Designer Arun Venkatesan today shared an interesting deep dive into some of the classic watch designs that inspired different watch faces for the Apple Watch, detailing how Apple captured design issues from watches famous from companies such as Rolex, Breitling, Heuer, and others.
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Venkatesan will include a California watch face, Chronograph and Chronograph Pro watch faces, a Count Up watch face, and a GMT watch face.
The California watch face, for example, was inspired by a dial design that began in World War II. The combination of Roman and Arabic numerals was thought to make the watch face more readable with very little visibility.
Originally known as the “error proof” or “high visibility” dial, the Rolexes ’face was decorated with“ back bubbles ”- so-called because of the bubble-shaped shape that gave the watches a thin appearance. Interestingly, the indexes are set in both Roman and Arabic numerals where other watches would adhere to one or the other. A combination of numbers is thought to help both the wearer and his brother-in-law read the watch in less obvious situations.
The face of the GMT watch, meanwhile, was based on classic watches that were able to follow two time zones at once, while Count Up is based on classic dive watches.
Unlike the previous faces, the name Count Up, refers to bezel type, not dial or complexity. Also known as the dive bezel, this rotating bezel, when attached to the minute hand, helps to measure elapsed time in minutes.
The bezel counts up to trace back to a memorable year in the history of the dive watch – 1953.
Apple Chronograph watch faces are built on a long history of chronograph watches dating back to the early 1800s and which have become some of the most popular watch face types. Venkatesan says his research has had a big impact on Apple’s commitment to design, as it’s clear that Apple took the time to study the history of many of the classic watch faces available in digital format. on the Apple Watch.
As I researched and wrote this article, my respect only increased. With the watch faces, Apple could have taken the easy way out by simply imitating watch archetypes at the surface level. Instead, they intensively studied everyone’s history. In designing each facade, they have taken into account that history and the limitations and opportunities presented by modern technology.
For those interested in the history of the Apple Watch and for those who want to find out more about the classic watches inspired by Apple designers, Venkatesan’s article is worth reading through.