Hey @MadisonLastrega,
So I think about this topic A LOT and I have drawn a few strange conclusions. These are my own opinions (not advice!) but feel free to comment or tell me I’m wrong - no problem.
There’s tons of extremely talented people here who have mad design skills, mad artistic skills, and mad mathematical skills. The result of that are watches with beautiful designs, tremendous concepts, and crazy engineering. But what’s missing on many of these is a consideration of the audience. Most of the GENERAL PUBLIC are not designers, not artists, and not engineers. So while a lot of us may have 30 and even 40 hours of work in a watch face created, the sad truth is that much of the common public really doesn’t care.
It sounds like you have some awesome graphics software that you are invested in, but the raw truth is that 2D drawing tools like PhotoShop and Illustrator are more than adequate to develop awesome designs. I understand the 3D beauty of tools like Maya, Blender, SolidWorks, but the cost of the tool is lost in only 2-dimensions, and most watchfaces aren’t more than 1.5". So intricate detail is also lost - it’s just too small to see well. I’m reminded of some guitarist who brings his (or her) $4,500 Les Paul Custom to a bar gig. Yeah, there may be a couple of music experts in the crowd with very finely tuned ears, but most of the crowd is just drunk. As long as the guitar makes noise most don’t care beyond that.
Next, is a watch design “commercially viable on a large scale”? Meaning, even if you spend hours and hours on it, will you get to that 3000 sync level? Well you really need to understand the market, trends, and popularity for that. This is the market part of the design. An example: If Smart Watches existed in 1989 as they do today and you were licensed to make a Debby Gibson watchface, it would probably have hit the 10,000 sync level back then - no problem. Today, most people don’t even know who Debby Gibson was. She was a wildly popular music-star like Katy Perry and others are today.
My last point is the materialistic nature of most people (it seems). I made one watch - very simple - took little time - that looks a lot like the Breitling Navitimer watches that run in the $5000-$7000 range for the real ones. It is my most popular watch approaching 6,000 syncs this week. Why? I believe for many people, being seen wearing a Breitling-looking watch is more important. Let me say that again… for them, BEING SEEN wearing the watch is more important than just wearing it. Not everybody is like this obviously, but certainly the popularity of this watch speaks to this element of social phenomenon. Breitling, Rolex, these are house-hold names. Same idea with women’s accessories… Gucci, Coach… Why would someone buy a $1200 pair of Jimmy Choo shoes or a $400 pair of Maui Jim sunglasses when they can buy cheap knock-offs in Chinatown that “look pretty close” for $30. I think you really have to consider this type of thinking as well if you’re trying to hit big sync numbers with your watch designs. Of course, I realize this is “selling out” for high-quality watchface artists. Your art skills and the Facer watch functions and feature TAGS are highly important - but dont discount these social aspects I mentioned above.
so yes! build those crazy watches that do all sorts of wonderful things and have incredible artwork. but I think your portfolio should include some of these social-bait watches as well just to even out your offerings.
HTH,
John
