Not All Linears Are The Same!
Figure 1: Not even all of these (mostly) KTT-made linears are the same! After all of my years of collecting, reviewing, and obsessing over switches, I can say with certainty that linear switches are the most misunderstood of all of the switch types. No, I’m not talking about mechanically either, as all of the claims of them “just going straight up and down” are somewhat kind of true. (Not too much though, don’t get that excited.) The part that is often misunderstood, though, is usually in what is being implied when people say that these switches just go straight up and down – “All linears might as well be the same.” If the title of this article didn’t make that obvious enough to you, I find that sort of idea to be completely and utterly wrong. The people who make these implications wouldn’t say that a Cherry MX Black is the same as a Novelkeys Cream switch? They also certainly wouldn’t ever claim that every Gateron-made linear is the same as every fancy TTC one out there...
May 29, 2024
Deep cuts and deep dives In The Life Aquatic, the Belafonte is Steve Zissou’s ship, a rehabbed long-range sub-hunter from World War II transformed into a science vessel. The Belafonte carries Steve and his crew around the globe on oceanic adventures. While the Belafonte as a ship is impressive, (see this tour Steve gives in the opening sequences,) the Belafonte as a set is incredible. Anderson built a terribly ambitious and creative set, bisected horizontally to resemble a giant dollhouse. By doing so, the camera can pan up and down the ship following characters as they ascend and descend ladders, move between rooms, and dive into the deep. The ship itself is a character in the movie, with a story and a past. Above decks, scrawled on the side of its tiny yellow sub is the crossed-out name Jacqueline. “What happened to Jacqueline?” asks Ned, Steve’s potential son played by Owen Wilson. “She didn’t really love me” replies Steve nonchalantly. It’s almost like the boat has a regrettable tattoo, and on GMK Belafonte, “Jacqueline” is scrawled across the enter key. An obscure reference from a momentary line in the movie, is now an iconic symbol that instantly connects the keycap set to its namesake. Deep cuts like that are exactly what building a tribute keyboard is all about. Striking the delicate balance between honoring something and going overboard.
When it’s done right The reason “Jacqueline” works in GMK Belafonte is the same reason printing “The Life Aquatic” or “Zissou” on the keycap wouldn’t. Rather than saying exactly what it is, Mito used a non-obvious reference, hinting at a subtle memory that captured the spirit of the film, rather than clubbing us over the head with it. That kind of subtlety is what this set does so well and like anything, doing something well often looks effortless but is actually really hard to do. The truth is, almost every accent key in GMK Belafonte is brilliant. In the movie, two dolphins accompany the ship, and Belafonte has dolphin 1.5u and 1u keys, each with a “1” or “2” next to the dolphin. There’s a handgun key, referencing the line I opened this article with. There are life preservers, scuba gear and anchor icons, all subtle, clean designs that work together perfectly. The triple Z logo of Team Zissou is replicated in R5 height for use as an escape key or F13 accent in white on red, blue on yellow and yellow on blue! There’s a charming 1.75u “Black Box” key that while not referenced in the film, fits right in. The only keys I don’t care for are compass-rose styled arrow keys. They just seem a little over the top and a bit too nautical. When it’s not Last year, a friend of mine was working on designing a keycap set themed to appeal to record collectors. He saw a connection between people that own vinyl and keyboards, and I think he’s on to something. I love both of those subjects, and am solidly in his demographic, but I disliked the renders he posted on a Mechanical Keyboards Facebook group we both belong to. I felt they were obvious, clumsy and off-putting. The set was called “Vinyl Records” (a term that any vinyl collector would never say,) and it used iconography that loosely referenced all record usage, ever. (It had a phonograph on one of the enter keys). Rather than using insider knowledge to “nod” at familiar visual references, it trumpeted things no vinyl enthusiast would be proud of. I was in a mood apparently and decided to give a full “review” of the set from “S-tier” to “I have no words”. The most successful keycap in the set in my opinion was a black 1.5u cap with a printed on/off switch in white and a small, red power indicator. It was fun, something that’s really hard to do well in keycaps. The set is primarily white on black, with some white and red keys mixed in. It has a very White Stripes appearance, which makes a ton of sense when you think of all Jack White has done for the vinyl market. Chester was really gracious and said that they’d take the feedback into account and come back with something stronger, and they did. Several months later I received a set of the final “Vinyl” in the mail, and it’s pretty great! They evened out some of the overtly pandering terms or symbols, toned the whole set down a bit, and added a few, really nice elements. Like a white on red tonearm UK enter key. Here's my Bakeneko65 with the final product.
Using color by itself to theme your board In GMK Belafonte, the colors of the keycaps themselves only hint at the nature of their inspiration, and without the accent keys, I don’t think I’d ever have guessed the theme. Only with accents and artisans do the keycaps suddenly make sense as a movie-themed board, and that brings us to the subject of color use and color-grading. Color grading is the use of software and post production tools to manually edit color in a film to create an overall look and feel. Most movies use some level of color grading to keep the film consistent, but the result is usually geared toward looking realistic. In some Sci-Fi, like the new Dune movies, it’s used really creatively to make the films seem otherworldly. A key example is the trippy infrared Harkonnen homeworld in Dune 2. Or the inky comic style of Frank Miller’s 300. While it’s not fair to boil Wes Anderson’s aesthetic down to the color usage in his films, the effect color grading has on them is unmistakable. It’s entirely possible to present a Wes Anderson fanboy with a handful of colors and have them successfully name the film.
Artisans really tie it all together I mentioned all of the accent keys I love in GMK Belafonte, and how they’re so good at communicating the themes of the film, but my crowning jewels on my Belafonte keyboard are two artisans that were never in a million years intended to “go” with this set. With a little bit of creativity, these two keys make my Life Aquatic keyboard one of my favorite builds. The first artisan is the M.7 aluminum tab keycap. Sold here on DROP for quite some time, I have it in a robins egg blue. It’s a 1.5u television screen, with a removable magnetic face, that allows the user to swap out any number of paper inserts to create a tv show/movie effect. The artisan itself comes with sheets of fun little paper inserts, but I printed several screenshots from The Life Aquatic and cycle through them. Currently I have an image of Steve pointing, which is iconic, but my favorite is a closeup of Willem DaFoe wearing the red beanie that the crew in the film are never seen without. Secondly, I use an artisan created to be used with the Vinyl set I mention above, a 1u turntable artisan from Keybay.tech in dusty tan, with interchangeable records! It is flat out adorable, and comes with a black, red and yellow record that can be swapped out by removing and replacing a tiny black tonearm.