In 2023, AiheyStudio was still very new.
We were making keycap designs, talking directly with keyboard enthusiasts, testing ideas through interest checks, and trying to understand what kind of studio we wanted to become.
Then something happened that we did not expect: our story became part of a feature by Sixth Tone.
AiheyStudio was featured in “Click-Clack Chic”
On August 6, 2023, Sixth Tone published Click-Clack Chic: The Art of Building the Perfect Keyboard, a story about the growing custom keyboard scene in China.
The article looked at why people were becoming interested in custom keyboards, how enthusiasts choose cases, switches, layouts and keycaps, and why small design studios had become such an important part of the community.
It also talked about the way many keyboard products begin with an interest check rather than a traditional mass-production plan. Designers share an idea, people react to it, feedback comes in, and only then does the product move closer to production.
That part felt very familiar to us.
We were still figuring things out
At that stage, AiheyStudio was not an established brand with a long catalog or a fixed way of doing things.
We were a small team trying to turn design ideas into real products without losing the part that made the hobby interesting in the first place.
One of the things Sixth Tone captured well was the relationship between designers and customers in the custom keyboard community. The distance between the two sides can be surprisingly small.
People do not just buy a finished product and disappear. They comment on early designs, point out layout problems, suggest changes, ask for different colorways, and sometimes stay around long enough to become part of the community itself.
The article noted that some of our earliest supporters even volunteered to help manage fan group chats. That detail still means a lot to us, because it reflects what those early days actually felt like: small, direct, and very personal.
The feature was less about publicity and more about recognition
Being included in a media feature was exciting, of course, but the part we remember most is not simply seeing our name in an article.
It was the feeling that this small corner of design culture was being taken seriously.
Custom keyboards can look like a niche hobby from the outside. But for the people inside it, the details matter: the sound, the feel, the layout, the profile of the keycaps, the way colors work together, and the satisfaction of building something that does not look exactly like everyone else’s.
Sixth Tone’s article treated that interest as a form of self-expression rather than just a hardware trend. That was close to how we saw it too.
At the end of the interview, one line from our side was simple: “We just hope to keep doing what we love.”
Looking back, that probably describes our mindset at the time better than any polished brand statement could have.
A lot has changed since 2023
Since then, AiheyStudio has grown far beyond those early experiments.
We have worked on full PBT keycap sets, artisan keycaps, complete keyboards and themed collections inspired by games, anime, art, films and original ideas.
Some designs stayed close to their first draft. Others went through two or three revisions because customers pointed out something we had not noticed.
Some early products disappeared. Others became long-running series. A few ideas that started as interest checks became products that people still ask us about years later.
The process is more mature now, but the part we value most has not changed very much: we still like making things around themes we genuinely enjoy, and we still pay attention when people tell us what worked and what did not.
Looking back, this was one of our first small milestones
At the time, we did not know what AiheyStudio would become.
We only knew that people were responding to the work, and that gave us enough confidence to keep going.
That is why we wanted to keep this article on our site instead of leaving it as a one-line announcement.
The Sixth Tone feature is part of our early history. It reminds us of the period when every new design felt uncertain, every piece of feedback mattered, and every returning customer made the studio feel a little more real.
If you are curious about that moment, you can read the original feature here:
Sixth Tone — Click-Clack Chic: The Art of Building the Perfect Keyboard
And to the people who were there early
Thank you.
Some of you bought our first designs. Some left suggestions during the IC stage. Some joined the group chats. Some recommended us to friends. Some simply followed along while we tried to figure things out.
Those small forms of support mattered more than they probably looked from the outside.
We are still here, still designing, and still trying to make things we would want to put on our own desks.