Nephlock

I started designing keycaps as an outlet for my creativity. At the time I was full-swing into my career as a creative director for a global company, which ironically came with more meetings and management than anything else. I needed a bit of an escape. One of my current hobbies at the time was building keyboards. I'd fallen in love with how unique and personalized you could make them, and the fairly recent trend of custom colored keycaps and group-buys. 

I got to work designing my first set. I wanted something that felt timeless, but that had the ability to be loud if you wanted it to. I had a good idea down, it felt fresh and unique, and I worked up the courage to post about it. I posted in a few discord servers to see how people responded, but it didn't really garner much comment. Dissuaded from the whole venture I shelved it and just went back to enjoying keyboards as I had done prior. 

Almost a year later I showed a few keyboard friends, and they were confused on why I hadn't pursued it further onto GeekHack. They gave me some nudges, and I decided to call the set Metropolis. 

Metropolis would go on to introduce me to Mike Sickler and his company, NovelKeys—A small boutique keyboard supply company that had just barely started doing keycap group-buys. Through their partnership, we launched GMK Metropolis.

Metropolis ended up selling fantastically. Breaking records in fact. But all of that pales to the friendship and camaraderie I crafted with Mike. One that would eventually lead to where I am today—Creative Director and a co-owner of NovelKeys. My livelihood and working energy is fully committed to keyboards, keycaps, and everything in between. Having good products means having good business partners, and GMK takes the cake. I've designed a plethora of keycap sets since Metropolis, and every time I get a wild idea GMK has been there to help turn it into a reality.