Will really appreciate feedback. Thank you everyone who cares to weigh in.
I made them after one concept, which is two create functional, adaptable keycap set aimed at editors, compositors and motion graphic artists who need to (as it is often the case) work in several applications to create media. Also wanted an somewhat understated style, not in it for bright lights, and kitchy custom legends like "Cut" / "Roll" etc - those are too basic and should be easily memorized by now if you do this frequently.
That being said while functionality and adaptability is of high concern I kind of appreciate understated looks but with notable accents.
The first colorway started off as an inverted dolch, but then morphed as I warmed the modifiers into a beige grey color because cold grey was a tad too monotone on a set with dark alphas for my eyes - not enough distinction.
At first I did not think of making the alphas with cadet sub-legends but the 1.) cost of complete custom new molds are probably prohibitive 2.) cadets are clean and graphical and those symbols can be adapted to a multitude of common tasks over several apps 3.) I guess people like them? (hope that trend has not worn off yet lo)
The second colorway was way easier in my mind to put together and tame the custom colors because it is basically a modded honeywell - so you have to try to screw that up. I just try to tame the special function row colors by not making them too bright or saturated as not distract from the alphas and special characters on the alphas, just get overall balance. Of course "normal" colored function keys would be included in the kits so one can mix and mesh.
My first time designing a set so sorry for the few quirks (blender hates html entities and as I am doing this project in my spare time uv mapping the custom legend onto every keycap would take a bit too much time for me at this stage- so I just approximated symbols in the renders out of blender). So sublegends/custom symbols in the renders are funny - look at the original kle layout sheet for the intended ones. But it does give a nicer realistic impression of the the sets can look on actual boards, and I am assuming in somewhat dimmer light which would be a normal working environment.
Note: the first blender render still had light grey alpha legends, I changed it to the same pink off-white as the special F9 key color in the final renders and is probably what I would do in the final design to consolidate the colors.
The bellow images have the same color on alpha legends as the special F9 key.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honeywell inspired version
Leaning GMK or DCS over DSA or SA, actually most certainly not gonna be SA.
Very thankful for your feedback and tips! I created this own topic, but will keep it here.
