Bringing a Product to Market – How I Designed Custom Keycaps

in the studio I'm working on several keyboard related products these projects are fun for me not only as a keyboard Enthusiast but as a designer I have a hand in crafting every detail the design of the product brand identity packaging marketing assets seeing my ideas transform into tangible objects that I can share with others is so rewarding hello I'm Matthew and Cena and in this video I'll share a behind thes scenes look into the process of Designing my first keycap set before I begin I want t

o thank notion for sponsoring this video custom mechanical keyboards is a niche hobby primarily driven by enthusiasts who create smallscale projects for the community customers buy from vendors vendors work closely with manufacturers and designers to create Unique Products which are also influenced by the community it's a codependent ecosystem with the Vibrant Community behind it as a designer I can pitch ideas to vendors and would work work through them to bring the product to market the first

stage is coming up with a concept hundreds of keycap designs exist usually with a bold theme they're fun and appropriate but few match my preference for subtle minimal design lately I've been into the warm and inviting tones of natural materials and the design of my studio is a reflection of that the white oak I built my furniture with the gray concrete floors and the subtle pops of color from objects throughout the space I start by choosing colors inspired by these and visualize the key cap in

3D I use Cinema 4D but most people use blender and the keyboard render Kit Digital Color selection is a good place to start but screen colors may not match physical ones so choosing from physical cataloges like Pantone or Ral is crucial it's simple to find a general palette you like though it's daunting to narrow down which specific shade you want out of thousands and even more difficult to make sure they work together it takes me weeks to narrow down my selection my concept and name for the key

caps modern materials a minimal low contrast set inspired by contemporary interior design you'll see later how this concept is further realized in the brand and marketing material after rendering the keycaps I'll create a pitch to present the potential vendors get feedback and find a suitable partner drawing from my experience advertising a successful pitch should clearly express the idea demonstrate its viability excite others about the project and minimize the perception of risk for projects a

t this stage and scale I like to use notion to create my pitches because for me it lives in the same place where I track all of my other projects it's easy to update and on the user end they can view it like a normal web page at the top I Write a brief overview of the concept with a few key images so the reader can easily understand the idea if they're interested in scroll down I provide more details like renders and references that illustrate my vision and possibilities for the project I'm mind

ful that vendors may see pitches frequently so anything I can do to stand out I'll include because I have an extensive background in design and have spent years building an audience I'll mention these to help give confidence in the project success after careful consideration and several discussions with with various keyboard vendors I decide to partner with novel Keys as my lead vendor and gmk as the manufacturer of modern materials keycaps both are highly regarded in the keyboard Enthusiast Com

munity I always have a great experience shopping through novel keys and the majority of the key cap sets I own are manufactured by gmk now that I have Partners in place I have a team of experts to collaborate with through the remaining steps to bring my product to Market I'll be responsible for find finalizing the design copyrighting packaging and promoting the product on my channels novel keys in the US will be the lead vendor and will be responsible for sales and fulfillment they'll be my main

point of contact for production they'll prep the sales pages and additional assets for launch and help me coordinate with other Global vendors within their Network to run a pre-sale of the product we'll then place our order with gmk in Germany who will manufacture and package the keycaps and in a few months gmk will ship the completed products to novel keys and Global vendors to begin fulfillment to customers I've never produced and sold keycaps before so it's nice to have Partners who can lay

out the process and help through each step now it's time for me to finalize the keycap design I have to decide on the kidding what keycaps will be included there are many types of keyboard layouts to consider Anie ISO Alice 40% and so much more adding more keycaps will help with with inclusivity but drive up costs and inventory management if it's too expensive or lacks layout support then less of the community will buy it it's an important balancing act after Consulting with novel keys I determi

ne a kidding that hits the Sweet Spot full layout support including minimal 40% Keys Mac keys and all text modifiers cuz I prefer how they look modern materials will come in two different base kits concrete and stone I also have an optional accent Color Kit that features my logo and a set of relegend doubles a type of key cap where you can print and insert your own Legends since the keycaps will be made out of ABS I order plastic swatches from the panone catalog to finalize my color selection I

want to make sure these colors look good in this material I'll ship these swatches to the team at novel Keys who creates renders of the kitting for the store then they'll be sent to gmk in Germany where they'll color match them for production having physical samples that everyone is referencing ensures color Fidelity the next stage of the project is to create renders of the product on different keyboards for marketing purposes these images showcase the key caps in various settings and lighting c

onditions to give customers an idea of what they're ordering in my past life I used to do a lot of 3D work so it's fun to be able to practice these skills again creating materials Framing and lighting shots and rendering I obsess over these details as I do with every project after creating several scenes I format them for various purposes such as landing pages and social posts a big aspect of the project is to create a visual identity for the key caps this will live on the packaging website and

collateral to ID the product I want to play off the inspiration behind the set the language of contemporary interior design I think it would be fun to visualize material swatch is similar to what you would look at when designing a space so I explore that Motif whatever I create should work as fully rendered key art as well as simplified Graphics to span the variety of uses I start with quick sketches then move into Adobe Illustrator to create the shapes and layout of the typography instead of us

ing standard rectangular swatches I decide to use these pill shapes for the keyart I want these to have a tactile feel I explore a variety of materials in 3D until I land on these then I render out high resolution images and create a graphic system that's an extension of the language I developed since I have momentum here I move into the packaging novel key sent me the template gmk uses to start with here I use the key art for the top and the simplified graphics for the other sides I print the t

emplate at a small size just to make sure I have the right orientation for everything to bring everything together I want to create a project page for modern materials I build off my original pitch elaborating in areas to make sure the language complements the imagery shown using notion I can easily create a hub to collaborate with others a single repository of the brand and marketing assets which is shared with novel keys and and our Global proxy vendors that way we're all aligned when talking

about the product in this last stretch of the project it's important to stay on top of tasks I set up all of my remaining milestones in notion with notion calendar I can see each of these on my schedule alongside all of my important appointments with the project Hub complete I create a public facing version of it on my site a place where customers can get all the details about the key cap set the specs background information and where to buy in the region the sales pages are ready I have several

social posts ready to share and with that we're ready to open the pre-sale of modern materials it's been 2 months we had a successful pre-sale of modern materials at the end of 2023 I'm reviewing color match samples from gmk in Germany and are moving into production customers should receive their keycap sometime in Q2 of 2024 and we'll have some extras to purchase which I'll link to in the description if you want to learn more about novel keys in gmk there's some fantastic content by Taha types

that gives you a look into their process if you're interested in designing your own keycap set I've created a blog post with additional details about my experience insights and helpful resources thanks to notion for sponsoring this video use the link in the description to learn more and check out the new notion calendar app if you want to see more content like this let me know in the comments below if you have a question ask and I'll do my best to answer it with that out of the way it's time to

get back to work