[sdiy] Designing front panels for synths

[David G Dixon]

Think back to all the classic synths of the past.  They all, almost without
exception, involved plain text labels of control elements, and maybe one
little logo somewhere, on a monochrome background.  Some of them are even
classics, such as the Minimoog panel.  ARP raised the game with their
black-and-orange scheme, which still looks fantastic.  Up until just
recently (last 5 years or so), the best-selling synth modules were, again,
plain text on plain monochrome backgrounds, with perhaps some colour
highlights to accentuate function (MOTM, Doepfer, Intellijel, Dotcom, etc),
and there are countless examples of people complaining on Muff Wiggler about
the general illegibility or unintelligibility of some more "artistic"
panels.

In my view, what people want the most is a panel that clearly lays out where
the controls are and what they do.  There's nothing "nightmarish" about
that.

Placement of controls is another issue, and there has been a general trend
towards cramping and feature-creep of late.


-----Original Message-----
From: Synth-diy [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org] On Behalf Of
Gordonjcp
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 12:39 PM
To: synth-diy at synth-diy.org
Subject: [sdiy] Designing front panels for synths

[CAUTION: Non-UBC Email]

No, no, not whether you should use Inkscape or Excel or some CAD package,
actually designing them so they look good.

There's got to be some overlap on this list with people skilled in the
visual arts.  How do you lay out the controls, connectors etc. on a panel so
they look good, and don't look like the nightmarish "designed by engineer"
crap that a lot of stuff seems to be?

I'm guessing there's some simple but non-obvious principles at work that
could be explained if you could get past all the forum discussion of whether
toner transfer is better than photoresist or Eagle is better than
Illustrator or whatever.

--
Gordonjcp
_______________________________________________
Synth-diy mailing list
Synth-diy at synth-diy.org
http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy