"Back when I was a bright eyed and spirited 22-year-old with plenty of time in my hands, I stumbled upon an Apple Extended Keyboard (AEK) II at a Salvation Army. Despite it looking beat-up, I thought it could be a cool weekend project to try to restore it. At first, the Orange Alps Switches were the most interesting to me, but as I spent more time tinkering with it, it was the keycaps that really grew on me. Though the keyboard hailed from the early 90s, there was something about the typeface, Univers 57 Oblique, that gave those keycaps a modern and inviting look. The balanced and versatile design of Univers brought a timeless charm to the design language that Apple adopted for their keyboards of that era. Soon enough, I found myself using different variations of Univers in all my school projects- presentations, reports, even the posters we created for the photography club. Like a favorite song on repeat, though, it eventually fell out of my rotation and into the recesses of my mind. Years passed and here I am, somehow landed a gig where I get to design keyboards for people. That rekindled my love for the AEK II and, of course, for Univers. It felt only natural to dedicate my debut project here to my first typographical love." - Jim
"From the outset, I had a very singular vision for what I wanted to achieve with Univers' sound and type feel. It needed to have a satisfying bottom out while achieving a clean and balanced sound signature. I did not want it to be muted by foam, nor did I want it to sound too hollow. I also have a particular distaste for keyboards that started the arms race to achieve peak 'flex'. It got to the point where plates and PCBs started to look like they got pushed through a cheesegrater. These often came at the expense of actual user experience, sacrificing sound and feel for those few glamorous seconds you see it happen on a youtube video. Fortunately, the pendulum seems to be swinging back in favor of a more balanced approach in recent years. Back to Univers. We iterated on case acoustics, played around with different tadpole hardnesses, and experimented with different plate materials. The choices made are very much a reflection of my personal preference. It's unapologetically what I like, and I hope it'll be enjoyable for you too." - Jim
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