Like you, I use a keyboard every day. The computer is essential and ubiquitous, and the keyboard is where it touches our bodies – where we interact. I love my MacBook Pro. It’s fast, light, clean, portable. Jony Ive has created the most beautiful, functional design object imaginable and I am entirely unaware of the keyboard. It’s a transparent, neutral input device. But it doesn’t inspire, it doesn’t delight, and surely I deserve better?
I can’t remember where I first read that gamers had started customising keyboards. They looked horrible. All brightly coloured neon and bizarre custom lettering on the keycap (the bit you have to press). But on older “mechanical” keyboards you can snap out the individual “switch” – the mechanism under each key – and replace it. The geeks talked in arcane slang about the characteristics of individual replacements: “clicky”, “linear” or “tactile”. Each individual keycap can be snapped into place with a custom-cut Neoprene buffer and then hand-lubricated to reduce friction, leaving you with a keyboard that is tailored to your exact typing style – or, perhaps more accurately, your own aesthetic preferences around sound and touch.
A custom CNC-ed case with a Topre keyboard © Matilda Hill-Jenkins
