Muse Smartwatch Face by Alex Pan Yong is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 A' Design Award 铁奖 in 界面、交互与用户体验设计 Competition Category.

铁界面· 2021

Muse Smartwatch Face

by Alex Pan Yong

Client: Artalex

A' Design Award 铁奖 Winner in 界面 Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #110651

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Colors

The Design

About Muse Smartwatch Face

Muse 是一款看起来不像传统手表的智能手表。它的图腾背景是指示小时的关键元素，并与眩光般的笔触一起指出分钟。它们的组合礼貌地传达了时间流动的感觉。整体宝石外观极大地呈现了异国情调的用户体验。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 铁奖

Muse Smartwatch Face是 A' Design Award 铁奖得主，这是授予满足人们对设计精良的创作所期待的专业与工业要求的优良设计的声望认可。铁奖得主展现出其创作者的高超技艺、高度专业化、专家级的理解力和创造能力。预计Muse Smartwatch Face将成为一件备受推崇、令人钦佩且被珍爱的创作，既实用又创新。这件赢得 A' Design Award 铁奖的设计整合了行业最佳实践，并拥有与专业知识和才华相结合的称职技术特性。Muse Smartwatch Face因其严谨而受到尊重，旨在提供有助于让世界变得更美好的生活品质改善。

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.