deskthority

Pt. 1

Red color

not a fan of that legend (both font and positioning) but if that's PBT double shot, how can't you love it?

PBT DS ? it seems rare
i just know PBT DYE,ABS DS,PC DS(Transparent)

Dis legends...
Why italic? Apart from that, why not consistent italic?

But keep up the work. I'm sure, once you have decent legends and quality, there will be plenty of customers.

Indeed!

How about centred legends — right in the middle of the key — in regular Helvetica (no italic)? Extra points for white text on black keys!

PBT is the plastic we want. Congratulations. Keep this coming!

Nice. Kinda like the legends in a weird way.

They're better than the stuff on current Vortex and CM keyboards, that's for sure.

But we want quality like this:

…and we want ISO and national (non-US) layouts…

If it wasn't italic..
But a giant step forward decent PBT DS, congratulations

Not so wierd to me maybe it is because I'm from Asia and not familiar to Latin alphabets.

Well, what is the good point of PBT double shot in comparison to dyesub?

I think really the main problem is there are too many legend size. Size of alphabet legends are OK, but the ESC and F1-F12 is too big, should be same like the prtsc and etc, as well as the Ctrl Alt should be same size too as well as all should have same alignment. I think that is what really makes the set look off as it is not wholly uniform.
Dyesub is good and much more durable and better looking than most pad printing, but it too can wear off the surface with use. PBT doubleshot should be extremely durable which is good for consumer, but bad for manufacturer unless they can keep rolling out hot colorways to get buyer to come back often enough.

Doubleshots would be more interesting with light legends on dark keycaps of course, because you can't do that with dyesub printing.

I agree that with the expected price of these sets, the legends can't have flaws like that. Italic font is OK to me, but, like Ivan said, font sizes and horizontal/vertical alignment must be consistent. The arrows on left shift and caps lock need to be horizontally aligned to each other btw, everything else looks sloppy.

hasu wrote:Not so wierd to me maybe it is because I'm from Asia and not familiar to Latin alphabets.

Well, what is the good point of PBT double shot in comparison to dyesub?

Dyesub is awesome. Love the stuff. But it suffers from two limitations, so I gather:

• Can't dyesub light legends on dark caps. That halves the total nber of colour schemes it can handle vs. doubleshot.
• Can't dyseub spherical caps. This one I'm not as sure about but it makes sense. Dyesub is done by pressing a sheet containing the dye against the cap surface while heating. Cylindrical profile is easy but spherical curves in 3D.

I've used some dyseubbed caps that are as old as I am, heavily used, and still as bright as day. Longevity is not a serious problem. Manufacturing is.

As for typography, Apple used to agree with you. Their legends were italic for decades. But it's not my style or many else's, apparently! And PFU gets it just right with the HHKB. Made in Japan.

Muirium wrote:

• Can't dyseub spherical caps. This one I'm not as sure about but it makes sense. Dyesub is done by pressing a sheet containing the dye against the cap surface while heating. Cylindrical profile is easy but spherical curves in 3D.

if by spherical you mean DSA, that's untrue. I have plenty of quotes for DSA PBT dyesub'd sets.

that being said, I prefer dyesub to double shot (much more flexible), unless you really want light on dark of course.

You just made my day! That's the kind of being wrong I love to hear: Helvetica sphericals are back in play!

didn't mean to be rude you seemed unsure about your statement and I wanted to reassure you that spherical could be dyesub'd

No offence taken, Matt. I sounded unsure because I was unsure. And I'm truly relieved that dyesub can be done on sphericals.

So, have you enquired with SP about a full SA profile dyesubbed PBT set? You know my ideal: SA+PBT+Helvetica!

Well, as SP doesn't have proper ABS molds for certain keycaps (backspace, shift, etc), I doubt they have it for PBT.
Hence, a (correct) complete SA set is out of reach.

More colors.

Good. But what about bright text on dark caps? Do what dyesub cannot do!

Doubleshot PBT is definitely nice tech. I don't mind the font. I like there being colours.
But the legend alignment is so inconsistent... Top/centre on some keys but left/middle on others. Look at the function row: compare ESC and PRTSC. Compare NUM and / next to each other.

no one is going to mention this:
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/vortex-keycaps