The Lengths We Went to for a Little Moonlight

The making of Air75 V3 Moonbow Edition

A little moonlight on your desk

Light gathers beneath the frosted keys. Soft white, a haze of color, the faint outline of a switch underneath.

This was the glow we kept coming back to. Getting there took us deep inside the keyboard.Finding the right haze. We began with the keycaps.

We tried a clear finish like the one on Air75 HE. Light came through brilliantly, catching the edges and revealing everything underneath. It had an energy of its own. For Moonbow, we wanted something quieter.

Shine-through legends gave us another direction. They were easy to read and practical enough to become a separate keycap offering. But we kept imagining that glow spreading across the entire keyboard.

The frosted finish finally gave us that feeling. It softened the light and gently blurred the shapes beneath it. There was a little mystery to it, even up close.

We had found our moonlight.

Beneath the frost

Then we put the keycaps on the switches.

Through the frost, the colored stems of our regular Nano switches were clearly visible. Little patches of color interrupted the pale surface we had worked so hard to create.

Making a switch specifically for a limited-edition keyboard was a considerable commitment. Colors, materials, the way each part looked through the keycap—everything would need another round of work. There would be a limited run over which to spread that effort.

We kept thinking about the finished keyboard. We wanted to see it through.

That became Blush Nano Glint Edition.

We gave it an all-white appearance and a new material for the upper housing, with fine glitter added to catch the light. Beneath the frosted keycaps, those tiny glints added another layer to the glow.

Its familiar Blush Nano feel stayed exactly as it was.

The white underneath

With the switches in place, the next details became impossible to overlook.

The colored stabilizers showed through beneath the larger keys. The cream-colored plate added a tint of its own. Through these keycaps, the inside of the keyboard was part of its appearance.

We revisited the visible components, customizing them in white to sit comfortably together beneath the frost.

Piece by piece, the stray colors disappeared. The keys, switches and the spaces between them began to share the same pale glow.

A surprising amount of Moonbow lives underneath its keycaps.

Letters in the light

We spent a long time looking at the legends.

Black was easier to read. It also drew the eye straight to the lettering. White belonged to the keyboard we had imagined, though it needed more presence against the frosted surface.

We redrew the lettering and symbols, making them larger and giving the strokes more weight. We kept working on their proportions, looking for enough definition to read at a glance while keeping the lightness we loved.

The final legends are white. They sit gently within the design, with a little more substance to help them hold their own.

A little room to play

Once we had this much light to play with, ideas kept coming.

NuPhy Lab gave us somewhere to try them. A game of Snake across the keys. A Pomodoro timer you could follow in light. Small diversions and useful little companions for the hours spent at a desk. An idea from our community led us to add lighting for Codex activity, too—a way to keep an eye on its progress through the keyboard.

We love that part: someone sees a possibility in a product, shares it, and gives us a new reason to keep exploring.

Yours to enjoy

We put a great deal of ourselves into this small patch of moonlight: the haze of a keycap, a glint inside a switch, the weight of a white letter. Now we get to see what you do with it.

Choose a color. Play a quick game. Find a light that feels right for your desk. Making things like this is a large part of why NuPhy exists. We enjoy the work, we care about the details, and we hope some of that enjoyment finds its way into your day.