[IC] DSA Belafonte - A life aquatic styled keyset

After some delays and setbacks, I’m trying once again to run the Belafonte colorway. This time it will be in DSA profile made by Signature Plastics. I’ve listed the design changes that were made below.

Let me tell you about my keyset:

The DSA Belafonte keyset is inspired by the film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It is a nautical themed keyset that is based on the ship Belafonte. I’ve tried to create a keyset that will fans of the movie will find a worth keyset adaption, and people who enjoy a brighter nautical colored keyset can also enjoy. I hope you like what you see.

Please fill out the IC form.

Planned Sets:


The alphas kit. It contains the keycaps you’d need for any board.


The Modifiers kit. Named after Esteban, he’s dead now.


Numpad kit, if you need it.


Extra modifiers kit for additional compatibility. Contains some of the most specialized keycaps.


Ortho kit. For users of Planck, and the like.


Novelties kit, which I thought up in a dream, actually.


International kit, support for UK, ES, IT, DA, SE, NO, FI, and DE layouts. Designed by an engineer from the Chinese space program.


You have to share it with the interns.

Technical Specs

DSA Profile
PBT
MX Compatible
Manufactured by Signature Plastics
Compatible with ISO, HHKB, WKL, TKL, 65%, 75%, 40%, Planck, and more

Design Changes from XDA to DSA

  • DSA profile instead of XDA (duh). DSA has overall less surface area, but the thickness of they keycaps is higher. I personally feel that between the two, DSA has a more ‘retro’ look which fits this set better.
  • Basically everything was made again from scratch because of HDD failure and loosing the XDA designs. All of the legends are slightly larger and have improved placement.
  • More vivid colorway - This was one of my biggest complaints about the XDA set, it was too washed out and muted. I think the current colors suit the tone of the movie and overall style of what I’m aiming for.
  • Reorganized Kits - The kits last time were sort of a mess. This time I tried to organize them to suit most users. (Please let me know if something is wrong, I want to try to accommodate everyone I can)
  • Improved Novelties - In the XDA kit, I admit they were rushed and I missed some opportunities. Currently, they are much better thought out and fans of the movie will hopefully be able to appricate them more.
  • Improved International Kit - For the most part, support for IT and ES languages has been added. In addition the tertiary legends have been removed. This was a tough choice, but the overall design seems to favor a more simple, less cluttered keycap.

Current Status
I have been in touch with Pimp My Keyboard. They are interested in producing the set, we just need to do an IC to see if people are still up for this set.

Please fill out the Google form if you’re interested. All valid feedback will be considered.

Acknowledgments:
Big thank you to onishima for the original concept for this set and gave me permission to draw inspiration from their work.

Spooknik
Dictated, but not read.

3 Likes

Love the Vortex Race support with the 1.5 esc, and the extensive intl kit. No tertiary legends is a great decision IMO, especially for a flat profile like DSA, makes a lot of keys more reusable across different layouts.

Why is there an extra Y and Z in the intl kit, though? I thought, this being DSA, you could just swap around the ones from the base alphas for QWERTZ?

Also, is there any chance of getting 5-6 extra keys into the intl. kit?

I love this set, sign me up!

Good catch on the Y and Z keys, they shouldn’t be there. I’ll update the drawing accordingly.

We can always add more to the international kit, just depends on what you have in mind. The set also won’t sell very much, so added too much won’t make it worth producing.

I already replied in the reddit thread, gonna paste here as well just in case anybody else who might be interested is following:

Adding Č Ć Đ Š Ž would cover the layout used in most of the countries that used to be Yugoslavia (so, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia) The only wrong key would be the one to the left of the 1, but nobody really knows what that one is for, and you already have a similar one in there, so I think that one’s covered :slight_smile:

I have no idea how big of a market there is for custom keycaps in these areas, it might entirely not be worth it if adding those keys would make the set much more epensive, but I do know I’d be pretty much obliged to buy any set which came out with those as it might be my only chance to get 100% coverage.

Also, adding Đ might also give you coverage for the Icelandic layout …

Please try to make the colorway something unique. Since it’s SP, I could honestly build something quite close to what you have above (colorway) right now and have it in a few weeks. I liked the more muted colors you had before with the XDA set. I also liked the custom font. I hope this can turn out to look unique enough.

I’m in. Just the novelties are calling for a submarine icon. Also, I just don’t think its using Wes Anderson’s color palette. It’s close. More pastel-hues.

I’ve gotten a few other requests for a submarine icon, so I will be adding one. In regards to the colors, the pastel tones aren’t possible with SP’s PBT color pallet. The only choice was to go with more bold colors.

Yeah, I’m definitely less excited about this in its current state than I was when it was set for xda (was planning on it being my first xda set). I have pretty mixed feeling about the dsa profile, and that plays a part.

But tbh I am definitely in agreement with pixel. I think that the current colors etc. look a bit more generic than they did on the xda renders. Was a definite buy. now a maybe buy (well, lets be honest- I’ll still probably buy it but still). : /

Either way, I’m happy that this set is finally moving forward I guess.

1 Like

Agree about the submarine icon. Personally I am glad it’s going to be DSA since I don’t have any boards with that profile anymore (aside from the Vortex Core that I never use).