We met designer ArqKeebs in the previous Studio Story for DCD Bird Jungle. Now, let’s learn a little more about the keycap set itself—how Arq pulls inspiration from the real world and creates unique and compelling designs based on various source materials.  ​Clearly birds are a common theme between your most recent set and the Bird Jungle keycap set; have you always been interested in ornithology, or was that a more recent interest? Is there anything in particular that draws you to birds over other inspiration? Honestly it's something recent. After seeing the Hyacinth macaw everything changed. I never paid attention to birds before. It's like when you see something once then see it everywhere. People need to take 5 minutes just to google up some birds. There are some wild and just stunning birds. Their colors are truly wonderful.  Side question as a board game fan—have you ever played Wingspan? If so, does that inspire you with its artwork and design choices? I didn't...

ArqKeebs has been around in the mechanical keyboard hobby for some time now, and has taken an impressive number of keycap sets from idea to fruition over that time. It would seem that the only thing he hasn’t done until now is introduce himself to the Drop community!  So, we wanted to help get that out of the way with some questions for Arq, starting with who he is and what he’s all about (an interview more specific to the DCD Bird Jungle keycap set and his design process is coming in the next Story). Thank you to Arq for letting us peek behind the curtain!  Render created by Bingo. Model created by werk.technica. We’ll start easy—tell us a bit about yourself and your history, mech keys related or not. Where are you from, what is your day job (if applicable), what are your other hobbies and interests outside of keyboards? My name is David, but everyone calls me Arq. I was born in Peru, but I came to New York City when I was thirteen. I graduated a bit over 2 years ago...

My grandpa was a truck driver for 40 years, and in that time he used two thermoses. I own them both, and the smaller of the two, which was clearly used on hundreds of runs, has a scratched and faded line of text below the label that reads “Thermal Efficiency guaranteed 5 years.” It might as well have said “105 years” because it works as well today as the day he bought it. That thermos is incredibly well designed, well made, and I assume it will work for another 50 years unless something drastic happens to it. You’ll often hear people say “they don’t make things like they used to” and in my experience, that’s largely true. Products in the past were often made with longevity in mind, and to be honest, it was easier to build them so sturdy back then. Tools weren’t computerized, the parts weren’t as tiny, and the types of metal and plastic they were made from were costly and often machined with a human involved in the process. I adore technology and surround my desktop space...

Figure 1: While this is a good start from user destohfaeda, this isn't anywhere near complete... After having collected switches for almost five consecutive years now, I can say with confidence that everything switch related comes and goes in ever-looping cycles. Strong tactile bumps towards the start of the downstroke were once novel and popular, faded out of the limelight over the past few years, and are only just now starting to make a comeback. Huge leaps in housing aesthetics happened back when the first custom colored MX-style switches began being offered in 2018, and now five years later these massive leaps in design capabilities are surging again. Even things contextually related to switches rotate around and around in cycles. One such switch-related phenomenon which repeats in a (much faster) loop is that of people wanting to make a complete list of “every switch ever”. Almost on a monthly basis for every single month since I started collecting, at least one new...