Author Topic: [IC - Now Complete] GB IS LIVE - DSA Pastel Toys  (Read 11442 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
[IC - Now Complete] GB IS LIVE - DSA Pastel Toys
« on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 07:34:59 »
249179-0

Hey everyone!

The GB is live - https://castlekeyboards.co.uk/ [/color]
We are very excited to introduce to you DSA Pastel Toys! This is a set inspired by the playfulness and whimsicality of childhood. The theme and style of these keycaps were influenced by the colours and aesthetics of a typical pastel nursery and the items you might find in there. When designing, we were captivated by the soft, nurturing and calming connotations of pastel colours and the nostalgia of some of our favourite childhood toys!

251302-1

252654-2

252656-3

More Details:

- Profile: DSA
- Material: ABS
- Legends: Double Shot
- Manufactured by Signature Plastics
- Group buy start date: 18/09/20
- Group buy end date: 09/10/20
- Shipping to UK, EU, US, Canada. (We have now looked into shipping further than the EU!)

See more info on our website!

https://castlekeyboards.co.uk/




The interest check has now finished and using the feedback from the surveys we have made some final changes to our designs!

Kits:

251298-4

251300-5

249187-6

249189-7

249191-8

249299-9

Colour Swatches:





Our Links:


https://castlekeyboards.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/castle_keyboards/
https://twitter.com/CastleKeyboards


Edits:

- Thanks for the feedback. We have updated the survey to include a specialities set. This should make the TKL set compatible with HHKB and Tsangan.
- There has been a slight change to the otholinear colour pattern. 2 colours have been swapped around! Allowing it to tie together nicely now.
- Shipping: We are still unsure of straying too far from from the UK/EU, but if there is a demand from further afeild, we will make it work!
- 07/09/20: Updated the TKL (backspace, arrows, PGUP, PGDN). Updated otholinear to include UK keys. We are not running ergodox due to there not being enough interest.

« Last Edit: Tue, 29 September 2020, 05:47:10 by CastleKeyboards »

Offline Gondolindrim

  • Posts: 691
  • Location: Gondolin
    • My GitHub
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #1 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 09:22:17 »
Indeed a very gentle and soothing colorway.

I'd recommend however that you change the text color from yellow to black or a baby blue because it's literally unreadable
A pessimist will tell you the cup is half empty. An optimist will tell you the cup is half full. An engineer will tell you it's exactly twice the size it needs to be.

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 11:25:32 »
Indeed a very gentle and soothing colorway.

I'd recommend however that you change the text color from yellow to black or a baby blue because it's literally unreadable


Hey ! Thanks for the feedback, we are new to Geekhack so still getting the hang of things! Is that any better?

Offline suicidal_orange

  • * Global Moderator
  • Posts: 4771
  • Location: England
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #3 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 12:19:03 »
Is that any better?

I looked earlier and had no idea what he was complaining about - guess it was already fixed :)

If you're open to suggestions you really should have a 1.75u right shift and a 1u FN to go next to it as this is the most common layout on a 60% keyboard, which is the most common size for DIY keyboards.  The same shift is also used on 65% and 1800 boards which DSA (being uniform) is very compatible with.  I'm not sure what anyone would do with the second 2u novelty as the picture only makes it suitable for backspace on most boards, and that's assuming it's not split.  A 1.75u could be used for Control or Backspace on Caps lock or a 1.5u for backspace on ANSI \| as popularised by the HHKB, so maybe swap one to one of them?

Also the 'extra novelties' are exactly the same as the ones included in the base kit.  People might want a pair of bears for their Win keys, but what would they do with the third?  I'd suggest cutting them from the base kit.

Finally, just three days of IC?  That's not very long to gauge interest, not to mention if the colours aren't finalised you can't have a quote and if you don't have a quote you can't know what to charge day one buyers...  10/10 for enthusiasm but your timeline definitely needs revising!
120/100g linear Zealio R1  
GMK Hyperfuse
'Split everything' perfection  
MX Clear
SA Hack'd by Geeks     
EasyAVR mod

Offline KingOfMemes

  • Posts: 845
  • Location: Murica, the best country in the world
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 12:55:45 »
Will you consider HUNT homing keys?

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 16:39:14 »
Is that any better?

I looked earlier and had no idea what he was complaining about - guess it was already fixed :)

If you're open to suggestions you really should have a 1.75u right shift and a 1u FN to go next to it as this is the most common layout on a 60% keyboard, which is the most common size for DIY keyboards.  The same shift is also used on 65% and 1800 boards which DSA (being uniform) is very compatible with.  I'm not sure what anyone would do with the second 2u novelty as the picture only makes it suitable for backspace on most boards, and that's assuming it's not split.  A 1.75u could be used for Control or Backspace on Caps lock or a 1.5u for backspace on ANSI \| as popularised by the HHKB, so maybe swap one to one of them?

Also the 'extra novelties' are exactly the same as the ones included in the base kit.  People might want a pair of bears for their Win keys, but what would they do with the third?  I'd suggest cutting them from the base kit.

Finally, just three days of IC?  That's not very long to gauge interest, not to mention if the colours aren't finalised you can't have a quote and if you don't have a quote you can't know what to charge day one buyers...  10/10 for enthusiasm but your timeline definitely needs revising!

Thank you for your feedback, we are always open for suggestions! We are now looking at including these extra keys to make our set more compatible for 60%, 65% and 1800 boards. My business partner is currently working on making this set compatible with Tsangan and HHKB, so we could add some extra keycaps into the specialities set.

We included the extra novelties primarily to go with the ergo and ortholinear sets as these are not included in those sets. We included them in the TKL set as the 1u keys could be used to replace the middle F keys and the teddy 1.25u's to replace the super keys. The castle key could replace the escape. It's all down to user preference.

Concerning the timeline, we have already done our first IC and this is the second. That one was unfortunately not on Geekhack due to the fact that we didn't want to overwhelm ourselves by posting to multiple social media's at once. Our aim is to try and get through the group buy process as quick as possible.

The colours used are the stock Signature Plastics colours, these are not going to change we just wanted to show them off. We have had our TKL and Numpad quotes finalised and the prices are up on our site. As for the other sets we expect to be hearing back about prices in the next 24 hours. I completely where you are coming from, but at the same time, we would really like the process to be as quick as possible for customers - our feedback so far has shown that people really don't like group buys because of the wait time.

Thank you again for your feedback :)

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 16:41:25 »
Will you consider HUNT homing keys?

We can consider them if they are a popular request!

Offline Tree_

  • Posts: 319
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 17:43:10 »
What made you decide on having the mod colours lineup in the Dox kit but not the TKL or Ortho kits (EG: Blue left shift, yellow right shift. Pink caps, blue enter, etcetc)? This throws the set off for me.

Do you have any plans to support 40%/65%/75%/1800/Alice layouts? At the moment this really only supports 60's, TKL, Full Size and Ortho/Dox.

If you aren't shipping outside of the UK and EU are you concerned about hitting MOQ?
« Last Edit: Tue, 11 August 2020, 17:45:42 by Tree_ »

Offline elkgrove

  • Posts: 6
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #8 on: Tue, 11 August 2020, 19:16:55 »
i really like this set. super cute colorway. but i have to second the concerns about this being too fast of an IC. your first post about this set on reddit was only 8 days ago.

i understand people don't like the wait times of group buys, but it's possible to move one along without it feeling so sketchy.

also, you posted an IC for a different set on reddit a half month ago but every mention of it has been wiped from your socials. were you not able to get permission from the original creator of gmk terminal? why no update?

personally i think a little more transparency is needed considering you're (i'm assuming) a month old company. otherwise it's mad cute lol

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 12 August 2020, 08:12:37 »
What made you decide on having the mod colours lineup in the Dox kit but not the TKL or Ortho kits (EG: Blue left shift, yellow right shift. Pink caps, blue enter, etcetc)? This throws the set off for me.

Do you have any plans to support 40%/65%/75%/1800/Alice layouts? At the moment this really only supports 60's, TKL, Full Size and Ortho/Dox.

If you aren't shipping outside of the UK and EU are you concerned about hitting MOQ?

Thanks for your questions!
The general colour pattern is 'yellow, purple, pink, blue'. This should flow throughout all of the designs and the pattern should go from up to down and from left to right. Although your comment did point out an error on our part that has now been rectified, the pattern should now be mimicked in all of the available kits. I hope you can understand that due to the nature of keyboards in general and the different types of layouts available a four colour sequential pattern would not work in all directions and all styles. Therefore there are a few locations throughout some of our designs where exceptions to the patterns have been made in order to make (we think) the overall outcome and aesthetic more pleasing to the eye!

In terms of supporting more layouts, with our research so far we believe that we are offering kits for the most popular keyboard layouts at the moment. Although there is always room for expansion, this is our first set and we didn't want to bite off more than we can chew.

Lastly, in reference to your question about shipping, there is concern as to whether our MOQ will be met, but at the same time we know there can be a lot of complications and extra costs shipping outside the EU.

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 12 August 2020, 08:20:38 »
i really like this set. super cute colorway. but i have to second the concerns about this being too fast of an IC. your first post about this set on reddit was only 8 days ago.

i understand people don't like the wait times of group buys, but it's possible to move one along without it feeling so sketchy.

also, you posted an IC for a different set on reddit a half month ago but every mention of it has been wiped from your socials. were you not able to get permission from the original creator of gmk terminal? why no update?

personally i think a little more transparency is needed considering you're (i'm assuming) a month old company. otherwise it's mad cute lol

Glad you like the colourway. We have addressed concerns about the speed of our IC and we have removed the timeline from our website until we can have a better and realistic estimate. We apologise if the timeline feels sketchy, that was never our intention - we now realise that these things may need more time to allow people to get to know us better and feel comfortable that they know who we are.

Concerning DSA Terminal, we definitely could have handled that better. We did address the situation in our most recent newsletter, but that was obviously only seen by subscribers. That set was cancelled due to a conflict of interest in the community and we have since found out that another company will be running something similar soon. We are now in the process of creating a social media post to properly and publically address this to everyone, to avoid further confusion.

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #11 on: Thu, 13 August 2020, 04:34:13 »
See "Edits" for the updates we have made

Offline Almost

  • Posts: 39
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Zs Xe
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #12 on: Fri, 14 August 2020, 13:25:33 »
Super glad this is going to be DSA, my fave for easy typing. The colours are so kind on the eyes

Have you thought about doing an "Alpha" set which is just the main central alphas and most commonly used mods, then having all the different layout mods as seperate sets? That might work out cheaper overall and help the more obscure layouts sell... maybe... idk how SP's quoting and MOQ works tbh.

Its everyone elses fault for having stupid fancy layouts, make them pay extra for not falling in line  :cool: :cool: :cool:

Kbds: KOBO Red Carbon - Filco MJT2 Beige - Topre U23 - Cherry 3700 - Model F XT 5155
Sets: Dolch R1 - Red Alert - Hyperfuse R1 - Cherry WoB - Plum


Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #13 on: Sat, 15 August 2020, 05:38:23 »
Super glad this is going to be DSA, my fave for easy typing. The colours are so kind on the eyes

Have you thought about doing an "Alpha" set which is just the main central alphas and most commonly used mods, then having all the different layout mods as seperate sets? That might work out cheaper overall and help the more obscure layouts sell... maybe... idk how SP's quoting and MOQ works tbh.

Its everyone elses fault for having stupid fancy layouts, make them pay extra for not falling in line  :cool: :cool: :cool:

Glad you like the colours! We have thought about separating everything out into more modular kits, but from our research, we are aware that a lot of people who aren't in the mech community find group buys in general intimidating - especially when you have to build your own kit from multiple sets.

Concerning the price, with the kits we are offering and the popularity of each one we feel this method is both easy to use and cost-effective.

Offline alliha

  • Posts: 2
It's so pretty 😍

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
It's so pretty 😍
Thank you for the kind words!

Offline AuthenticDanger

  • Posts: 402
Welp I guess I'm on this train now. I love the colors. Reminds me of a desaturated DSA Ice Cream (the set I'm typing on right now!) and I'm digging the direction of the set.

Are you thinking about any other novelties? Toy soldier, wooden blocks, model boat could all look great in here.
F Keys belong on the left.

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Welp I guess I'm on this train now. I love the colors. Reminds me of a desaturated DSA Ice Cream (the set I'm typing on right now!) and I'm digging the direction of the set.

Are you thinking about any other novelties? Toy soldier, wooden blocks, model boat could all look great in here.

So sorry it's taken us a while to get back to you, we had some major issues with our email filtering that caused us to lose a lot of important notifications!  :-[

First off, we'd like to thank you for the kind words! We have been working hard to create something that we are proud to call our first-ever keycap set. Concerning the novelties, those are some great ideas! Since we are a new vendor, we were focused on designing fairly simple novelties that (with the help of our manufacturer) we know will look good and translate well on a keycap. In addition to this, we have lot going on behind the scenes, including potential (you heard it here first!!) for another toy-themed set in the future (think animal crossing kiddie furniture) - depending on the success of this one!

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC - Now Complete] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #18 on: Mon, 07 September 2020, 12:18:49 »
Hey! Thank you all for you interest in this set. We have now collated the data and set the official date for the group buy. Check out this post and our website for more information. https://castlekeyboards.co.uk/  :llama:

Offline MrFurrior

  • Posts: 63
Re: [IC - Now Complete] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #19 on: Mon, 07 September 2020, 13:55:38 »
I don't meant for this to come across rude, but I don't think you left this in IC for long enough. I understand you want to speed up the whole process, but an interest check also increases sales / peoples interest in the set the more they see it. I feel like this set hasn't gained as much attention as it may have if it were in a longer 'check' stage. But that's just my thoughts, GL with the GB!

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC - Now Complete] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #20 on: Tue, 08 September 2020, 05:00:03 »
I don't meant for this to come across rude, but I don't think you left this in IC for long enough. I understand you want to speed up the whole process, but an interest check also increases sales / peoples interest in the set the more they see it. I feel like this set hasn't gained as much attention as it may have if it were in a longer 'check' stage. But that's just my thoughts, GL with the GB!

Heyyy MrFurrior, thanks for the feedback! All in all, you're totally right, we definitely could have extended the IC an extra few weeks, or even a few months! However, we were very happy with the numbers we reached and we didn't want to overwhelm ourselves by trying to massively increase sales on our very first set. Having said that, this doesn't mean that we would have an issue if numbers were to continue to increase further than predicted during the GB stage! We just felt the time we chose to complete the IC stage was right for us as a new business.

In addition to this, it can be very difficult to find a middle ground when some members of the community hate group buys as they feel it takes way too long; but others love GB's and like the anticipation and familiarity that comes with an increased amount of time. Overall, we are trying our best to do the traditional GB process justice, while attempting to make it less intimidating and more accessible/ understandable to newcomers and people outside of the community. If after this GB is complete, there are people who come across DSA Pastel Toys who feel they have missed out, we are more than happy to do a round two on a larger scale! Thanks again for your advice!  :)

Offline quitpanda

  • Posts: 1
Re: [IC - Now Complete] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #21 on: Wed, 23 September 2020, 06:20:24 »
Is there a one unit control key outside of the ortho set?  It's super cute though.

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC - Now Complete] [New UK Vendor] DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #22 on: Wed, 23 September 2020, 10:39:58 »
Is there a one unit control key outside of the ortho set?  It's super cute though.

Hey, I'm afraid there isn't, but there is the novelty kit that comes with several 1u's, which you could use! Glad you like it!

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC - Now Complete] GB IS LIVE - DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #23 on: Tue, 29 September 2020, 05:48:22 »
Don't forget this GB is now live! We have added some more renders to this post too!

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website
Re: [IC - Now Complete] GB IS LIVE - DSA Pastel Toys
« Reply #24 on: Tue, 29 September 2020, 11:28:20 »
New banner!

Offline CastleKeyboards

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 23
  • Location: England, UK
  • UK Vendor
    • Castle Keyboards Website