7 minutes
Refine any software that’s been done.
I need to share a refined assignment from class.
+then 3 minutes about the future. (doesn’t have to be a clock)
Attentive audience.
Critique = what are the underlying assumptions.
Watch Face Design
A watch needs to be designed under constraints that call for interesting solutions.
Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte Book Reccomendation
Chapter 4, about Small multiples: it can really work to present the same thing over and over again.
There’s a couple iconic symbols - smiley face and time that can be drawn with
What are the differences between clocks and watches? They’re mostly mechanical, instead of Escapment is the timekeeper, everything else is implemented by gears. Consider also hierarchy of information - the thing that needs the most precision is the finer one, in the case of the seconds pointer for a typical watch face.
Jumps vs Continuous: Seconds move along a tract continuously, however a date complication needs to jump forward at midnight. Everything that is done digitally or with a quartz, has a mechanical version of it.
Perpetual Calendar Complication: Have a mechanical computer inside; know difference between 28, 30 and 31 day months; which years are leap years and I believe you rewind them in 2100, for example. There’s a designer who did one using just 12 parts instead of Rolex’s 300.
Ian: “Diving Watch implies someone was designing around the fact you won’t have all your capacities.” Also mentioned a watch that’s more intense in the daytime versus in the night time. Dive Watches came from the Navy and Pilot Watches.
California Dial on a Rolex Oyster Perpetual: Watch repairers are often in California and they would mix and match roman and arabic numerals.
Skeuomorphic Design: Essentially what the Apple Watch does by basing their design on an actual watch with elements that have no choice but to exist in a wrist watch or clock.
Reverse Skeuomorphic: Actual clocks that look like something else.
Questions that arose during lecture
- How have the dissapearance of watches and their faces meant that seconds lost importance? What is worthwhile timing - heart rate
- Would be interesting to see the popularity of the date complication. During class, I was very surprised that there were some people - perhaps 5 years my senior - who hadn’t seen a date complication. Makes me wonder if there’s a cultural or policy difference between US and Portugal that made me be in a lot more contact with watches.
Interesting watches to reference
- Devon Thread 1
- Watch where the pointers stretch.
- Something that moves back to reset is called a ….
Keywords
- Counterweight for the seconds pointer, to act as a counterbalance