Design Language: Rolex 

For this next assignment we have to make a working clock. The dial mechanism is being provided for us, and it is our job to make a clock around it. 

I love studying design, old and contemporary. Every movement, style or genre has key elements that make it instantly recognizable. This is the same with brands, each having motifs and stylistic elements that build the identity of the brand. I'm personally a sucker for Rolex watches and intend on studying its design closely to figure out what makes these watches so iconic, and so beloved. 

Research: 

Well I forgot my research at home, as I'm updating my blog after the fact. That is my bad. However, for research I printed off a powerpoint I made of about 20 different Rolex models, with about 3 photos for each. Not only did this get me familiar with Rolex and their design language, I wanted to create a reference booklet I could use for future projects as well. The whole thing costed me about $15 in colored ink so I hope I put it to good use. After that I made a more refined sketch of the watch and what the bezel pattern would look like. I even dug back into some of my old drawings from a year ago when I randomly designed myself a company logo, perfect time to finally use it on this clock. 

As for my drawings I did make a series of little quick sketches that got my ideas out, and shared it with classmates during discussion. They encouraged me to do the Rolex watch, I think because that the one I seemed most passionate about, however someone liked my idea for a solar system clock
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March 18th, 2026 

I have the baseline of my clock figured out, organized and rendered. I feel that some of the geometry is still a little messy, but I'm gonna clean it up once I get a final idea of my design

March 22nd, 2026

Now I'm almost done, I've added the glass I'll be putting on top into my render, got the bezels for my stones figured out. All I really need to do now is array my design around the bezel of the clock, then add the finishing touches like my logo and roman numerals around the inside wall. 

March 24th, 2026 

Here is the watch with the design flowed around the bezel:

 

So it turned out that on march 24th I anticipated to have this part figured out, but it actually took me a lot longer to figure out than I'd thought. I was having issues with flowing my design around the entire bezel, as for whatever reason the flow command was only recognizing half of the circumference.  To fix this, we had to remake the bezel and simplify the geometry. Up until this point I hadn't realized that I'd never really understood surface modeling, I was kinda just winging it. After redoing the bezel, it clicked, and from then on my clock had no naked edges and no non-manifold edges. By making a simpler bezel, I was able to flow my design around it with easier.

It was on March 29th that I did some final touches to the watch, like adding the backing, boolean difference where the watch mechanism would go, things like that. The major addition I still had to do was to add roman numerals around each hour, on the inside wall of the case by the dial of the clock. My new understanding of the flow command helped me with this. I remember finishing this at like 11pm at night, tired of modeling since like 2 or 3pm. I was really proud and having fun. I took one last glance at the dial... and I noticed that the roman numerals didn't line up correctly with the hours... So I stayed another half hour to no avail, and had to try again the next day. By messing with the spacing I finally got it to work, and at last sent the file to Peter for printing. Here is the final render: 

As for printing, this happened on my day off so I was not able to see it print, but the final product looked pretty good. except the Roman numerals I'd spent so much time on did not look great... probably because they were just too small to be printed on an angle like they were on the clock. So I took a loss there, but the good thing was that the prongs I made to hold my cubic zircon stones worked, and my stones fit perfectly, so I was really happy about that. 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought that spray painting it would really bring the whole thing together... but honestly i don't think spray painting was the correct way to go about this. I hadn't used spray paint in years, so maybe I just need more practice, but I really feel that printing the clock in parts, using the correctly colored filament for each, is a better strategy. 

 For full transparency, I forgot to take a picture of the clock after I had painted it, however I did show it during critique.