[sdiy] Designing front panels for synths

[Oren Leavitt]

Here's a side by side of some old and new oscillator panels I've designed.

Mostly Sharpie pen, Dymo labeler and inkjet-on-peel-and-stick on my synth!

On 10/13/20 3:39 PM, David G Dixon wrote:
> 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
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