geekhack
geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: bitly.tm on Thu, 08 April 2021, 15:11:01
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Hi all, I'm working on a project for a new productivity-focused mechanical keyboard, and our next step is to start the industrial design. Does anyone have any suggestions for finding an industrial designer with experience in keyboards? Or know of anyone? Thanks!
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Do you need a concept designer to proof your designs first? You can always reach out on Fiverr where there are tonnes of professional product designer that can work for you, but it will cost you around $500+ to get the concept down.
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Do NOT use Fiver for this sort of thing.
Sure there are qualified people, but you have no idea how qualified they actually are. Let's be honest, if you're a good product designer why would you be doing it for $5?
More importantly though, this is not a bit of software or digital art where you can just have it altered later, a keyboard case tends to run a minimum of several hundred dollars to have cnc'd that means each revision will also cost you several hundred dollars. Even if the design works, you may have saved $100 compared to someone who understands but it can cost you hundreds more in CNC costs, and that's if it works the first time. If you need a revision or multiple revisions how much have you wasted because you used some random person to design your case?
It's penny wise and hundreds of pounds foolish and I don't understand why so many people think this is a smart idea.
As for OPS question.
High end mechanical keyboards are mostly a hobby based segment of computing and manufacturing, there's very few who do this with lots of experience and those who do tend to run their own design houses and manufacturing runs, they are not often willing to work with an outsider to make a competing product. I'm not saying there's none but I'm not going to name names because of the sheer number of people like yourself who would destroy their inboxes regardless if they even want the work or not. If they want they work, they can message you, but I wouldn't spam your refresh button waiting.
Also note that this segment of the hobby does NOT garner much in the way of profits (besides being niche, it's low volume and low volume rarely makes money) and if you're not bringing something to the table yourself to cut costs (design or manufacturing), the odds of you even breaking even begins to fall very very rapidly. So if all you actually have is an idea, your idea isn't going to make you rich, it's going to make you poor.