[IC]GMK Avanguardia

[Raz]

Form Link

Hello Keebtalk Community!

I am Raz, a web designer from Italy and I would like to present you my first keycap set project!
Quarantine here in Italy gave me the opportunity to develop some ideas that I had been dragging for some time.

I partnered up with my friend and designer Johnnymalandra and came up with the idea of GMK Avanguardia :
I chose an italian word that, as you can guess corresponds to “Avant-guard” or “Vanguard”,
referring to all those extreme, daring and innovative artists with a futuristic sight capable of anticipating their times.

This is the color palette we chose for this set:

We especially referred to Vasilij Vasil’evič Kandinskij and this painting to get the inspiration for the novelties:

I have seen that sets featuring themes related to modern pop culture have always been appreciated, so I thought, why not pay respect to a great artist who influenced it the most in shapes and colors.
More than content, this set draws its inspiration from Kandinsky’s words:
“Art goes beyond the limits in which time would like to compress it, and indicates the content in the future”

We wanted to give our concept a more personal interpretation by using a palette oriented towards the tech world and so the result is down here!

The Kits! (Updated)

Base Kit

Novelties

Light Alpha

40s Kit

Spacebars

Deskmats (updated):
Those are designed to be standard 900x400mm!
Art by JohnnyMalandra

Keyboards Renders
I did all the renders here, i am still learning so don’t be too much picky

Nasu by crusader_alex

Keebwerk Mega with Light Alphas





Rama U80

TKC M0lly

Rama M65a

https://i.imgur.com/cHAD2RM.png(image larger than 4 MB)

EXTRA:
We have some basic t-shirts design to show you if you’re interested in it!

Vendor :

• EU: Candykeys
• USA: TBD
• Asia: TBD
• Australia: TBD
• Canada: TBD

TODO:

• Collecting IC Data
• Search for a proxy
• Search for some artisans
• Themed custom cables?!
• More Renders

UPDATES

Kit updates with ISO changes, compatibility for 96 and 1800 layouts and a new alpha kit.
40s kit now has 2x 1.75u spacebars.

Color Contrast

To address the color contrast concerns, i’ve done some renders for you guys! I am comparing my set to Violet Tendencies in various light conditions

Imgur Album - Difference with Violet Tendencies in different light conditions

TLDR:
https://imgur.com/LKc9Ard

Thanks to
I would like to thank all my friends from the ClickyClackClub Italian community for the support they showed me, Johnnymalandra for the awesome artworks, David from Candykeys for the extreme technical support and the Keycap Designers discord server for the awesome tips!

I am going to update this post with changelogs and new renders soon !
Remember to fillout the IC form, it would help me a lot!

FORM LINK: https://forms.gle/CvNgVBDoBvLn8xhx7

[MaKrum]

You did a really nice work man, good luck con amore dall’italia!

[dwarflemur]

Looks nice as long as you can get the contrast right so it doesn’t turn out like violet tendencies.

[Raz]

I am working on some renders to show the color differences in different lights conditions!
You can check the contrast in low light conditions in one of the renders anyway

[dwarflemur]

If you can make it work it would be lit, violet tendencies was a big letdown. Your purple does look like it’s lighter, it’s just a hard combo to pull off.

Violet tendencies looked like this in renders:

And this in real life:

[Raz]

I see what you mean and i address this problem expecially with purple over gray (that should be N9, right?)

I know we shouldn’t pick colors by their rgb values BUT even comparing those colors, we can see their contrast by tone. DY(gmk purple) over N9(gmk dark gray) it’s 1.37:1 contrast ratio.

Looking at the colors from my palette, it’s double the value. It is under the “low contrast” but we wanted to play with the magenta accent and white on indacus accents!

It’s all an IC anyway, we are open to discuss/reworks the secondary/primary color to have a bit more room for contrasts!

[Raz]

Updated the OP with some renders addressing the color contrast concerns and the Violet Tendencies colors!

https://imgur.com/LKc9Ard

[dwarflemur]

Looks good to me! I’m totes in for this

[Raz]

I am updating the post with some new renders!

[Manofinterests]

I’m loving the desk mats. On the first pictures you posted I see it says Avan guardia GMK on them, but in the recent renders that little corner text is gone. Will the final desk mats say Avan guardia or will that be left out?

[Raz]

I don’t know yet! I am getting feedbacks on the google form: people like the logo, someone don’t want the logo on the mats.

Getting more feedbacks will help me decide! It’s a small edit anyway, so i am not worried about it, i just want to make the right decision for the community!

[Raz]

Hi guys!

I’ve updated the OP with the new light alpha kit, some renders and updates about the new kits!