I finally got the first batch of Susuwatari prototypes in my hands. Of all the sets I’ve designed this definitely has proven the most complicated. Injection molding is no joke, a lot of variables are at play and if you aim for perfection the road is long and tortuous.

Let me preface this post by saying that for being the first prototype ever created, they are darn good keycaps. Legend positioning, sharpness, size and consistency are already better than anything out of Signature Plastics or GMK. But…

An update on Susuwatari was long overdue, I wish I had better news to give you but I wanted to bring you guys up to speed on the development since (Mass)Drop is not going to (in a timely manner).

Please bear in mind that the following is by no means an official update, this is just my conjecture and opinion. With that out of the way, let’s see where we stand with Susuwatari.

It has been a while since the last update on the Susuwatari keyset. The drop for the double-shot MT3 profile set ended few months ago and development is proceeding at a slow but constant pace. It is incredible the amount of work needed to design a brand new double-shot set.

Few weeks ago I received the first color samples. As expected we are not there yet, but we are very close. I’ve already sent my report to the manufacturer and I’m confident that the next samples will be right on spot.

Few days ago I’ve also got the first double shot samples. I’ll be frank, I was expecting more tests to be made at this stage. I received just a few legends, but anyway they are good enough to be cautiously positive that everything will proceed as expected. From the picture above you can see a rather complicated legend injected with unexpected craftsmanship.

What next? I’m working on updated legends following this first round of prototypes to further optimize the injection process and I hope to get a more complete set in the coming weeks. Chinese New Year holidays put a stop to the production for a few weeks and we should be back in the game in a few days.

Sorry I can’t show you more at this time, but I hope to be able to reveal a final-ish product in a month from now.

Few days ago I got a copy of my Midnight Set produced and sold directly by Signature Plastics on Pimpmykeyboard.

It’s an old keyset of mine, one of the first I’ve designed and that I’m particularly fond of. It has been recently reprinted with some updates. The modifiers color is now lighter and the tonal difference with alphas more marked, but if you like to dare there’s also the turquoise punch-in-the-eye modifiers kit.

Included in every set you’ll find a few “midnighty” novelty keys but the text-only counterparts are also available.

I’m still working on Susuwatari, but more sets are coming out soon. Long time ago I was contacted by a manufacturer that wanted to release some of my designs. They asked what could be our first project together and I immediately said: “Elvish! and Russian!”.

In just a couple of days I’ve got dozens of comments, emails and people reaching out on reddit/skype/slack. Thanks everybody for the great support and feedback!

So, it looks like I’ve been a little selfish and I didn’t think that other designers and creators might be interested in releasing their creations in double-shot MT3. Some of them contacted me and asked to make the legends a bit more “vanilla” so they would be better suited for a wider range of sets and color schemes.

So /dev/tty1 is finally out into the wild, round two is going nice and smooth and it’s time to move on to the next project.

It’s some time we are toying with the idea of a double-shot version of the MT3 keycap profile and it looks like Massdrop has just greenlighted the project.

I mostly worked on dye-sublimation lately, so I was forced on light schemes. You can’t have a legend that is lighter than the background with sublimation (yeah, okay you technically can with negative printing… but let’s leave it for now), so this time around I wanted to go dark!

Some of you may have noticed that /dev/tty has dropped again. Waaaay sooner than I expected actually. As you know by now I don’t like to rush a product release and considering the round 1 hiccups, I would have liked a couple of weeks more to plan a good fight strategy.

Anywho. Device Terminal (that’s how you pronounce it!) round 2 is up and kicking. The official name would be /dev/tty1 (it’s 0-based) and we have approximately a month to fix the issues we encountered in the first iteration. Namely the drunken legends. MassDrop reassure me that they made so no more bold, tilted, not-centered legends will leave the factory. I hope they will let me check that before shipping to customers.

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Warning: this is a rant.

Important: the following reflects my opinion and my opinion only. I report the facts at the best of my knowledge/understanding but they are not necessarily accurate.

Of course I’m going to talk about /dev/tty keycaps set and the MT3 profile. The two are actually very different projects.

MT3 is the new profile we designed. It was a long process but it went relatively smooth. We had many iterations of the keys, I got plenty of prototypes both 3D printed and injected. We were able to fine tune the shape up to the very last minute. Indeed the profile came out beautifully, better than my expectations actually. The result is a wonderful new and original profile.

I was expecting the same process to happen for /dev/tty which is the first color scheme released on MT3.

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It has been a long journey but it was well worth the wait. I’m usually very critical with my own work but this time we are pretty much close to perfection.

Let’s start with the keys layout. The most avid of my followers know that we designed a completely new profile called –very unoriginally– MT3. The goal was to create a retro looking shape without sacrificing ergonomics. I’m typing on these little guys from some time now and it’s incredible how natural and pleasing these keycaps feel.

Continue reading…