So I got the first sample of the Core Set, and I have to say, things are looking amazing. The color-matching has truly exceeded my wildest hopes, and I'm incredibly pleased with the overall color scheme (both the individual matches, and how the colors look together).
Sorry that the pics I have were hastily taken on my dining room table. I figured everyone would want to see them sooner rather than wait for my light tent to arrive next week.
The legends using this screen-print process are like nothing I've seen in PBT before. Here is a capture from an image with my 58mm lens at 100% zoom (i.e., ultra close-up)
Here is a high-res of the full set. I tried to massage this one a bit in Photoshop to give the best possible sense of what the colors look like in person (the camera tends to over-saturate them compared to how they look IRL).
The numpad is causing a bit of a hold-up, unfortunately. The color-matching looks good based on a rough sample they sent me, but I don't want to post it because the registration is off and the sublimation quality not consistent with the rest of the set. Melissa is working hard on improving this before moving to final production. This is going to cause a slight hold-up as they thus have to go back to their sublimation paper supplier's ink supplier (in Europe) to see if a better formulation will be possible. She'll be sending out an update to all buyers to this effect shortly. However, I have reassured to her (and I hope this is OK with the majority of buyers) that we'd prefer to wait to get things right rather than rush to production. This GB has been many months in the making, so we want to make sure everything comes out perfectly (especially given the importance of the numpad to the overall uniqueness of the set's graphic elements). We should have more updates on this subject this coming week.
In short, though, I am stunned at how well this set has come out so far. The Pantone matching was perfect, and I think gets just the right yellow we struggled so long to obtain. And these screenprint legends are crazy awesome; they do a great job of capturing the characteristic details of the tiny Swiss 911 font. Also, FWIW, I can vouch that the PBT DSA caps feel amazing to the touch when typing on an MX Red board (the one you saw in the photos).
I'm feeling very good at this point about all the creative choices we made up to this point. I hope you guys all agree.