WatchTech

Of course we know one of the primary visual elements of a watch is the DIAL. And the numerals and indicies are a critical part, not just the dial pattern or artwork. Some of Anita Porchet's incredibly fine artwork is shown here below, but it's primarily art rather than writing.  In this article I want to focus on HAND-WRITTEN dials.

Going along in the hand-painted vein, here is a Credor Dial.

I know it is hand-painted because I watched the artist mix the pigments and do the painting.

Now let's move on to watches that utilize eccentric font sets. 

The most notorious lately is the Patek 5212A whose original dial "master" may have been hand-written (or -lettered and -numbered). Or as Patek says,

 "The dial is notable for its exclusive letters and numerals which authentically reproduce handwritten characters."

I see the most notable variations in the As. 

Does this font bother you? If so, you are not alone (from what I read) and you probably won't like this Fortis IQ watch designed by Rolf Sachs. It not only uses a funky chalkboard font, but provides math problems rather than numerals for the indicies. And the hands appear to be sticks of chalk.

This dial was drawn by Rolf and he approved the dust, the smearing, etc. that are characteristic of writing on a chalkboard / blackboard (in this case it's green).

Rolf also did a watch where the numerals and indicies were fused to the underside of the crystal, so the hands are beneath, rather than above the markers. Again the numbering is a bit hand-drawn in appearance.

While researching this article, I found a font called Eraser Dust. The characters look like this:

Enough of the chalk dust-type fonts. 

What would you do if you wanted to make an incredibly retro- AND futuristic- watch dial? A company called BEAMS has beat us to it, by offering a Citizen ANA-DIGI watch with hand-written dial elements. 

WHAT? and with a choice of Black or White dials?

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