Garden40 Concept Keyboard
As part of the Keycraft Collective Spring Design Jam, I decided to design a keyboard inspired by indoor plant life. The prompt for the design jam was to create a design for something keyboard related inspired by springtime. My mind immediately went to plants and the fresh greenery that comes with spring. Knowing many people enjoy having small plants in their work area, I thought it would be fun to pursue that relationship in a direct and literal way. The resulting design is a concept rendered in terracotta that features a split style keyboard with a prominent terrarium nested neatly between the two halves.
The final renders feature KAM Bouquet keycaps designed by Adobau Labs.
Ideating
Since the design jam lasted only one week, and I had limited time to dedicate to it, I used an abbreviated version of a standard design process. Knowing that I wanted to design a keyboard and setting aside some ideas based on puns for what other meanings of the word “spring” can be, I set to work ideating how to integrate some kind of planter with a keyboard.
I had already become fairly well acquainted with keyboard design practices over the previous year, so this gave me a great opportunity to experiment with what I had learned
Ideating before settling on a direction
Modeling
After settling on a design from the ideating phase, I went straight to CAD modeling with Fusion360. In order to meet the tight deadline for the design jam, I decided to forgo certain design considerations for manufacture or assembly, such as draft angles or tool accessibility, and instead focus on getting the look just right. While Fusion360 has a great render engine built in for most projects, It doesn’t do well with glass and transparency which is central to this design, so I knew I would need to move to another program for final renders.
Rendering
One I was happy with my model in Fusion, I moved to blender for rendering. I was familiar with Blender from previous art projects, but had never used it for product renders, so I was excited to learn how to make realistic textures to bring this design to life. Using a combination of purchased assets and some knowledge of the Cycles node-based render engine, I was able to achieve some textures I was really happy with. After some final touches and adjustments I was ready to make my final renders.
garden40
The garden40 concept keyboard is a new design meant to bring some green space to your desk. The split 40% style keyboard features an ergonomic angle, with a gap built in so that your wrists and shoulders won’t be stressed as you type. Filling the space between the two halves is a small terrarium, which is easily removable so that plants can be maintained away from sensitive electronics. With its keyed fitting the terrarium tucks neatly back into place with no fuss. The result is a beautiful and comforting statement piece for your desk.
