A watch is not only used by a wearer to tell time but to tell others as well. Design studio Maezm’s new concept watch makes that practice of sharing even more convenient by changing the placement of the watch display by 90 degrees so you can share more easily. You can achieve the same result with the ‘Skew’ by Ross Mcbride (link)

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Maezm (via Designboom)

Burberry has launched a limited edition set for men and women this fall. The ladies watch is limited to 50 units and will retail at 800 USD, whereas, the men’s is limited to 60 units and will be sold at 1265 USD. I like both of them, though i think they should’ve made them part of their permanent collection.

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Burberry (via Trend Hunter)

Now imagine if you’re automotive designers Andy Shaw and Robert Silkstone and you decided to develop your own range of watches? And why not? Watch brands have for decades associated themselves with cars and if they could do it,so could you. And even better, you would go one step further, you would create these watches using your ‘automotive engineering methods’ and intensive manufacturing techniques like spark erosion and wire-EDM machining combined with laser engraving to create something … ordinary? I doubt you would, but their two debut models, Britannic and Vanguard-Precision don’t look too impressive especially since they are priced at $8000 USD.

Wisely, the designers have limited their collection to an edition of 15 units. No idea if it is a mechanical or a quartz.

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Born Rich: Horology gets an automative touch

This has already made the rounds on the blogs so I’m a little late to this, but Marc Ecko/Timex may be doing a Star Wars collaboration for the 2009 Holiday season. Since it’s mid October, I would’ve imagined it would be out now.

On a side note: I’ve been following on Timex’s initiative to go high-end and I noticed on one of the posts regarding the Star Wars collaboration that Stephen Scholz was now the Global Brand Director for Timex. I remember him as the Brand Manager for Ecko watches at Callanen back in 2005 before Timex purchased the company (Callanen and not Marc Ecko). This is significant because it shows how much of an influence Callanen’s culture of branding is having at Timex.

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Marc Ecko Blog

Sol by Shin Azumi

Untrod is a mysterious project (Mysterious because I couldn’t find a link for it anywhere) that collaborates with international designers on various project themes. Coincidently the first theme is about watches.

For the project, designers were asked to investigate the possibility of bringing new meanings to the conventional form of a watch. Below are some of the design concepts and I hope to dig up all of them:

The Sol, pictured above, is a solar powered watch that features the cell technology on the face instead of disguising it. (I’ve done a similar design myself minus the solar technology part)

Ororon by Fumie Shibata

The Ororon does a simple improvement. The strap on this watch fastens on the case itself. Unfortunately, they didn’t work around the problem of adjusting it for different wrists thus rendering it obsolete commercially.

Analarm By Industrial Facility

I like the name of this one – It’s called the Analarm and it’s by industrial facility (They previous did a watch for Seiko Instruments – See link). The watch is inspired by the alarm clock with the exception that the sound is replaced by a vibrator that indicates when the alarm is activated. I like how it sets the alarm – You have to keep the alarm button pressed while moving the hands to the desired time and then release the button. Simple.

Skew by Ross Mcbride

Madokadoke by Ross Mcbride

Duo by Ross Mcbride

The last three are all done by Ross Mcbride who incidently runs his own little wristwatch brand called ‘Normal’. The first one is called the Skew. It allows the wearer to adjust the case so it can be adjusted to your ideal viewing angle.

The second one is the most impressive. It’s called the Madokadoke and it is a bracelet that camouflages the buttons and the presence of the watch except when the digits appear to tell you the time. This concept has been done before by Hiranao Tsuboi but it was definately not as sexy in it’s execution.

Finally, the last one is called the Duo. It’s a dual time watch where the crown is concealed under a silicon flap.

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Designboom: untrod: watch designs

Pardon the title of this entry, it’s a reference to a hilarious internet meme. Anyway, Recession has been good for Timex. Marc Ecko, having incurred $170 million in debt, moved out of his $9 million office and sold his brand’s wristwatch license to Timex’s subsidiary, Callanen International.

This move was further encouraged by Callanen’s previous experience with Guess where Fossil tried to snatch the license away from them.

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Ecko puts his HQ on market

When I was a kid, there used to be a popular desk clock where the digits would appear on a see-through screen. Nooka brings back that technology for it’s latest Zaz model.

The luxury model uses the ZENV movement which means the first two bars indicate the hours, the third one represents the minutes. The RRP is 395 USD.

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Nooka Zaz

Jason Ice

The Braun – DZ7080

by Adnan Arif

I’ve always had an affinity for Diesel watches so I could not believe my good luck that I was able to put a face to some of my favorite designs when I recently came across Jason Ice. Jason nests at Fossil and designs for the Diesel license. He was kind enough to talk to me about his work:

Wrist: Part of Diesel’s appeal is that their designs are fresh in an industry where most brands are watered down licenses that play it safe. Most of the more interesting work done in the fashion watch field was back in the early period with Lip, Pierre Cardin and others. What is your take on it?

Jason: For the history of fashion wristwatches… I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s a back and forth between high end watches and fashion watches. The trick with fashion watches is making a cool product that everyone can afford, all the while having an appeal that makes someone walk by and be like… I gotta get that watch, it’s so cool. I think that is something that luxury wristwatches does, it’s just on a luxury level… does that make sense? Some of my favorite “luxury fashion” watches are from Corum and U Boat.

For Diesel… I am sure to any fan of wristwatches, you can see the influence of watch design from the past. In Diesel, we try to do what LIP did back in their heyday. Be unique. Be different. Let the design speak for itself. People gravitate to what we do in Diesel because most of what we do in a Diesel watch, is something very unexpected!

Wrist: How did you get into watches?

Jason: I got into designing watches by being at the right place at the right time. I was doing a production job at Fossil, assisting the graphics group. I was sitting in the break room one day sketching some of my graffiti style characters and a guy from the product design group saw my sketches.

He asked me if I could draw watches. I told him, I didn’t know but I’d give it a try. So, I did a test project, he dug it… and I have been doing watches for the past 9 years now… haha… Never thought I’d be designing wristwatches.
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