Hi-Profile PBT Dye-sub (the time has come)

[jacobolus]

There is no “whimsy” in Helvetica. It’s more like an orderly little jail in which the letters are a series of identical looking prisoners in tiny cells crying into their meagre rations, keeping their heads down so the warden doesn’t come beat them again.

[Muirium]

So that's another vote in favour. Anyone else?

[Eszett]

I think most serifs doesn't make much sense, as they are too thin to be well visible on such a small and rough print, as keycap legends are ... And as we mostly want to have single letter prints, a slightler wider types would be reasonable.

[Muirium]

That W needs some scaffolding. It's about to fall apart!

And as for oversized Ffffffffffs, SP already has that well covered.

[niomosy]

Just so everyone knows what Akzidenz is...

Not so bad if it's big.

I do *love* the numbers.

The numbers are good.... minus the 2 and 7. Those need replacements badly.

[Muirium]

As it happened, the mid 20th century rework of Akzidenz which did just that:



A fair bit more like Helvetica after the makeover. I like it too, but the original has more character and significance.

[Eszett]

And as for oversized Ffffffffffs, SP already has that well covered.

I'm not talking about the space between glyphs (Kerning), but about width of a glyph's body (letter width).

[derzemel]

why don't we make our own characters?

[matt3o]

yay! see you next summer... 2025!

[Eszett]

It's not hard to design a typeface. Basically, the least draw them from scratch. It's common to take a typface as template, and change some tidbits according to your preference. (of course you don't tell, that you took a template!). However, we will never agree on one, because taste differs. What we can do is to suggest certain criteria which are reasonable for a keycap legend font, as "bold", "large letter width", "no serifs", "rounded corners", "classical look without quirks", etc.

BTW. "Akzidenz-Grotesk" is one candidate I have on my watchlist since long time ... it has almost no weaknesses, no strength too.

[matt3o]

we have to find the right typeface first, then if there are some characters that need tweaking that could be done.

designing a completely new typeface is something incredibly complicated, possibly one of the most difficult things to do in design.

[Ray]

Well if it is hard to find an agreement on which font looks good, it will take a lot more time to agree on every single letter!

As an example: I like the Akzidenz 7, but the zero needs to be stroked.

[Muirium]

Stroked zero? Ugh.

[lot_lizard]

Just so everyone knows what Akzidenz is...

Not so bad if it's big.

I do *love* the numbers.

I like it as well. The Q takes a bit to get past since we are now brainwashed. The only thing that actually surprises a bit is the J. The other uppers are so strong that I would have expected a more proud curve on the J. It is very nice all the way around though

[ramnes]

Cherry font, best font!

[Muirium]

Objection!

Assumes facts wholly not in evidence.

[ramnes]

Objection denied!

[Muirium]

Uh huh? Try again, Lionel Hutz.



Remember that Cherry's font, like SP's Gorton, is already available in caps out there. We've got the chance to make something new here. Why squander it with tribute acts?

Cherry's font in particular is a classic example of playing to doubleshot's strengths, by avoiding its weaknesses. No need to tuck ourselves into that irrelevant box here.

[eekee]

I don't know if I can imagine a good sans font that goes well with sphericals. Some characters of the original Akzidenz Grotesk would look all right, but only because they have a bit of an old-timey look which matches the rather old-timey sphericals. Those are the characters which were changed when the font was cleaned up. If you want a clean modern sans font that badly, I'd say switch to cylindrical and copy Atari XE & ST keycaps, but that doesn't seem to be what this thread is about. I'm just struggling to understand why someone would want spherical caps but not an old-timey font.

As to making a font, I had a go and found it's certainly easy to make a bad font. I don't have any artistic training though.

[matt3o]

I've got 3d prints! back to you in 10, have to change my pants first.

[photekq]

I've got 3d prints! back to you in 10, have to change my pants first.

Don't tease me like this!

[matt3o]

so we had two options tested. (please remember these are 3D printed)

the first one I call "FLAT" is basically an SA clone.



the second one which I like to call "SLANT" is shaped so the keys stay flat, parallel to the desk, considering an aprrox 6° angle.



This is with SA



I've also printed a couple of keycaps in a very high quality material



The keycaps are primed and painted with a color that could be close to the final product.

More comments (and pictures) in the coming hours.

[Muirium]

That last pic in particular: oooooh yeah! Beamspring goodness at its best.

[andrewjoy]

They look amazing! I cannot wait for some loverly PBT high profiles! They will be going right on my novatoush , along with the dampening rings once Mu gets them out to me ( no rush mate i understand your in a tricky spot) .

What printer where the 2 last caps done on , i cannot even see the layers!

[lot_lizard]

Those are beautiful. Well done. Do you have a picture of the mounts?

[matt3o]

Difference between flat (on the back) and slant versions



basically the first is close to SA when it come to angles (the shape is still a beamspring). The keycaps in foreground have a less pronounced angle, they technically are more "ergonomic" but you need the keyboard at a very specific tilt angle.

(I don't have specifics of the 3d printer, but the hi-def ones are UV cured resin I believe)

[zslane]

Why is the SLANT row 3 keycap so much taller than the row 2 and row 4 keycaps?

[matt3o]

that would be actually row 0 (function row)

[tentator]

You mean the one in row 3 should actually be function row on top?
Great work there by the way!
Actually I was convinced you where going to do SAS here..

[photekq]

snip

So happy to see the prints! Worth noting that flat ones aren't SA clones, but rather beamspring clones. It just so happens that SP cloned the top profile of beamspring with their SA profile

Also, the slanted ones are 7deg modified rather than 6