I appreciate the hustle and desire to capitalize on zeitgeist while you can.
That being said, early ICs are simply not the way to go about publishing a set concept. A bad early IC is way worse than a late, fleshed out IC. ICs are all about impressions and the impression this IC leaves upon me is very poor. You're looking for positive reception as confirmation for renders? You're not going to find it with this low quality of an IC.
It's clear that you're fairly new to the community. You made a GH account to post this thread. This is a 104 key base kit. That's something you majorly flesh out before you even have colors in a lot of cases. Your colors are web colors, meaning you're oblivious to the IC process and GMK production as a whole, things you can easily find out more about by visitng the trove of old GB and IC threads, or even uniqey's website. This comes off as a cash grab from an inexperienced community member, which, to be honest, I'm not ragging on, but I'm definitely not about it. Take some time in the hobby to be part of the community. Be a little more active. Find out what works, what's good, why it works, why it's good, and talk with more types of folks to engage in that exchange. That's what it's really about. While the "i see guy make thing, i can make thing too!" mentality certainly has driven a lot of cool stuff, this is not one of those cases.
Renders went from being a nice to have in ICs to nearly a need to have. It shows you have some level of personal commitment to the set that you would even pay for mockups our of your own pocket before anything is official. To not have renders and to just show off a set of KLEs, is definitely not a good look, and the KLEs do a very poor job of showing the colors that you want to show, or maybe they do a really good job, but to me they look like blanks. I'm not trying to bog you down or take shots at an easy target, rarely anything ever deserves that. If you're truly invested in making this set happen beyond a text-post and a barely visible KLE render, you need to make a very good impression, so that vendors who see your IC will want to work with ya.
Many people will not buy into the concept if the IC is not good from the get-go. You can sell any concept to anyone as long as the beginning impressions are good enough.
If you're intent on making this happen (and this would have to be very soon, before more eyes can see this and get their first impressions, which, in their current state would result in the set being written off extremely quickly) then you can:
1. Flesh out those layouts.
2. Get some renders.
3. Pick colors that aren't web colors, it's 2020. We have resources to help design GMK sets. GMK has resources to help design GMK sets. Use google, guy.
4. Goals, MOQs, prior contact to GMK show vendors that you're willing to do work beyond "hur dur look at color now shoulder it all for me," which, even if a vendor wouldn't take you up on, they would like to see.
5. Give more of a ****. Going into a project half-assed (you could be fully on board, but this post does certainly not show that) only makes me believe in the project less. If you don't believe in your project enough to give a detailed, commited sales pitch, why should any vendor, or even why should the community believe in it? Dipping your toes into the pool is simply not an option when everyone else who's making successful sets is hopping in headfirst.
cmon guy.
I appreciate the hustle and desire to capitalize on zeitgeist while you can.
That being said, early ICs are simply not the way to go about publishing a set concept. A bad early IC is way worse than a late, fleshed out IC. ICs are all about impressions and the impression this IC leaves upon me is very poor. You're looking for positive reception as confirmation for renders? You're not going to find it with this low quality of an IC.
It's clear that you're fairly new to the community. You made a GH account to post this thread. This is a 104 key base kit. That's something you majorly flesh out before you even have colors in a lot of cases. Your colors are web colors, meaning you're oblivious to the IC process and GMK production as a whole, things you can easily find out more about by visitng the trove of old GB and IC threads, or even uniqey's website. This comes off as a cash grab from an inexperienced community member, which, to be honest, I'm not ragging on, but I'm definitely not about it. Take some time in the hobby to be part of the community. Be a little more active. Find out what works, what's good, why it works, why it's good, and talk with more types of folks to engage in that exchange. That's what it's really about. While the "i see guy make thing, i can make thing too!" mentality certainly has driven a lot of cool stuff, this is not one of those cases.
Renders went from being a nice to have in ICs to nearly a need to have. It shows you have some level of personal commitment to the set that you would even pay for mockups our of your own pocket before anything is official. To not have renders and to just show off a set of KLEs, is definitely not a good look, and the KLEs do a very poor job of showing the colors that you want to show, or maybe they do a really good job, but to me they look like blanks. I'm not trying to bog you down or take shots at an easy target, rarely anything ever deserves that. If you're truly invested in making this set happen beyond a text-post and a barely visible KLE render, you need to make a very good impression, so that vendors who see your IC will want to work with ya.
Many people will not buy into the concept if the IC is not good from the get-go. You can sell any concept to anyone as long as the beginning impressions are good enough.
If you're intent on making this happen (and this would have to be very soon, before more eyes can see this and get their first impressions, which, in their current state would result in the set being written off extremely quickly) then you can:
1. Flesh out those layouts.
2. Get some renders.
3. Pick colors that aren't web colors, it's 2020. We have resources to help design GMK sets. GMK has resources to help design GMK sets. Use google, guy.
4. Goals, MOQs, prior contact to GMK show vendors that you're willing to do work beyond "hur dur look at color now shoulder it all for me," which, even if a vendor wouldn't take you up on, they would like to see.
5. Give more of a ****. Going into a project half-assed (you could be fully on board, but this post does certainly not show that) only makes me believe in the project less. If you don't believe in your project enough to give a detailed, commited sales pitch, why should any vendor, or even why should the community believe in it? Dipping your toes into the pool is simply not an option when everyone else who's making successful sets is hopping in headfirst.
cmon guy.
It's my first IC so please be blunt with the criticisms.
That numpad+ is JACKED
It's my first IC so please be blunt with the criticisms.
Picking a color palette from a dartboard with your favorite waifu's picture on it and doing literally nothing else does not constitute a set worth IC.
That numpad+ is JACKEDHoly
i love chikathat is a correct statement but another correct statement is i dont like this ic
incredibly low effort and the color choices are awful—can hardly even read the legendswhat good constructive criticism!! you are very helpful!! thank you for contributing!!
this is garbage
Pretty sure it took more effort to type that reply than making this ICincredibly low effort and the color choices are awful—can hardly even read the legendswhat good constructive criticism!! you are very helpful!! thank you for contributing!!
this is garbage
You've already been told enough that this IC isn't properly fleshed out so I won't beat you up too much and just tell you this: Normally with an IC this underbaked Geekhack would have ripped out your heart, burned down your house and killed your dog by now. The fact that comments have been as gentle as they have been is a sign that you've come upon something that resonates with people.
You need to spend some more time looking at other IC's and maybe getting some advice in Discord channels where other designers frequent. You need to plan kits, get renders of the set on boards, and just generally learn to sell this concept as if it already exists.
It needs to be at a point that says: "This is it. Last chance to suggest tweaks before I get this made."
Not: "Hey I took a colour picker to a screenshot of my favourite waifu."
Potential novelties: Board game pawns/meeples, flowers, playing card symbols, and magnifying glass.
Good luck.
:(You've already been told enough that this IC isn't properly fleshed out so I won't beat you up too much and just tell you this: Normally with an IC this underbaked Geekhack would have ripped out your heart, burned down your house and killed your dog by now. The fact that comments have been as gentle as they have been is a sign that you've come upon something that resonates with people.
You need to spend some more time looking at other IC's and maybe getting some advice in Discord channels where other designers frequent. You need to plan kits, get renders of the set on boards, and just generally learn to sell this concept as if it already exists.
It needs to be at a point that says: "This is it. Last chance to suggest tweaks before I get this made."
Not: "Hey I took a colour picker to a screenshot of my favourite waifu."
Potential novelties: Board game pawns/meeples, flowers, playing card symbols, and magnifying glass.
Good luck.
Its because the set is a weeb one and everyone here is a weeb except me
Normally with an IC this underbaked Geekhack would have ripped out your heart, burned down your house and killed your dog by now. The fact that comments have been as gentle as they have been is a sign that you've come upon something that resonates with people.
Even though I hate the theme, here is some constructive criticism to help you get you started with your set. "this aint it chief" helps no one lol.
Choose color codes. Look at Pantone, RAL, and stock GMK palettes and choose the colors that closest resemble your vision. Then purchase the physical color samples that they offer so you can see if they look just as good in real life as they do on your screen. Then let us know what you chose.
Determine kitting. Take a look at other keycap sets and see what kitting they used. Use successful sets as a baseline and then gather feedback. Every set has it's own audience and may need the kitting tweaked to benefit them. Consider what you want your base kit to offer and how many other kits you want to make people buy to cover more exotic layouts.
Get a deskmat design going. You can draw something, photoshop some **** together, or hire another artist that will help you show off your vision.
after and only AFTER you have done the above, hire a professional render artist to do renders for all of your kits, mats, and your set on the hypest boards. Be sure guide your render artist to match the colors as closely as possible to your physical color chips. Use several devices to eliminate color errors in this process.
AFTER all of that, go ahead and post an IC. Having a Google Form to help compile your data does help. Use meaningful, unbiased, open ended questions in the form to eliminate bad/uninformative responses.
You will start to gather ACTUAL feedback and you may need to tweak some things. This could be colors, renders, kitting, etc. Be prepared to go back through the first several steps all over again to appease the masses. This may cost money. In fact it WILL cost money. Depending on how many renders and what color books/chips you get, or if you need to purchase a more color accurate monitor, it could set you back anywhere from $250-$1000. Yes if your set does well you will get your money back and then some. If you can't or don't want to take on the risk of spending that much money up front to gather interest, don't. Pay your bills first and come back to it when you are more prepared.
Good luck. There is a Keycap Designers Discord you can join full of helpful info as well as a chat room for hiring artist to help with renders, novelties, deskmats, or whatever else.
At least it doesn't have sublegends