Sections of this article:
Watch Design Collaborations With Artists
Unconstrainedtime Watches . . . How Creative Is The Watch Design?
Introduction.
What does “creative watch design” really mean?
There are plenty of blog posts on “creative watches”, and although some of them show watches that are only slightly novel, Most current watches which could equally well be named unusual or unique. I’m going to look a little deeper into what the concept of creativity really means, including exploring some controversial and little-known perspectives, as I often do on this blog . . . I’m a a creative person who likes to explore outside the limits of what is generally accepted, as can be seen by my watches (below).
This gives you better-informed perspectives when looking at watches which are genuinely creative . . . I show you some of my favourite examples of artists collaborations with watchmakers, then of creative watch design, as well as showing you some of my own watches, explaining how and why they relate unusually strongly to creative concepts.
Most watches, like most other products, are designed to be slightly different, mostly about fitting in to society and being easily accepted, while being just individual enough that people can say they’re “unique”, without risking being genuinely outstanding. This article is about watches which fall outside that range of common acceptability, by and for people who say they want to be unique, and really mean it!
Note . . . I only use watch images with permission from the watchmaker (unless the photos are public domain or creative commons), so some of the watches I present here might be lacking an image.
What is Creativity?
According to classical psychology research, there are three main types of creativity:
- exploratory: generating new ideas within an existing conceptual space,
- transformational: ignoring the rules to invent something interesting but impossible,
- combinational: which means combining existing ideas.
Combinational is the most commonly of these, and is facilitated by being a generalist so that one can combine ideas from various different fields of expertise. It is divided into three sub-categories, problem-driven, similarity-driven, and inspiration-driven which means combining ideas from seemingly unrelated fields.
These ideas are used to suggest that there’s no such thing as genuine originality. While this might seem true from within the accepted perspective of psychology, I’ll explain below how most current ideas on creativity leave out one of the most important, but least understood, methods of employing it.
“Substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them.” (Mark Twain, Writer & Entrepreneur.)
The dictionary definition of creativity is “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something”, which implies, incorrectly, that only things within one’s mind (where both imagination, and ideas, reside) can result in creativity. Other descriptions talk about thinking in a new way, and about the value of the results.
There are a few articles which include concepts such as spontaneity and emotions rather than thoughts, but still ignore probably the most profound creative process, which I’ll detail below, as is very obvious from the fact that they present people like Mozart as an example of creativity . . . Mozart is well known to have made his compositions completely in his head, then written them out on paper . . .
In fact, from the perspective of fine art as taught in some of the leading academies on the subject (I studied fine art at Middlesex University, UK, known to have one of the best broad-based fine art courses in the country, at that time), that process is called “design” . . . the design process involves inventing something in your head, then manifesting the results. That, and all the usual definitions and descriptions, are about things which arise from within the person involved. Nothing wrong with doing that, of course, but there’s a very different process which can lead to very different (and arguably more creative) results . . .
How Einstein relates to the difference between fine art and design
The fine art process involves finding a subject in the real world, representing that physically in some way through one’s actions, comparing one’s physical results with the subject, choosing to focus more deeply on what is interesting about the subject, the comparison and one’s results again, through numerous iterations.
What happens when one genuinely does that, is that the results evolve and become somehow more powerful and interesting, leading to something beyond what you could have imagined in your head. It’s hard to comprehend that this might happen if you’ve never done it for yourself.
The fine art process involves creation “from the void” which can be profoundly terrifying but can also be very addictive, because it is not only an exploration of the relationship between your internal models of reality and the outside world, but it also changes who you are, as can be seen from the evolution of the work of any great artist. The fine art process applies just as much to abstract art. For example, once it was pointed out to me that the paintings of Rothko (above) are landscapes, it was obvious, especially when looking at the originals in a gallery rather than reproductions.
Very few people realize that a closely related phenomenon is employed by some of the greatest people in other fields, who are, incorrectly, labelled as “great thinkers”. For example, if you Google how Einstein came up with his astonishingly ground-breaking theories, you’ll read about how he thought about it and developed the ideas through thinking etc. Which is fundamentally incorrect . . .
If you actually look thoroughly enough into what Einstein himself says about the process by which his theories arose, you’ll find him describing how he entirely ceased all thinking, becoming completely empty and open, and the ideas arrived spontaneously from the nothingness. This is outside the experience of the people who write about how he arrived about his ideas by thinking, but look how he is pointing at the exact same origin as I described above, both referring to concepts like “the void” and “nothingness” . . . which is little understood because not many people will have any experience of that, in their lifetime. And it is clear that some of the deepest sources creativity come from something outside of one’s own models of reality.
Fine art is said to be about aesthetics, but can also be seen to be about concept and story, especially in recent decades.
The way a story is used is a vital part of distinguishing limited-edition watches which thoroughly deserve the name, where the story and/or concept is intrinsic to the creative design of a watch, from others for which the story can be seen as a mostly irrelevant addition for marketing purposes. For more details on that, as well as examples of great limited edition watches, see my blog post on limited edition watches.
Watch Design Collaborations With Artists
One way of incorporating significant artistic creativity within a watch, and having a significant story or concept, are collaborations between watch designers or brands, and artists.
In this section I am featuring watches where the results of the collaboration are obvious, rather than those where you’d probably have to be told before you know what the collaboration achieved.
Our own brand, UnconstrainedTime (see below), as well as being arguably the first conceptual-art jewellery based watch brand, invites a very different type of collaborations with established creators, as well as having an open design competition.
Here are a few of my favourite examples of artist collaborations which result in creative watch design:
Blancpain, Métiers d’Art, The Great Wave.
The beautiful dial of this watch uses semi-transparent volcanic rock known as silver obsidian from Mexico as the background, and white gold patina for the applique waves, and was inspired by the famous Japanese woodblock print “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,” by Hokusai.
It uses a modified hand-wound movement, with three series-coupled mainspring barrels giving a power-reserve of eight days. It has a platinum case and bespoke calfskin strap in storm grey, resulting in stunning creative aesthetics. That watch is also featured on my blog post about individuality in watchmaking.
. . . has had a large number of collaborations with artists including:
Italian conceptual artist Mimmo Paladino who created the Oigol Oro produced as a limited edition of 140 pieces, one being awarded to the winner of their “Design your Swatch” contest.
American artist Sam Francis, known for his expressive, colourful artwork.
Mimmo Rotella, who creates décollage artworks from torn posters, pictures and advertising. His Swatch watches include MARILYN, and BENGALA which features a fierce tiger on the dial.
Nam June Paik, the originator of the “video art” concept.
And Pigcasso: “In 2019, we push the boundaries of creativity and positive provocation by collaborating with Pigcasso, a talented pig, and release the exclusive and limited watch, FLYING PIG BY MS. PIGCASSO.”
The Swatch Art Peace Hotel “brings together diverse artists from around the world. Residents from a wide range of disciplines stay for periods of 3–6 months, united under one common goal: to create and collaborate.”
The Seiko 5 Sports Auto Moai Limited Edition was designed by anonymous artist Auto Moai, who hides their age and gender, only communicating via images of faceless people, as with the watch dials in this watch collaboration which is interesting both conceptually and aesthetically.
Another collaboration with an unconventional artist is the Zenith Defy El Primero 21 Felipe Pantone Edition. The artist applies colour gradients and grid patterns to walls or screens.
In this watch, colour gradients are applied using a gradient rainbow PVD treatment, to the hands which have a lightning-bolt inspired shape (a common motif of the artist), as well as to the index markers and other parts of the watch, with the artists signature grid pattern engraved on the bridge. The result is a unique aesthetic, with the artists influence pushing creative watch design aesthetic into a new aesthetic space.
The Tag Heuer Formula 1 Alec Monopoly Special Edition,
These watches feature the work of the renowned street artist and DJ, originally from New York, who’s artist name refers to a character from the board game, which he incorporates into his artworks along with other pop art references.
The Franck Muller Double Mystery Tourbillon Hom Nguyen:
. . . features the work of Hom Nguyen, a self-taught French-Vietnamese painter whose works (below) are about the human condition. He received the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite prize in 2022.
He chose to show a child’s face looking up, drawn in pen directly onto the mat black dial, resulting in a unique aesthetic for this watch.:
The Bremont Ronnie Wood 1947 Rock On’ Hands Down 43mm Men’s Watch was released in 47 pieces, as a tribute to Ronnie Wood, the Rolling Stones’ guitarist, born in 1947. He hand-painted every dial himself, making each one a totally unique collectors item. The case is in white gold, and these sold out rapidly at £38,950 ($48,874) each .
The Movado and Alexi Lubomirski:
. . . features the photographer’s work on the dial.
He is a British photographer best known for taking the official photographs of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding. He captures iconic moments in celebrity, fashion and culture, is a dedicated vegan and animal rights activist, and intends to inspire collaborative positive change. Movado used a vegan strap for this watch.
The collaborative watch Parmigiani Fleurier and Marcello Lo Giudice, (no longer showing on their website) featuring work by Italian contemporary painter and sculptor from Sicily. His tactile paintings use thick layers of pigment and evoke geological formations, shown to great effect on this watch.
His work is inspired by an admiration of nature and cosmic energies, and shows the earth relating both to violence and to rebirth. The artists work gives this example of creative watch design a contemporary and obviously fine art aesthetic in contrast to the watchmaker’s typical models with classic aesthetics.
The Richard Mille RM 68-01 Kongo, was the first watch to use art applied to the bridges and baseplate. The art on this watch is hand-painted by Cyril Kongo, using spray paint and acrylic paint, applied individually to each watch, making them truly unique.
Cyril Kongo, born in Vietnam from a Vietnamese father and a French mother, is a French graffiti artist who evolved into a painter. He says “every canvas I create in a studio setting comes out of my background in graffiti. I wanted to transcribe for canvas the graphic vocabulary i have been developing all these years on the street.”
His time spent living in the Congo as a teenager inspired him to use that as his artists name.
Although not exactly a collaboration, since the artist passed away in 1965, the Girard-Perregaux Le Corbusier Trilogy, (no longer on their website) has dials inspired by the famous artists paintings, rendered in brushed and engraved steel, mother-of pearl marquetry and concrete.
He was a Swiss-French architect and painter, a pioneer of what is now regarded as modern architecture. I’m including this watch in this section because it uses an obvious fine-art influence on this interesting watch.
Creative Watch Designs
With today’s generations desiring uniqueness more than ever before, creative watch designs have a significant audience.
The Harrison H4:
Although this watch looks very ordinary from the context of today’s wide range of unusual watches, at the time, its design was a big break-through in the functionality for which there was a desperate demand at the time . . . more accurate watches were needed to improve the odds of winning naval battles, and of successfully navigating long voyages.
As discussed above, most of the creativity which fits the usual definitions of the concept is about design improvements, with this watch being an outstanding example of just that, in its period of the evolution of watches.
This highlights how views of creativity in design and art relate to the context of the time in which they are created.
The Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Skeleton Mysterious Double Tourbillon:
. . . has an aesthetic creative enough to be included here, with its expanded roman numerals and overlapping circles concept.
The Van Cleefs & Arpels Midnight Planetarium:
. . . shows the current positions of each planet, on a beautiful adventurine dial, which is an impressive mechanical feat.
The watchmakers, even better known for their jewellery, produce beautiful examples of creative watch design ringed by jewels.
. . . uses a patented system of interwoven time belts to display the time. While not a mechanical watch in the traditional sense, because it uses an electronic microcontroller and a rechargeable battery instead of a spring for power, it is still very much a fascinating and visually stunning innovation in mechanical time-display, as well as using aerospace-quality materials, and is well known by any enthusiast of contemporary watches. Its creativity is outstanding both from a technical point of view and from the perspective of the aesthetics.
The Richard Mille RM 70-01 Tourbillon Alain Prost:
. . . is a great example of their creative mechanical design, designed to reflect Alain Prost’s interest in cycling by including their “totalizer” which displays the overall distance travelled on his cycles. It was released as a limited edition of 30 pieces. It uses grade 5 titanium enabling it to handle trail cycling as well as road racing. Several of the design elements have a bicycle influence, and the case is made of Carbon TPT.
The Cartier Crash Tigrée:, has some art-jewellery influence on the shape and colours, as well as fine jewellery and surrealist influences. Plenty of creativity in its unique design. The Cartier Crash also relates to how specific art movements affected watch aesthetics.
The H. Moser & Cie x MB&F Endeavor Cylindrical Tourbillon:
. . . the result of a collaboration between the two watchmakers, is designed more three-dimensionally than most watches, featuring hour and minute hands standing upright, as well as a cylindrical tourbillon.
It is one of the most unique looking watches ever made (until UnconstrainedTime).
The Christopher Ward Bel Canto:
. . . (shown above in Rosa gold) is an unusual looking watch for this brand. Every 60 minutes, to mark the hour, a ‘hammer’ strikes a chime which is a steel spring around the edge of the dial. The Grade-5 titanium case improves the quality of the sound, as well as combining durability with light weight.
The Mr. Jones Watches Sun and Moon:
. . . is a beautifully creative models from a brand where all the watches are unusual in style. It displays the time using a unique crescent shape, with sun or moon visible, indicating daylight or night time (above), as well as animal shapes at the times they would appear.
Definitely a creative and interesting time-display concept, first used in the 17th Century, before watch hands and a dial with numerals around the edge became standard, beautifully revived for this elegant watch, with styling suitable for the timeless concept, unlike the modern aesthetics of most of their watches..
The Mr. Jones Time-traveler watch:
. . . is also a great design concept, showing the design around the world using hands shaped like sixteen landmark buildings (above).
. . . can be read in complete darkness, thanks to a unique tactile time-display which uses two ball-bearings moved by magnets. The design is named after Brad Snyder, an ex naval-officer who lost his eyesight in an explosion in Afghanistan. He won a gold medal in swimming at the 2012 Paralympics in London, a year after losing his sight.
“I’m going to show people that I’m not going to let this beat me. I’m not going to let blindness build a brick wall around me. I am going to find a way forward.” -Brad Snyder
The HM9 Sapphire Vision from MB&F:
. . . is visually extraordinary as well as being technically impressive, and was made available to the public in four limited editions, with just five pieces each. Made as “a tribute to the extraordinary automotive and aeronautic designs of the 1940s and 50s. The result was a case like no other that echoed the epoch’s flowing, aerodynamic lines.“
They decided to present their amazing and beautiful movement encased in “an outer hull of sapphire crystal and precious metal.” An outstanding example of creative watch design.
The Xeric Vendetta X Automatic:
. . . was “born from Mitch’s passion for vintage dystopian science fiction and concept cars of the 70’s like the Lamborghini Countach or Bond’s Lotus Esprit submarine“. It uses a wandering hour complication with a body inspired by aerodynamic shapes and a minimalist dial, giving a unique look for their 10th anniversary watch.
The Dual Linear Wrist Watch by Division Furtive:
. . . uses an innovative time-display with moving cursors. Also, they say that “all Division Furtive watches can be set by light signals from your smartphone or computer displays”. They are no longer in operation, but still show their innovative watches on their website.
The MB&F HM4 Thunderbolt Watch:
. . . has two small dials side-by-side, one showing hours and minutes and the other showing the engine’s power reserve. Each dial is displayed at the end of a turbine-like pod, with individual crowns at the other end. The overall aviation-inspired design is very individual, using an engine with 311 unique components which took three years to design. Putting the dials perpendicular to the wrist of the wearer also makes it practical as a pilot’s watch. They have some other fascinating watch design inspirations, which I detail here,
The Eye of the Storm watch designed by Chinese-born, German-based Yiran Qian, is a contemporary minimalist design. It is a touch watch, meaning it displays the time only when a button is pressed, showing two differently shaped groups of LEDs to present the time in conventional analogue format.
This example of creative watch design seems to have been an idea for a watch in about 2010, but doesn’t seem to have been available for sale.
Very distinctive Urwerk watches:
The Urwerk website includes many examples of their amazingly creative and unique watches, using impressive feats of innovative engineering as fascinating aesthetically stunning creations.
The ZIIIRO Mercury Watch:
. . . also has an innovative time-display, using two concentric circles to display hours and minutes. It is available in a range of colorful and eye-catching designs, and costs a lot less than most of the watches in this article, at around $199.
The DB28 XP Météorite by De Bethune:
. . . has a beautiful dial showing a significant art-jewellery influence in the irregular marks. A beautiful creative watch dial.
Watches by Valerii Danevych:, Ukrainian watchmaker, has astounded the horology world with his ground-breaking creations—complicated, all-wood watches that defy convention. Using only wood, Danevych meticulously crafts intricate timepieces that combine traditional watchmaking with innovative engineering.
Every single piece of the watch (aside from the springs) in the watch is made from wood.
What sets Danevych’s work apart is the complexity of his wooden watches. Despite the challenges presented by using wood as the sole material, he integrates remarkable complications such as tourbillons, minute repeaters, and perpetual calendars into his designs. These complications, traditionally seen in high-end luxury watches, showcase Danevych’s unparalleled craftsmanship and technical expertise.
For other examples of organic watches, see our blog post here.
Angular Momentum Handmade Timepieces, manufactured on demand, have dials made in different techniques of Japanese “Urushi” lacquer, a traditional artisanal practice which uses a substance made from tree sap.
Many of the watches above, can be seen as examples of mathematical art, since they use mathematics in their engineering and design, specifically for aesthetic impact. As I’ve explained, creativity is different from art . . . some of the watches on this page, I’d say qualify as wearable art. You might also be interested in my in-depth examination of the understandings necessary for answering the fascinating question . . . “Are watches art?“
Unconstrainedtime Watches . . . How Creative Is The Watch Design?
In terms of aesthetics, UnconstrainedTime watches (below) are obviously unique and interesting.
If you look at the other watches in this article, and in any article about unusual watches, you’ll notice that there are two main influences on the aesthetics of watch design. One is engineering concepts. In early watches this related to the functionality, but more recently it is often used to create uniqueness and an interesting story, to explore interesting possibilities, and to demonstrate mechanical excellence.
The other main influence on watch design is fine jewellery, which refers to all jewellery until about a century ago (other than fashion/costume jewellery which imitates it using less expensive materials), and to nearly all jewellery today. Fine jewellery mostly uses simple geometric shapes, polished surfaces and expensive materials.
While the influences on watches can certainly be seen a creative design exploration, as well as referencing historical watch designs and other fields such as motor sports, aviation, fine art, or even astronomy, these design influences are mostly applied within the space of mechanics and/or fine jewellery.
Even the collaborations with artists I showed you above, if you removed the art and any colours, and looked at the shape of the watch itself, I doubt you’d say that they relate to the artwork to any significant extent. So, while the art does influence the design of the rest of the watch to some small extent, it could be said that these are examples of a watch plus some art.
There are a few watches extending their creativity outside the design space of mechanics and fine jewellery in one specific direction, and that is the direction of art jewellery.
Art jewellery isn’t limited to the simple geometric shapes, expensive materials and smooth surfaces that characterize nearly all fine jewellery. Art jewellery often uses complex, rough, broken, organic, or fractal forms and surfaces, and sometimes incorporates materials of little value. This influence can be seen in some recent watch design. For example, the Cartier Crash Tigre I showed you above has a significant art jewellery influence. Some of the mechanical concepts of unusual watches are now using rough surfaces like deliberately patinated bronze, or textures influenced by meteorites or other phenomena. But even these watches are still very much existing within the design space of mechanics and jewellery.
Most UnconstrainedTime watches have very little influence from the engineering design space, and are not just watches influenced by art jewellery, but can be seen as being fundamentally arising out of conceptual art jewellery, with their complex organic shapes and sometimes rough surfaces, and with concepts or stories which are very much intrinsic to the whole creative design, not just an added element or influence.
Our watches make sense as part of the world of conceptual art jewellery, which is art rather than design, and their obvious emphasis on structures for aesthetic and conceptual interest makes them a good fit for the definition of art as I explain on our home page. If they were larger, they would be easy to see as sculptures (which have been an accepted part of the fine art world throughout its history):
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What’s your favourite example of creative watch design? Let us know in the comments below or on our social media.
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