! If I thought they were spectacular however, then I’d be picking up the ‘complete’ set.
I must however admit that I love the mat. It’s everything I want, and I’ll 100% be picking that up! (Maybe even 2)
I will also say that colours are something that look great to me. I would absolutely love this set if it had awesome origami novelties.
Overall, I am disappointed, I feel this set could be so much more.
This is the first time I am going to participate in a GB. Good luck with it, I’ll be picking up something at least.
