[HN Gopher] The Case For Better Watch Typography
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The Case For Better Watch Typography
Author : well_i_never
Score : 46 points
Date : 2021-03-23 06:35 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hodinkee.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hodinkee.com)
| DerekRobot wrote:
| I find it easier to quickly read watches that have minutes
| printed instead of hours.
| anotheryou wrote:
| If you want it readable, why analog in the first place?
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _If you want it readable, why analog in the first place?_
|
| Granting that not everyone learns to "tell time" these days,
| for those who did, the watch hands instantly convey the
| (12-hour) time by their positions.
|
| That is, as long as one of the hands is sufficiently longer
| than the other. Years ago I woke up, looked at my analog watch,
| saw it was 6:55 a.m., got up, and started shaving, thinking I'd
| overslept. A few minutes later I looked again: It was actually
| 10:45 p.m.; I'd been asleep for maybe 30 minutes and had
| misread the hands. (This was during an at-sea period in the
| Navy, during which as usual we were all running on not a lot of
| sleep.)
|
| Incidentally, from your handle, are you a Seekers fan?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZf41UudAbI
| mikestew wrote:
| _Granting that not everyone learns to "tell time" these days_
|
| The kids across the street, now 13 and 9, have no idea or
| have to translate when they ask the time and I tell them it's
| "ten 'til eleven" or summat. I'm not 100% sure they can read
| an analog dial without giving it some thought. Smart kids,
| too, I just don't think there are a lot of analog clocks in
| their life. The only analog clock in _my_ life is the watch
| face on my Apple Watch, and I often debate going digital
| full-time on that one.
|
| In a similar vein, I'm approaching retirement and I can't
| fully write cursive anymore, and what little is left is
| _sloooow_.
| anotheryou wrote:
| You are right :)
|
| I'm just about old enough that I kind of unlearned reading
| the clock again. I can sure do it, but on blank clock faces
| without hour marks I have to think a bit.
| mcherm wrote:
| All of the carefully crafted typefaces featured in the article
| emphasized recognizable style. None of them emphasized
| readability.
|
| Personally, I prefer the typeface found on my Timex. It's nothing
| fancy, but it is very easy to read at a glance.
| watchesthrwomsp wrote:
| I think that is fine, most people aren't wearing watches out of
| practicality reasons. More as a style thing. I guess
| smartwatches could be considered more practical less stylish.
| azinman2 wrote:
| You're not paying $65k+ for a watch because it's utilitarian.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| I think you could probably pay someone $40,000 a year to
| follow you around and tell you what time it is whenever you
| ask.
| neolog wrote:
| These watches last longer than a year.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| True, but think of all the complications a regular person
| could perform that the watch can't.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Watches have complications, but people have
| _complications, maaaaan_
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Part of the fun of some watch styles (because let's face
| it, we're overgrown children) is utilitarian aspects we'll
| never need. Like wearing a 200M or 300M waterproof dive
| watch to your office job.
|
| Just in case, like, the Navy SEALs suddenly drop into your
| cubicle and ask you if you'd like to go on some kind of
| amphibious assault mission on extremely short notice. I
| mean, they won't. But what if they _DID?_ Wouldn 't you
| want your watch to be up to the task!?
| souplesse wrote:
| An interesting subject, but I couldn't help but be totally
| derailed by introduction of Jonathan Hoefler as "designer of
| famed fonts like Gotham".
|
| That's like introducing Thomas Edison as "father of AC power", or
| Pepsi as "creators of Coca-Cola". It might seem like nitpicking,
| but we're talking about one of the most famous typefaces in the
| world[1] and the most dramatic design industry scandal[2] of the
| 21st century.
|
| [1] https://theoutline.com/post/7356/gotham-font-is-everywhere
|
| [2] https://qz.com/167993/frere-jones-is-suing-hoefler-for-
| his-h...
| Causality1 wrote:
| The "8" was very poorly thought-out in my opinion. It has no
| angles or sharp edges, setting it apart from the other numerals.
| It'd be better as a full circle on the bottom and a cut 3/4 or
| 4/5 circle on top.
| kenneth wrote:
| That's why I wear a watch with simple ticks instead of numbers
| and no complications other than a simple day-of-the-month. I
| can't stand busy watch faces.
|
| https://www.omegawatches.com/media/catalog/product/cache/a5c...
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| That linked watch has numbers on it, though.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Like my favourite, the Junghans Max Bill.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/sPaglyW.jpg
|
| There's a version with numerals and the 4 is kinda iconic.
|
| https://www.blackbough.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/junghans-max...
| grimborg wrote:
| And often there's so much text on the dials. Brand name,
| automatic, 1000ft, made in X, etc, etc. I find it extremely
| noisy.
| mrunseen wrote:
| Discussion on r/typography:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/comments/m83d5i/article_...
|
| Similar article (originally linked in Reddit post):
| https://www.typography.com/fonts/decimal/design-notes
|
| Kind of off-topic but Hoefler didn't actually design Gotham (and
| scammed his business partner Frere-Jones who actually designed
| the Gotham)
| jschwartzi wrote:
| I think that Hermes watch that the article thinks so highly of
| has an awful typeface. It's cool that they went to the trouble of
| designing something to work within their design language, but
| it's totally unreadable. It would have worked better to simply
| leave the hour marks totally unadorned.
| hdkekbro wrote:
| The Junghans Max Bill is the most legible analog watch I've ever
| seen.
|
| https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Jung...
|
| You go from inside out "10... 08". No counting, no distributions.
|
| Edit: Come to think of it you still need to count the offset from
| the nearest minute hand.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| It's funny how different people have different ideas about
| what's legible and usable.
|
| I've never seen that model in person but in general I find
| skinny silver hands on a white dial tend to be less than ideal
| for legibility.
|
| And while the numeric minute markers are clever and legible,
| they seem wholly unnecessary to me -- when looking at an analog
| clock I'm nearly always going to round it off to the nearest 5
| minutes in my head anyway. "Oh, it's almost 4:15" or "Oh, it's
| about 1:30" etc.
|
| Which is not to say anything you're saying is "wrong!" I just
| think it's interesting how different people think about time
| and watches differently. One of my favorite things about the
| watch hobby.
| hdkekbro wrote:
| Interesting that you round. I wish I could just be fine with
| rounding but if I'm being honest with myself I'm anal-
| retentive when it comes to time. My clocks have to be atomic-
| synced too. Maybe I need to go all digital. I agree that
| black on white would add contrast and improve it.
| Hublium wrote:
| The site blocks hotlinking. Mirror:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20181008041959im_/http://www.abl...
| foobiter wrote:
| I've found a similar issue with wall clocks... it's frustratingly
| hard to find an option with good type. The double digit numbers
| tend to throw off the face balance .
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| The article diplomatically doesn't show any examples of the
| terrible typography foisted on other watches, but it doesn't take
| much browsing around Hodinkee to find examples.
|
| Like the stretched SAT DEC on this Patek Philippe:
| https://hodinkee.imgix.net/uploads/images/cf044e7b-7239-44a7...
|
| Or this 'Word Art meets Mickey Mouse' Omega:
| https://hodinkee.imgix.net/shop/images/bf1f83ff-b964-4a98-a9...
|
| (edit:) Here's another good piece on the same subject:
|
| https://watchesbysjx.com/2015/08/editorial-why-fonts-and-typ...
|
| Lots of lovely typography at the top, but search the page for
| "questionable" to find a real horror.
| jw1224 wrote:
| > 'Word Art meets Mickey Mouse'
|
| Whilst that made me chuckle, there's a lot of history behind
| this (very intentional) typographic style. They're called
| "Breguet numerals", and are much sought-after by watch
| collectors. I think they look gorgeous on some of these
| examples -- https://www.italianwatchspotter.com/breguet-
| numerals/ -- although the Omega example you gave is a slightly
| more contemporary interpretation of them.
| pkd wrote:
| I love that Omega dial.
| kijin wrote:
| Very few watchmakers, even at the top of the range, seem to get
| typography right when it comes to day/date/month windows. They
| just print whatever gets the information across and call it a
| day. At best, they might match the color and add a border
| around the window. It's almost as if they only care about
| designing the top layer of the dial.
|
| The only well-known brand that consistently seems to get it
| right is A. Lange & Sohne, which totally makes sense because
| prominent numerical displays are one of the distinguishing
| features of their style.
|
| Japanese brands are even worse. Take any complicated Citizen
| watch and you'll instantly recognize the "Eco-Drive" label in
| italic Arial/Helvetica with awkward kerning. Every element is
| printed in a random font that looks suspiciously similar to one
| of the Windows default fonts. The margins are all over the
| place, too. Seiko is somewhat better, but only because they
| usually don't print as many letters and numbers on the dial.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Japanese brands are even worse.
|
| It's polarizing, but a lot of people (including me)
| absolutely love the "wall of unnecessary text" on some Casio
| models. I can't defend it on any logical level, but I'm
| certainly not alone.
|
| https://www.watchuseek.com/cdn-
| cgi/image/format=auto,onerror...
|
| https://bladereviews.com/images/casio/img-casio-
| dw-5600-01.j... Take any complicated
| Citizen watch and you'll instantly recognize the
| "Eco-Drive" label in italic Arial/Helvetica with
| awkward kerning.
|
| I agree, and I think it's just so baffling and frustrating.
|
| Their use of solar (quartz) movements means that a lot of
| enthusiasts have no interest in them, but I think they make a
| lot of the best watches under $500USD. However that Eco-Drive
| logo is just _so_ basic. A minor tweak to that Eco-Drive logo
| alone would do wonders for their brand, I think.
|
| I wonder if the suits in charge of Citizen realize how
| bad/boring that logo is. I think they honestly may be blind
| to it, just as Western suits might be blind to typographical
| issues when they look at kanji characters.
| Guest19023892 wrote:
| This article already mentions Nomos, but they always nail
| their date windows.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/xxsxruT.jpg
|
| https://i.imgur.com/MPPtITv.jpg
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > The article diplomatically doesn't show any examples of the
| terrible typography
|
| It even shows a picture of the all-so (all too?) common Rolex
| Submariner which bears, after decades of refinements, one of
| the finest typography out there IMO.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > Inside The Design The Case For Better Watch Typography
|
| This is how the article's headline reads when the browser does
| not load a site's custom fonts.
| [deleted]
| dwighttk wrote:
| All of these comments and the article itself are evidence that
| there is a "there" there when it comes to typography criticism,
| but personally (aside from the like 1% most egregious examples) I
| don't get what people are talking about when they complain about
| this sort of thing.
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(page generated 2021-03-23 23:02 UTC)