Imagine a clock that you can smash all you want and it won’t break. Keep Imagining because that clock doesn’t exist. However, Matthias Lange here, has come up with a prototype called ‘Smash’ that not only takes a beating but encourages you to by making it part of its interface. You have to punch it to stop it ringing.

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Matthias Lange

Thorunn Arnadottir’s bead clock is a necklace where each bead represents 5 minutes. The orange and red beads represent hours. As the wheel on which it rests, turns, one bead falls off thus counting the passing of time.

To tell the time, one has to count the beads and to help with that, Thorunn has a silver bead for midnight and a golden one for noon.

According to Thorunn, his prototype’s goal was to create a more ‘emotional’ perception of time and to take it further, you could express your freedom from time by removing the beads from the wheel, then in a symbolic gesture of defiance, he recommends you wear the necklace as a statement that you are in control of your minutes.

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Thorunn Design

The Minute Glass ia concept clock that requires no batteries or current. It wakes you up to your favorite radio station but it won’t shut off until you’ve shaken it until it has enough energy for it to wake you up the next day. With no snooze button, this really makes you to wake up.

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The Measure Time Wall Clock for ASKUL by taf

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Taf (via Pan dan)

Stanislav Katz’s Elegant Fan Clock unfolds between the hour and the minute hand.

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Stanislav Katz (via Industrial Design Served

Anthony Duffeleer’s Oclock.

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Bonluxat (via Pan Dan)

An Analog/Digital clock from Pinto showcased at the recent Tokyo design week.

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Pinto Design (viaDesignboom)

A clock shaped like a hour glass. The Red indicator line shows hours (bottom) and minutes (top).

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Kikkerland

Offbeat watches and clock spotted at Spring, a design gallery in NY.

Target (link)

Grandfather Clock (link)

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Spring!

Time telling products have always leveraged their production process as part of their storytelling in order to add an emotional value. Maria and Piotr from Gogo borrow this age old meme with a fresh approach – they made multiple clocks in a single length of raw pinewood with the intention of involving the customer in the process by making them hack their item from the log thus creating their personal touch and hopefully, some emotion attachment to the item.

Other Gogo Products:

Blow up is a perpetual calendar made from acrylic with embeded lenses that blow-up the current date.

Woodpecker – Clock with a woodpecker alarm

Tape – Perpetual Calendar made from aluminium frame and fabric belts.

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Gogo

Designer Mac Funamizu’s ‘Touch n Know The Time’ clock has triangles on the side of the shell that move so you can tell whether you have time left to sleep before the alarm rings. If they are close, you have to get out of bed real soon and if they are far apart, you have lots of time left. The clock was inspired by the alien bomb countdown in the movie “Independence Day”.

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Yanko: Moving Clock makes your eyes pop

In a bid to make timekeeping ‘interesting’, Inventor John Taylor has created a £1m mechanical clock called the “Time Eator” that has no hands or numbers. It features a giant grasshopper and has 60 slits cut on its face from where a light shows the time.

The Grasshopper is more than just a decoration. It moves around the clock, each step marking a second. Every time it moves, it triggers a blue flashing light that travels across the face until it stops at the current hour and minute. The clock is only accurate once every five minutes.

The Grasshopper metaphor was a tribute to English clockmaker Johan Harrison that had invented an internal mechanism that allowed the clock to move its gear at every swing of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. He had called it the grasshopper escapement. According to Dr. Taylor, he took that concept and turned the clock inside out so you could see the seconds being ‘eaten up by the grasshopper’.

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Hawking unveils ’strangest clock’ (via Projo)

A clever candle that marks the approximate time it would take for it to burn down.

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Candle Clock

Richard Mille was commissioned to create a pendulum clock to celebrate the 400 year anniversary of Quebec City.

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Richard Mille

Japanese Design collective, N.O.L have a thing for off beat clocks as you can see from the amount of concepts they’ve developed including two where they combined stools with clocks. The first concept is called the Tape Measure Clock that show the current time not only from the front but also from the side.

The Dim clock

The Dim clock indicates the time with LED behind the fabric.

Felt Clock and Stool

The Felt Clock and Stool is an unusual combination where the face of the stool can be reused as a clock.

ho.ta.ru

The ho.ta.ru stool makes a better combo because you can use it as a clock and as a seat. There is LED underneath the seat fabric that shows the time.

Split

The Split splits the two hands with one hand showing only the hour and the other, the minute.

Peep

And finally, N.O.L’s sole clock that has been released commercially – The Peep which hides the entire watch face except for the current time. You can buy one from here.

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Nol Design

Beautiful graphic design influenced Alarm Clock with mp3 player built in by Antrepo4. It comes in three color options – Pure Black, Clean White, Strong Metal.

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Antrepo4
a2591 blog (via Mocoloco)

Designer Ross McBride has always had this thing for clocks even though he isn’t from the watch and clock industry. Most of his work usually remains in the concept stage even though he has launched his own watch brand.

In the first of the three concepts, The Aitkenhead Clock features a clockface where the hour hand keeps time from the clock’s center while the minute hand orbits around. The minute hand is actually fixed to the surface which rotates.

The Sinking Clock

The Sinking Clock that appears to be lodged into your desk or your floor depending on where you use it.

The Wave Clock

And finally, the Wave clock which is part timepiece, and part kinetic sculpture. Its hands are ball bearings moved by magnets below the clock’s surface.

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Normal Design
Clocks need love too

Designer Naoki Terada’s Honoka clock for Lemnos. (via Mocoloco)

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Lemnos

Cone Clock is an interesting student project where instead of a typical clock that consists of a box with a graphical time scale at the front, the clock is reduced to only an hour hand, and any flatsurface becomes the face. According to the project designer, the clock is meant to be personal and subjective.

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Oscar Diaz

Furniture Designers Fowler & Company have created an etched sundial picnic table. The table offers seating for up to 24 people and lets you know when its time for lunch.

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Fowler and Co.