Interested in seeing some protos.
Definitely needs 3-key 40s in the base kits too.
I may be missing it since there are so many top-down renders. But what is the profile, how does it compared to other profiles? Maybe some side to side renders etc etc.The profile will be close to the Cherry profile but we with some adjustments.
With a new profile I’m 10% interested in the color, 90% in thickness, sculpt and height.
Neat, didn't realize Mew2King is into keebs
Neat, didn't realize Mew2King is into keebs
Would you be able to divide up the accents from the base kit? I feel it'd give you an easier time with sales.Yes!
Forced accents 6.25 bar while having it in accent kit as well doesn't make sense. Put in the alpha colored space bar in the base.
This seems like a solid idea. By standardizing kits and offering a set of mix/matched alphas, mods, and accents you can (theoretically) push these through production pretty fast.Glad you like it!
Is the idea to have a GB or keep these in stock? Are you keeping the moulds for yourself, or is this something other designs could eventually run?
This seems like a solid idea. By standardizing kits and offering a set of mix/matched alphas, mods, and accents you can (theoretically) push these through production pretty fast.Glad you like it!
Is the idea to have a GB or keep these in stock? Are you keeping the moulds for yourself, or is this something other designs could eventually run?
We plan on making a group buy or reservation period while production is getting tweaked and moulds adjusted. After that, we aim to offer the M2K Hybrid collection in stock as long as possible.
Stock will be available in the US and Europe and offered on our websites: https://www.mousemods.us (https://www.mousemods.us) and https://www.mousemods.eu (https://www.mousemods.eu)
In regards to the moulds - We intend to use the moulds for both our designs and collaborations between us and keycap designers with the possibility of making restock.
We want this to be a community driven project and working on future kits with you all is definitely something we want! :thumb:
Typefaces are generally designed with text in mind, not keycaps. Therefore, the rules that govern relative sizing, weight, stroke thickness, kerning etc. of glyphs in a typeface don't usually translate 1:1 to keycaps. You will need to make the glyphs not just typographically consistent, but also visually consistent within the given medium. For example, some of the punctuation legends will need to be made larger and/or thicker in order for them to not look out of place next to rest of the legends. What would otherwise look off, or be considered over- or undersized in a typographical context, can look just right on a keycap set. Slight adjustments also need to be made in terms of legend positioning, but this has more to do with the design of the keyset itself rather than the typeface.
Forced accents 6.25 bar while having it in accent kit as well doesn't make sense. Put in the alpha colored space bar in the base. Also would love to see some protos.I can see what you mean and I agree.
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Good luck! Hoping you can add an Asian vendor if possible!Forced accents 6.25 bar while having it in accent kit as well doesn't make sense. Put in the alpha colored space bar in the base. Also would love to see some protos.I can see what you mean and I agree.
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Renders and kits will be updated within the next few weeks along with other changes.
in regards to some photos - We will have to wait some time. Mould production is very expensive and we want as much feedback before we go ahead and push for production moulds.
I will make sure to keep everything up to date and let you know when stuff moves.
Thanks for the feedback!
We are working on it!Good luck! Hoping you can add an Asian vendor if possible!Forced accents 6.25 bar while having it in accent kit as well doesn't make sense. Put in the alpha colored space bar in the base. Also would love to see some protos.I can see what you mean and I agree.
Sent from my GM1911 using Tapatalk
Renders and kits will be updated within the next few weeks along with other changes.
in regards to some photos - We will have to wait some time. Mould production is very expensive and we want as much feedback before we go ahead and push for production moulds.
I will make sure to keep everything up to date and let you know when stuff moves.
Thanks for the feedback!
Sent from my GM1911 using Tapatalk
more competition is always nice. i have some issues with your typography. the typeface itself, on paper, looks completely fine. however (and this just might be me, feel free to correct me) i think it is just a little bit condensed, and it is noticable on for example the Q legend.
Great points!more competition is always nice. i have some issues with your typography. the typeface itself, on paper, looks completely fine. however (and this just might be me, feel free to correct me) i think it is just a little bit condensed, and it is noticable on for example the Q legend.
It's interesting that you used the word "condensed". Comparing the m2k and gmk legends, it seems like the QMK Q shares a rounder bowl with the O and C, but m2k decided to straighten out the bowl similar to the U. I'd imagine they all share a similar footprint, so maybe condensed isn't' the right word -- instead "has a narrower aperture".
Not necessarily a bad thing IMO so long as it's consistent, which it is if you compare across Q, G, B, O, and maybe C.
The Q stands out to me because, of those letters, it's the only letter with an overhang.
All that said, I'm not really a typologist or designer so... grain of salt
Great points!more competition is always nice. i have some issues with your typography. the typeface itself, on paper, looks completely fine. however (and this just might be me, feel free to correct me) i think it is just a little bit condensed, and it is noticable on for example the Q legend.
It's interesting that you used the word "condensed". Comparing the m2k and gmk legends, it seems like the QMK Q shares a rounder bowl with the O and C, but m2k decided to straighten out the bowl similar to the U. I'd imagine they all share a similar footprint, so maybe condensed isn't' the right word -- instead "has a narrower aperture".
Not necessarily a bad thing IMO so long as it's consistent, which it is if you compare across Q, G, B, O, and maybe C.
The Q stands out to me because, of those letters, it's the only letter with an overhang.
All that said, I'm not really a typologist or designer so... grain of salt
The main reason why we chose to design the typeface with a less rounded aperture, is because of the production consistency.
Doing production with doubleshot PBT, small letters and symbols with closed off parts like Q, B, D, O, P, a, e, g, 6, 8, and 0 has a very high chance of having inconsistencies.
This is to ensure quality control is kept high and price low.
On the other hand, we may end up finding better ways to make consistant production but for now this is our best solution.
hey, thanks for adding on to this. im not a typographer/typologist too, some legends just looked too "condensed" to *me*. it may be just because im so used to cherry/gmk legends, who knowsmore competition is always nice. i have some issues with your typography. the typeface itself, on paper, looks completely fine. however (and this just might be me, feel free to correct me) i think it is just a little bit condensed, and it is noticable on for example the Q legend.
It's interesting that you used the word "condensed". Comparing the m2k and gmk legends, it seems like the QMK Q shares a rounder bowl with the O and C, but m2k decided to straighten out the bowl similar to the U. I'd imagine they all share a similar footprint, so maybe condensed isn't' the right word -- instead "has a narrower aperture".
Not necessarily a bad thing IMO so long as it's consistent, which it is if you compare across Q, G, B, O, and maybe C.
The Q stands out to me because, of those letters, it's the only letter with an overhang.
All that said, I'm not really a typologist or designer so... grain of salt
Overall, I'm happy to see more competition popping up in the enthusiast doubleshot keycap set space, and I wish you the best of luck in realizing this project. Bootstrapping a project like this is no joke.
I left feedback about your new typeface in the Typeform survey, but I'm also going to put it here, in case anyone wants to discuss:QuoteTypefaces are generally designed with text in mind, not keycaps. Therefore, the rules that govern relative sizing, weight, stroke thickness, kerning etc. of glyphs in a typeface don't usually translate 1:1 to keycaps. You will need to make the glyphs not just typographically consistent, but also visually consistent within the given medium. For example, some of the punctuation legends will need to be made larger and/or thicker in order for them to not look out of place next to rest of the legends. What would otherwise look off, or be considered over- or undersized in a typographical context, can look just right on a keycap set. Slight adjustments also need to be made in terms of legend positioning, but this has more to do with the design of the keyset itself rather than the typeface.
As for the proposed kits, I have a couple of things to say:
- Overall, the kits are pretty good. I think you struck a good balance between kit size and compatibility for layouts that are currently popular in the enthusiast community. However, as a few people have already pointed out, you've made a couple of oversights. I'm going to list those below, together with a few suggestions and potential improvements.
- For starters, the current kit structure forces you to use accent and/or mod-colored spacebars. This is bad, because the majority of users prefer having alpha-colored spacebars.
You can solve this issue by moving the 2.25c, 2.75c, 6.25c and 7c spacebars from the mod kits to the alpha kits. This change doesn't affect the spacebars in the accent kits. For an example, see how KAT Refined (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=108835.0) (a superbly kitted set with a similar setup to yours) laid out its alpha and mod kits.
(This issue was also mentioned here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=114396.msg3078434#msg3078434) and here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=114396.msg3078660#msg3078660).)- While we're on the topic of spacebars, you could also include a 2c spacekey together with the already existing 2.25c and 2.75c ones. I understand that this may require extra tooling to be produced — but if you have the means to do it now, I would recommend it. The 2c size is used about equally as often as 2.25c on the Alice and similar ergo boards, which are the main use case for these keys nowadays. You're probably going to need to make the 2c mold further down the line anyway, once you start getting designers designing sets in M2K.
However, this suggestion takes lower priority than the one above, as well as the two following ones.- You will need to add two keys: R3 1u \|, R4 1u <> to the alpha kits in order for ISO support in base to be viable. Otherwise, the ISO Enter and 1.25u Shift keys that are currently included cannot be utilized, as the corresponding alpha keys (which are required for basic ISO support) are missing.
(This issue was also mentioned here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=114396.msg3078438#msg3078438).)- You will need to add a R1 1u \| key to the alpha kits for covering various popular 60%, 65% etc. layouts that use a split Backspace or offer it as an option. This is a very important key to have in a set.
(This issue was also mentioned here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=114396.msg3078438#msg3078438).)- Going back to Alice support, you should add a second R4 1u B key to the alpha kits. This saves people from having to use a mod key or the 1u 0 from the numpad on their ergo boards.
- I've noticed that the set has only one instance of the F, J and 5 keys. Are these going to be homing, and if so, what kind of homing (barred, scooped, nipple)? Are you planning on offering a second variant as well?
- The current accent kit renders show the numpad Enter key as spanning rows 2–3. However, the numpad Enter key actually spans rows 3–4. This should be corrected in the renders.
- The numpad / and × keys currently sort of have mismatched legends. You see, the usual pairing is either / * or ÷ × (also: : ·, but this is a German/European thing and isn't ever used in keysets). This is common not only in keysets, but also in real word usage: math, programming etc.
Therefore, I suggest either changing the × legend to *, or changing / to ÷. I personally think that ÷ × looks nicer — and additionally, it allows you to use the × as a makeshift “icon Esc” legend — but the choice is up to you.- I have a couple more suggestions that concern legends and, specifically, their consistency and aesthetics.
First off, I'd like to suggest changing the Lock legend to Scroll, for consistency with Num. Both of these keys are locks, so it would make sense for one to say Scroll Lock if the other says Num Lock.- Consider changing the R3 1.75u Control key to use an icon legend, such as ∧. This helps with visual consistency, as the “Control” text can look out of place in the middle of icon legends and can interfere with the clean aesthetic of icon-only mods. See here (https://i.imgur.com/ngbaQa9.png) for a comparison. Examples of sets that do this include: GMK Seafarer (https://i.imgur.com/jf0pgcc.png), GMK Stealth (https://i.imgur.com/WkhlxPJ.jpg), GMK Maestro (https://i.ibb.co/3ydj85n/01-Basekit.png), GMK Kojiro (https://i.imgur.com/4M23EGw.png) etc.
However, I know that some people some people prefer having the text legend despite it looking out of place, so it's worth bearing this in mind. Again, it's up to you to choose what legend you'll use for this and future sets.- If you want to get more Mac users on board, you can add two R4 1.5u Super keys, as well as a second R4 1u Alt, to the mod kits. These keys are also used in OG HHKB-style bottom row setups, which some people prefer using on their boards.
However, I would say that these are a nice-to-have and not a must.- Finally, one more thing that ultimately comes down to subjective preference: consider using System (1.25u, 1.5u), Sys (1u) instead of Super as the legend for OS keys.
The argument in favor of this is that System is a more general/OS-agnostic legend, whereas Super is more specifically tied to *nix systems (although frankly, these days “Super” is pretty much synonymous with “Windows key” in the average Geekhack user's head). Additionally, the OS keys do a system-specific action, so System also makes sense from that perspective.
I think that about covers everything I've noticed so far (thanks for reading!). Again, overall, I'm liking what I'm seeing here so far, and I look forward to seeing how this develops further. Cheers.