Wednesday 19 September 2012

Cyclops unique clocks

Mr Jones Watches has produced five unique clocks for London Design Week 2012, these clocks are being auctioned in aid of the charity Kids Company.


To celebrate London design week, we have collaborated with five of our favourite illustrators (and one photographer!) to create a bespoke series of Cyclops clocks.

We are thrilled with the results and each unique clock is being auctioned on ebay. All the money raised will be donated to Kids Company so please bid generously to support this great charity and be the lucky owner of a completely unique clock.The auction ends September 26th so get bidding to be in with a chance to win! 



New York based illustrator Kirsten Ulve has created a dial with 12 faces to mark the hours. She explains, "a ring of characters usher one through the hours of the day. I thought it would be fun to shout out: "it's owl o'clock!" or moan "it's around sad troll thirty."










The British Illustrator Andy Watt offers a new take on the idea of clock watching - 12 eyes watch us from the dial!









New York Artist/Author/Illustrator You Byun has created a colourful, fantasy world with her clock titled "My Magic Moments", "the work illustrates whimsical time with dreamy elements - such as imaginary lovely creatures, candy coloured ivy, rainbow coloured clouds, or sparkling snow-like stars. Your magical moments are endless! "










Chris Overend has photographed the actor Elijah Reid for the 12 hour markers, "the clock shows Elijah through a 12 hour period - with the portraits for each hour mirroring the light of the day and the mood of the model: the idea being that it is not only the face of the clock but the face of the subject that shows us the passing of time."











Welsh Illustrator Hannah Davies has created a colourful artwork for the dial of her clock, "my inspiration was retro 60s shapes and psychedelic colours. I wanted to bring vibrant, detailed decoration into peoples lives."











Clock Specifications:
Outer case: steel
Clock face diameter: 225mm
Clock overall diameter: 250mm
Mechanism: quartz mechanism
Battery: 1 x AA
Packing c
arton: 305mm x 305mm x 70mm



All the contributors gave their time for free and the clocks are being auctioned in aid of the charity Kids Company who provide practical, emotional and educational support to vulnerable over 17,000 inner-city children across London.





about the artists

Kirsten Ulve is a New York City based illustrator who discovered magic playing in the woods outside her native Midwestern town of Dubuque, Iowa. Her other early obsessions (Lite Brite, puppets and discotheques), as well as a previous career in graphic design have all contributed to the style and mood of her work.  Kirsten's happy clientelle includes The New Yorker, Glamour Magazine, Hasbro, Mattel, and Palty of Japan. She has exhibited her work in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Tokyo, and is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly and Boston Magazines. Kirsten currently resides in Manhattan with her husband and two black cats, Romulus and Remus (incidentally, her last name means "wolf" in Norwegian).

Andy Watt's work covers the breadth of acerbic illustration, from satirical and political to caricature. His eye for telling details combines with a jaundiced view of the world to result in richly provocative imagery.His work is both repulsive and compelling, and speaks to the cynic in all of us – joining a long tradition of grotesque and satirical illustration.

NYC Artist / Author / Illustrator You Byun was born in Queens, New York. She grew up in US, Japan and Korea. Moved back to New York to be a visual artist, receiving her MFA from School of Visual Arts. You's work is a ritual that recollects and records her memories and emotions; she places her characters in lush environments that hopefully spread joy through the world. Her work has been recognized by various magazines, awards and competitions, including Communication Arts Magazine, Creative Quarterly, Ai-Ap, Society of Illustrators LA, & SCBWI (winning both Grand Prize in Portfolio Award, and Tomie DePaola Award). She is currently working on her second children's book with Nancy Paulsen Books, which is scheduled to be published in 2014. Her first book Dream Friends will be published world-wide in February 2013, with the same publisher. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and works on editorial assignments, gallery pieces, books, stationery cards, and a lot more. 

After the usual childhood dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, Chris Overend realised his passion for photography and could be found camera in hand from the age of seventeen. His first big break came from working with Chris Moore at London Fashion Week, and he cut his teeth assisting photographers including Suki Dhanda, Andy Barter and Perry Curties for clients such as Italian Vogue, Esquire, GQ and The Sunday Times Magazine. He has also personally shot for The Observer, Catwalking.com, Sony BMG. His work has taken him from the arenas of fashion and music to still life and portraiture, and has graced such varied mediums as album covers and the gallery walls of 125 Central Park West. Despite health problems leaving him to shoot from a wheelchair for a year, Chris continues a varied and passionate career as a photographer. In recent years he has developed a passion for motor sports photography, although his signature style remains capturing honest and emotional portraits, which he does using his classic square format Hasselblad.

Hannah Davies is an award winning Welsh based designer and illustrator. She is a fine-detail Surface Pattern Design specialist who draws on her love of nature for inspiration, producing intricate work rich in texture and colour. Combining illustration and pattern design, "I use my imaginative and detailed hand-drawing as a starting point. I then develop this using my own vibrant watercolours and collage techniques creating quirky stories"

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Cyclops remixed workshop

Over the weekend of 15th / 16th September we hosted a workshop where people could come and create their own Cyclops clock. 

Below are a few of our favourites, thanks to everyone who came along and took part!

 

 












Wednesday 5 September 2012

Watch revival No. 6




1916 17J Silver Trench Watch

This is a trench watch from the first world war (most likely owned by a soldier - the luminous painting on the numerals and hands implies military use). The hallmark dates it to 1916, it's 35mm diameter and has an unsigned 17 jewel, adjusted Swiss movement.

It caught my eye for a couple of reasons - firstly because it's a three piece screw case, so an early attempt at sealing the case from the elements (and especially water). The case is made by Dennison who were a Birmingham company who produced high quality watch cases from the late 19th century up until the 1960s. Sadly (and tellingly) there are a number of rather deep gauges which are clearly marks from someone trying to open the case with a knife (i.e. they assumed it was a press-fit case, like the vast majority of early watches were).

 
The second thing that I liked about the watch is that it has 17 jewels, rather than the normal 15. This means that special case has been taken to ensure good running. The movement is also marked "adjusted" meaning that the balance is made in such a way as to negate the effects of temperature. This was done by making the balance from a sandwich  of two metals with complementary heat coefficients, so as one expands [link for explanation of temperature adjustment].

 
Having 17 jewels on a watch of this period is pretty rare and would have commanded a significant premium on a regular movement. The 'extra' two jewels are on the centre wheel pinion, you can see the upper one in the very centre of the movement (jewel number 17 is on the dial side of the movement). As I understand it the reason this is rarely jewelled are twofold: firstly there's not a lot of metal to work with as the bridge is very thin at this point (and the jewel needs to be large for the centre-wheel pivot), The second reason it wasn't often done is that it's not really necessary - the centre wheel pivot turns the most slowly of all the wheels in the gear-train (one revolution every twelve hours).

Anyway I cleaned the movement and reassembled, it was fairly straightforward except I neglected to put the dial feet screws in place before I started reassembly. As these have to sit beneath the bridges I had no choice but to backtrack in order to get them in the right place.


After assembling the movement kept ok time (but it was gaining a few minutes per day), so I took it to Richard Edwards for expert diagnosis. He manipulated the hairspring a bit and managed to get it to around +- 20 seconds per day, which is excellent performance from a watch of this age.


One final observation about this watch is that it doesn't appear to have been serviced very often as there are none of the tell tale repairers marks scratched into the caseback. It must have been serviced at some point because the crown is a replacement.