Designer Studio Graphite Gold Switch Review

When I sit down to write these reviews every other week, time often sporadically catches up to me right at the point when I start to first put words down onto the page. With this pre-introduction section often revolving around my personal life, keyboards acquired, or just whatever mad ramblings I’ve stumbled upon in the past few weeks, I have to seriously take a moment or two to think about what the hell has actually happened in that stretch of time. This review, in particular, was especially bad as I had a prolonged existential consideration when I came to realize that we’re already well past the halfway point of 2022 and are almost into July. To be honest, I feel as if I may still be mentally caught in COVID time as this year has hardly felt real and instead could be much more easily explained by a post-food coma dream that I’m starting to wake up from. Perhaps I’m finally just getting too old.

All jokes aside, over the past month or so of content and reviews, I’ve actually been quite busy behind the scenes working on additional documentation that many of you may have already seen. In case you’ve not seen such already, or perhaps you are new here, I recently acquired a professional, laboratory grade force curve machine and have spent many a late-night getting documents and data to populate my new Force Curve Repository on Github. Additionally, I’m also pushing many of these same samples through my caliper-based measurement sheet in order to further expand that data set alongside the force curve machine. While both of these measurement setups are both well integrated into my reviews, with 137 switches measured with calipers and 70 force curve documents prepared as of the writing of this review, there’s an insane amount of content you’re missing out on if you’ve not visited these documents yet. Even though I have no explicit plans regarding upload schedule or milestones for these measurement documentation projects, know that I have the expectation to add several dozen more to each by the end of the summer, so you should check back frequently to catch my latest updates.

Switch Background

Thus far throughout 2022, I’ve maintained pretty strongly that Gateron and Kailh have sort of ‘taken the year’ with respect to the switch designs that they’ve put out. Whereas previous years may have been more populated with Durock/JWK or Tecsee as large brands that everyone is wanting to collaborate with on new switch designs, the sheer amount of reviews and scorecards I’ve done for Gateron and Kailh this year pretty well speaks to the innovation and interesting designs that they’ve pushed out so far. However, I know that I have caveated this claim of 2022 being the year of Gateron/Kailh dominance before as having been one that is incredibly western focused and not necessarily representative of the entirety of the switches being produced across the entirety of the world.

**Figure 2:** I’m sure TTC, in particular, would love a word with me regarding this claim.

In fact, there is one trend in switch releases from this year that is certainly a worthwhile contender to the Gateron/Kailh dominance narrative and that I’ve not previously touched upon in great deal – switch ‘designers’. Whereas many people simply contend to link switches released to the manufacturing facility from which they came, regardless of the exclusivity of their design or sales with respect to a particular vendor, throughout 2022 we’ve begun to see the rise of individuals who are designing series of switches exploring certain design features from a single manufacturer. A rather historically relevant example of one such ‘designer’ is that of Zeal. Rather than referring to Clickiez or everyone’s favorite purple tactiles as ‘Gateron’ switches, people almost exclusively refer to these switches by Zeal’s name as he is the designer of these switches working through Gateron. Whether or not this trend has been inspired by the prominence in the community which Zeal has garnered as a result of his designs, designer names such as 43Studio, QwertyQop, and Designer Studio have all taken on a similar sort of style throughout their various releases in 2022 thus far.

**Figure 3:** A Zeal family photo with some of these switches coming to a review near you soon…

While 43Studio is certainly the longest running and most well recognized of these three designer brands that I’ve introduced at the end of the last paragraph, their releases have certainly taken a new uptick since the start of 2022. Starting all the way back in the middle of 2020 with their well-received Opblack switches, 43Studio has released countless switches since which I’ve previously touched upon in my Obsidian Pro Switch Review, and appear to be actively still prototyping future switch designs. Additionally, while not released to western audiences through any channels that I’m aware of, this designer has also released Obsidian SE and Obsidian-L switches in 2022 on top of the worldwide Obsidian Pro V2 release. Producing the entirety of their switches through Durock/JWK, 43Studio appears to lately be continuing along their ‘Obsidian’ line of switches after having previously explored the unique, mystery material of their milky top housings having previously been seen in Opblack and Popu switches.

**Figure 4:** 43Studio family photo featuring some of their switches including an unreleased pink prototype, Popu, Obsidian Pro, and Opblack switches.

To be entirely honest, I hesitated a bit in putting QwertyQop’s name up here amongst this list of rising designers as they are most definitely more of a vendor than actual designer of switches. That being said, though, the switches that they have debuted in the Quartz, Musetsu, and Hoshizora switches form a hell of a resume to stack up regardless of whether you are a vendor or a switch designer. All being manufactured by Durock/JWK, this Singaporean vendor/designer appears to really be squeezing the most out of a company that many people in the west have considered to be ‘old news’. From the use of unique material combinations to the first non-Kailh conical spring designs, these switches have me paying super close attention to what QwertyQop is releasing, and it should certainly keep you interested as well.

**Figure 5:** QwertyQop family photo featuring Hoshizora, Musetsu, and Quartz V2 switches.

The youngest of three switch designers which I’ve introduced here, Designer Studio is a brand which first made their western debut around December of 2021 by way of their Discord server. While more formal interest checks on Geekhack established this brand in January of 2022, the implications of several statements in the Discord server point to the brand being present in the east before either of these introductory dates. Releasing switches exclusively from Durock/JWK, Designer Studio appears to be focused on exploring proprietary material blends from Durock/JWK such as G1, P3, and LY in their various switch releases to date. In order of release, the first two switches to present around January of 2022 were that of the White Jades, which were long pole, mundane tactile switches and the Graphite Golds, which were linears featuring ‘G1’ material stems. G1, according to their marketing, is a mixture of several different materials “like Pom, UPE, paraffin, etc (Ratio ≈ 1:1:1)”. Their third switch release came about in March of 2022 by way of the Starry switches, which were linear switches featuring a mixed “High Polymer” top housing and a ‘P3’ stem comprised of “upe, etc.” The fourth switch by Designer Studio was that of their Taoyao or Peach Blossom switches, again playing up an improvement the G1 material design for their stem designs. The fifth and latest of the Designer Studio switches to be announced at the end of April, 2022 is a linear collaboration with Zero-G Studio’s Domikey Midnight keycaps in the form of the ‘Midnight’ switches. Featuring ‘LY’ stems “mainly composed of UPE”, this is the fourth unique material blend which Designer Studio has explored all within the span of just 6 month’s time.

**Figure 6:** Designer Studio family photo featuring White Jade, Graphite Gold, Starry, and Taoyao switches.

Of the switches announced and released thus far by Designer Studio, this review will primarily focus on that of their first linear release in the Graphite Golds. While this is partly due to my wonderful sponsor in MechMods UK being willing to send a pretty sizeable batch my way to test out, part of it is due to the interesting pitch in this ‘G1’ stem material. Supposedly being a mix of “POM, UPE, Paraffin, etc.” in equal parts, this is among one of the latest and most convoluted blends of plastics to be marketed in switch components. Being exclusive to Designer Studio, the G1 stems in the Graphite Gold switches were housed in a fully nylon housing with a 63.5g bottom out long spring and standard Durock/JWK factory lubrication. Marketed between $0.75 and $0.85 per switch depending on where they were sourced from, at the time of writing this review the Graphite Gold switches were in stock through various worldwide vendors including Mech.Land, ShockPort, QwertyQop, MechMods UK, Thocc Supply, Squishy Types, and Homebru. While recent switch releases have added ThocKeys as a US-based vendor, all currently released Designer Studio switches are in stock and appear to have no plans for limited releases.

Graphite Gold Switch Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Designer Studio Graphite Gold switches come in an opaque gray over black housing scheme with a yellow-colored stem. Featuring no externally identifiable features such as a nameplate nor unique design features, the entirety of the differentiating factors of the switches come down to a mold-based level which will be discussed below. The housings are purportedly made entirely of nylon with the stem containing the Designer Studio-exclusive and proprietary G1 mixture. The springs are 18 mm. in length, gold in color, and rated for 63.5g of bottoming out force with a normal threading to them.

**Figure 7:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold switch and its components.

Looking first to the top housings of the Graphite Golds, they are relatively unadorned externally. Coming in four pin attachment style, the nameplate region is blank and the LED slot is a wide rectangle featuring a small, centralized circular divot to accommodate through-hole LEDs. Looking internally, there also does not appear to be much about the design of the top housings which is incredibly notable. While there are long, rectangular pads of different grain along the upper rim as well as a fairly standard narrowing of the slider rails towards the top, the most notable feature is that of the mold marking in the upper right-hand corner. Rather than featuring a sideways capital letter or single number as is often seen across many manufacturers in this location, the Graphite Golds feature a completely upside-down, double-digit mold marking which is indicative of a new set of molds, to the best of my current knowledge. Upon inspecting several switches, this mold marking number does not in any way appear to be correlated to the mold marking number on the bottom housing.

**Figure 8:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold top housing exterior showing blank nameplate and wide, rectangular LED slot.

**Figure 9:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold top housing interior showing fairly mundane internal structure typical of Durock/JWK switches.

**Figure 10:** Zoomed in photo of the upper right-hand side double digit mold marking in the Graphite Gold switch top housings.

Moving next to the stems of the Graphite Gold switches, they too appear fairly unadorned and rather in line with design expectations for Durock/JWK thus far. The stems feature a modestly tapered set of slider rails as well as a tiered central pole as is commonly seen in many Durock/JWK linears. Billed as being ‘long poled’, the stem length measures in at 12.81 mm which is the fifteenth longest Durock/JWK-made stem which I’ve measured as a result of my Measurement Sheet efforts, and is only 0.21 mm above the average length of the 48 switches I’ve measured from them as of the time of writing this review. The one uniquely interesting mold feature of these stems, though, is that the mold ejector circles which are medium in size are located on the backplate of the stem rather than the frontplate just above the slider rails. As well, it may be worth noting that the stems feel more slippery than many other switch stems that I’ve tried. While this could easily be chalked up to the fact that they are factory lubed, even after thorough cleaning they still remain slick to the touch, indicating either a unique feeling for the G1 material or an increased ability to adhere/adsorb lubricants.

**Figure 11:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold stem wide shot showing tapered slider rail, tiered central pole, and backplate ejector circles.

Finally arriving at the bottom housings of the Graphite Golds, there is marginally more interesting features to mention than in the previous two switch components. Internally, the bottom housings have a set of 10 mold ejector marks located along the upper ring with four along both East and West sides as well as singular circles on the North and South tabs as well. Internally, the bottom housings feature bottoming out dampeners in the shape of ‘b’s and ‘d’s as has been occasionally seen before in Durock/JWK switches. Externally, the bottom housings are five-pin in nature and feature a double-digit mold marking located in the bottom right-hand corner which is associated strongly with Durock/JWK. One interesting point worth noting here that I haven’t noticed prior is that the ‘8’ in the mold marking photo below in Figure 13 appears upside-down relative to that of the ‘1’ beside it.

**Figure 12:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold bottom housing internals showing 10 mold ejector circles on upper rim and padded bottoming out regions.

**Figure 13:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold bottom housing externals showing PCB mounting pins as well as double digit mold marking in bottom right-hand corner.

Push Feel

For being the first linear switch designed and released by Designer Studio, the Graphite Gold switches are broadly good in their performance regarding the push feel but far from the absolute cutting edge of what Durock/JWK is capable of manufacturing. Across the entirety of the batch that I received, there is a rather consistent smoothness that is light insofar that it is not ‘overwhelmingly’ smooth while still providing a bit of the character of the switch in the stroke. To provide context, I would compare this smoothness to that of a light aftermarket lubrication with a thinner lubricant. While I personally am much more of a fan of this type of smoothness as it still gives the switches a bit of uniqueness and helps distinguish them amongst the sea of other switches out there, some may read into this as very, very lightly scratchy when trying it out for themselves.

Regarding the housing collisions, the Graphite Golds aren’t exactly the best balanced and definitely don’t strike me as being entirely nylon. The bottoming outs are rather firm and muted, though the topping outs are a bit thin especially at higher activation speeds. While a difference in mechanical thickness between collision points at bottoming out and topping out could very easily explain the slightly sharper topping out, it definitely feels a bit thin for what one would expect in a nylon housing. Overall though, this is still quite far from the jarring transition between housing collisions that is emblematic of housing combinations such as polycarbonate over nylon.

An additional feature worth discussing here prior to looking at the force curve for the Graphite Golds, which can be found below in Figure 14, is that of the slight ‘step’ in force into the downstroke and upstroke that you may see in the curve. While it is somewhat possible to access this feeling by sitting one’s fingers on top of tall caps and extremely lightly rocking up and down, this feature is entirely unnoticeable under normal typing conditions and can not be felt whatsoever even when trying to look for such. The origin of this feature, however, still remains a mystery to me as of the time of writing this.

**Figure 14:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold force curve diagram.

Sound

Much like in the previous section on push feeling, the Designer Studio Graphite Golds also finely walk the line between scratch and no-scratch in sound as well. Whereas I may have given the benefit of the doubt to switch character in their push feeling, I am more inclined to say that the Graphite Golds sound slightly scratchy in stock form. While very much subtle and not necessarily present uniformly across the entirety of the batch that I received, I could imagine that in a completed build this might be noticeable in a very similar way to a smooth-in-hand linear such as BSUN’s EMTs.

As for the housing collisions of the Graphite Golds, they are a fairly spot on match to that of the push feeling notes above. The bottoming out is almost unnoticeable, carrying a very muted tone without much bass to it whereas the topping out is a bit pointed. At higher activation speeds, and perhaps in keyboard cases which maximize the sound of switches, this increase in volume at topping out will probably be much more noticeable than they are when testing them in hand. Overall though, I do want to emphasize again that this increase in volume and sharpness isn’t nearly to the same extremity that thinner material top housings such as polycarbonate have.

Wobble

Regarding stem wobble, the Designer Studio Graphite Golds pack a fairly expected amount of N/S and E/W wobble for being designed by Durock/JWK. With much more of an emphasis in the N/S direction than the E/W one, the wobble is noticeable but not likely bothersome to users unless they have a particularly high sensitivity to wobble or are using keycaps which maximize the effect. This was consistent across the batch of switches which I received, as well as an absence in top housing wobble.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

**Figure 16:** Designer Studio Graphite Gold ‘butterfly style’ force curve diagram.

**Figure 17:** Numerical details regarding the stock Designer Studio Graphite Gold force curve diagram.

The latest in the content-adjacent work that I’ve picked up, the new ‘Force Curve Repository’ is now hosted on GitHub alongside the Scorecard Repository and contains all force curves that I make both within and outside of reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for each switch to use as you please. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- In line with most other break in notes which I’ve completed, at 17,000 actuations there is a noticeable uptick in both N/S and E/W direction stem wobble. Unlike the majority of those other tests, though, this appears to remain relatively constant with longer actuation times for the Graphite Gold switches.

- One interesting development at this stage of actuations is that the topping out sharpness actually appears to decrease in intensity and volume, ever so slightly. How exactly this occurs is beyond me, though I could offer up lube migration as one potentially explanatory rationale.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, I can’t help but recognize how odd the evolution of these switches begins to get. While there is still that previously noted improvement to the sound and feeling of the topping out, there is a significantly greater presence of scratch than at either 17,000 or 51,000 actuations. Why this is the case is completely beyond me, though I’d be willing to consider it potentially batch-to-batch variability in my testing even though this wasn’t noticed much in stock form.

51,000 Actuations

- At 51,000 actuations, the overall push feeling improves both with respect to smoothness as well as the topping out. The improvement with usage is something that was reported to be a design feature of the G1 stems, though it doesn’t appear to demonstrably show this to me until at least this far in break-in testing.

- The same issues with respect to the scratchiness of the sound, however, still remains this far out and likely will persist beyond this many actuations unless the switches have some sort of aftermarket modification made to them.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Graphite Golds side by side.)

Novelkeys Cream Arc

- The Novelkeys Cream Arcs have ever so slightly less stem wobble than the Graphite Golds in the N/S direction and significantly less wobble in the E/W direction.

- The housing collisions, and especially that of the topping out, feel much more full bodied and firm in the Cream Arcs than in the Designer Studio Graphite Golds.

- In terms of overall volume, the Novelkeys Cream Arcs are slightly louder at higher activation speeds than the Graphite Golds, and also have much more of a high-pitched undertone to them.

Obsidian Pro

- In terms of both feeling and sound, the topping out of the Obsidian Pro and Graphite Gold switches are probably the most common out of any of the comparisons made on this list.

- Regarding the overall feeling of the switches, the Obsidian Pros feel much more thin and plasticky throughout the stroke than the Graphite Golds, which take on a comparatively much more thick and solid feeling to them.

- The stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W directions is fairly comparable between the two switches without either one being distinctly all that better than the other.

Invokeys Matcha Latte

- The factory lubricated Invokeys Matcha Lattes are by far significantly smoother than that of the Graphite Golds. That being said, though, the Matcha Lattes lose a lot of their ‘unique character’ underneath that amount of factory lubrication.

- There’s not much competition here in terms of stem wobble – the Matcha Lattes absolutely blow the Graphite Golds out of the water in both directions.

- While both have a bit thinner topping outs than bottoming outs, the Matcha Latte topping out is a bit more muted and dampened, which is likely a result of the factory lubrication if I had to guess.

Ajazz x Huano Peach

- The Ajazz x Huano Peach have a comparable amount of N/S stem wobble to the Graphite Golds but a tiny amount more in the E/W direction.

- Comparing the Peaches and the Graphite Golds side by side, there’s a comparable amount of smoothness between the two switches that is more similar than any other comparison on this list.

- While slightly thinner and more plasticky than the Designer Studio Graphite Golds, the housing collisions on the Ajazz x Huano Peaches are much more balanced.

Safety

- In terms of sound, the Safety switches are more scratchy than that of the Designer Studio Graphite Golds and also have a slightly greater prevalence of spring ping.

- The housing collisions of the Graphite Golds are much more deep and full-bodied feeling than that of the Safety switches.

- The Graphite Gold switches are far and away significantly better than the Safety switches in terms of stem wobble in both directions as well as consistency across a batch.

Gateron Box Ink Pink

- The housing collisions of the Box Ink Pinks are significantly more pointed and sharp than that of the Graphite Gold switches.

- The Gateron Box Ink Pinks have much less N/S and E/W stem wobble than the Designer Studio Graphite Golds.

- In terms of overall volume, the Gateron Box Ink Pinks are not only significantly louder but get increasingly loud by comparison at higher activation speeds.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.