Muse Smartwatch Face by Alex Pan Yong is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 A' Design Award in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design Competition Category.
IronInterface· 2021
Muse Smartwatch Face
Client: Artalex
A' Design Award Winner in Interface Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #110651The Design
About Muse Smartwatch Face
The Muse is a smartwatch face that does not look like a traditional watch. Its totemic background is the key element to tell the hour, and together with a glare-like stroke to point out the minute. The combination of them politely conveys the sense of time flow. The overall gemstone looking greatly renders an exotic user experience.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Muse Smartwatch Face is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Muse Smartwatch Face is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Muse Smartwatch Face is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Interviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to telling time through a totemic background in the Muse Smartwatch Face challenges traditional watch design conventions - could you elaborate on how this unconventional visualization emerged from your casual iPad sketching session at the bar?
The totemic background of the Muse Smartwatch Face was an organic outcome of a casual, almost meditative sketching session on my iPad at the bar. I wasn’t aiming for precision but rather exploring shapes and layers that could embody a story. The concept of a “totem” appealed to me as it symbolizes layers of meaning—each layer representing a fragment of time. By embracing these spontaneous lines and patterns, I challenged the conventional need for strict symmetry in time-telling, allowing for a more symbolic interpretation of hours and minutes.
The gemstone-like aesthetic of the Muse Smartwatch Face creates an exotic user experience - what inspired you to transform a utilitarian smartwatch interface into something that feels more like an ancient artifact or precious stone?
Transforming the Muse Smartwatch Face into something reminiscent of an ancient artifact or gemstone was a conscious decision. I wanted to elevate the experience of checking the time, turning it into a moment of discovery rather than mere function. The gemstone effect ties back to ancient, timeless beauty—a form that feels personal and valuable. It’s about making technology feel intimate, as though the watch face itself holds stories and memories, much like a precious stone.
How did you balance the technical requirements of clear time-telling with the artistic vision of making the Muse Smartwatch Face appear less like a traditional watch while maintaining its core functionality?
Balancing artistic vision with functionality required careful layering and contrast. The Muse Smartwatch Face was designed with distinct layers, each responsible for different time elements. The challenge was ensuring that time information remains accessible without overpowering the design. Through intentional color contrasts and selective highlights, I could guide the user’s eye to critical details while preserving the artistic flow.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The Muse is a smartwatch face that tells the time while doesn't look like any traditional watch face as we usually thought. It looks more towards the combination of stone and gem. The feeling it conveys is more close to the nature while still keeps the beauty of gem.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The dimension of this design is 400 x 400px on Android watch, 360 x 360px on Samsung watch. It supports both round and square smartwatches.
- Tags
- gem, nature, stone, ancient, gemstone, nostalgia, luxury, informative
- Production Technology
- I aimlessly drew a sketch on my iPad. The sketch turned out to be the main element of the design. The app I used on iPad is Procreate. Once finished the drawing, exported into Photoshop, separate different layers for different hours. Then, export these layers (12 layers) into png images. After that, import these 12 layers into Facer (watch face making app), use programming to control which layer should be highlighted in which hour. For example, layer 1 will be highlighted when 1 am/pm. So, that's how to tell the hour. For the minute, I use a glare-like stroke to represent the glare from the light (the beauty of nature). At the centre of the watch face, I put those essential information such as date, step count, battery level, so that the user can still grab the information really quickly. For the numbers around the watch face, I use roman numerals to give the sense of antique, as well as add on different colours to make the overall looking more like ancient gemstone.
- Design Challenge
- The hardest part of this design is to make the overall looking "less-look-like-watch", and feels ancient. I want to make it look more like a gemstone rather than a watch, meanwhile it still tells you the time and other information.
- Research
- Nothing much about the research. The idea just came out suddenly from my aimless sketch. At that moment, I had the feeling of making it a non-traditional watch face. Just follow the heart.
- Inspiration
- The inspiration came from a casual sketch that I was aimlessly drawing on my iPad when I sit in a bar. As the strokes went on, the sketch became a kind of totem. Then, the idea came out. Let this totem-like graphic tells the time, combining the feeling of nature. Let it be the main element of my smartwatch face. Make it looks like a kind of gemstone.
- Project Duration
- The project started in February 2020 in Singapore and finished in September 2020, and is released on Face app and WatchMaker app in September 2020.
- Operation Flow
- The design is already released on Facer app. Go to Facer app or website (facer.io), search "Artalex", and look for the name "Muse". Click the "send to watch" button to sync the design into your smartwatch. You need the Facer app installed on your smartwatch.
- Patents
- Copyrights belong to Alex Pan Yong, 2020
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Pan Yong, Main image, 2020.
Image #2: Photographer Pan Yong, Single shot, 2020.
Image #3: Photographer Pan Yong, Single shot, 2020.
Image #4: Photographer Pan Yong, Single shot, 2020.
Image #5: Photographer Pan Yong, Group shot, 2020.
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