Why? Well, I really admire Jonas Heitala's documentation of his journey to find a layout that fit his aesthetic: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/02/i_designed_my_ow... . My layout isn't as extreme, it's still qwerty-ish, but I've been heavily inspired by his thorough analysis.
Here's one typical qwerty-ish layout for 42 keys: https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layo...
And for something more weird but still fully featured, Miryoku is a fairly common micro-keyboard layout, https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku .
Why? Well, I really admire Jonas Heitala's documentation of his journey to find a layout that fit his aesthetic: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/02/i_designed_my_ow... . My layout isn't as extreme, it's still qwerty-ish, but I've been heavily inspired by his thorough analysis.