According to Chinese legend, only the strongest and bravest koi could swim up the Dragon’s Gate waterfall to become dragons, symbolizing the strength to surmount great difficulty and live your dreams. In this design, the koi follows the hour while the pearls follow the minute and second. (Koi by Stephanie Kriza)
Very nice @pacingpoet. I see that you favor watercolor images (I like your hummingbird face best). Smart watches for women… I have this discussion with my mom all the time. She commented that male smartwatch owners outweigh female owners and asks… do women dislike smartwatches because most of the designs are for men? Or are most designs for men because women don’t really wear them? Good question LOL. I don’t really know the answer but I have recently started adding some ladies/unisex additions to my portfolio.
While the electronics giants continue to make smartwatches (Sony, ASUS, Samsung, etc), I noticed a huge uptick in manufacturing investment capital this year for smartwatch designs from the retail/jewelry side of the watch industry (Fossil, DKNY, Michael Kors, MICHELE, etc). That means larger opportunities for us designers, but I think we all have to start catering to a more equal audience of male and female watch owners. Good luck with your designs!
Great point! It is a chicken and egg problem, but if watch faces were more appealing to women, more smartwatches would be sold to/for women. Women would buy in if watch rims, bands, and faces looked good.
Most smartwatch hardware and software companies have been staffed by men who are out of touch with what women are willing to wear all day. On the hardware side, smartwatch manufacturers failed to consult with women’s watchmakers on basic design elements that appeal to women. I was so deeply dissatisfied with my watch band that I had to switch it out twice. I eventually found quick-release silicone bands by Archer in chick-friendly colors (white, black, pale rose). The software side’s another sausage-fest. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing some of these hyper-masculine designs! The featured categories in the Facer app are so male-centric that I have to scroll way, way down just to get to one or two plausible faces. Admittedly I am pretty picky, but the app badly needs more gender balance. Any day now @Facer_Official can add a fluffy Animals category. I’ll wait.
Another part of the problem is that coding animations becomes an arms race (pissing contest). It’s tempting to fill the watch screen with whatever you can get to work, but then things start to feel tacky fast …in a MySpace kind of way. Creators need to be disciplined and make design choices that create clean and vivid visuals. Delight the wearer and, if possible, tell a great story! That’s my design philosophy, anyway. /rant off
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” - Joe Sparano
(I mean there’s also a technology aspect to it - the current batch of watches come out big and clunky, “womens’ watches” “should be” small and slender…)
@tyhm Sure, Skagen and Anne Klein make some of the sleekest women’s watches. I’ve worn both. But lots of women wear chunkier models by companies like Citizen, Seiko, Swatch, etc.
I gave up the sleekness of Skagen for smartwatch functions like discreet notifications and alarms. I don’t miss the sleekness as much as I thought I would, and since my watch faces are beautiful, both women and girls ask about my smartwatch.
I just want to wish everyone a HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!
新年快樂! 恭喜發財! 年年有餘!
In Mandarin Chinese, fish is a homonym for abundance, which is a part of a New Year’s wish for future abundance year after year. That’s why this watch face has gotten extra love this week. #TIL
I really love the sheer simplicity but Koi to it makes it even better. I have been looking at your watches, thank you for sharing such lovely creations of art/function.
I’ve worn both of those on my Moto 360 Gen 2. It was fun, but creating faces is more fun.
Editing to add that over the last couple of years I’ve polled women. Women feel that they don’t need all the dials and stats that men like. All they want are the basics. They would rather purchase something pretty and less expensive. That’s how I got into this. I wanted to show that they can have something feminine with an option for more information. The only negative I’ve heard since my promoting faces has been that too much “stuff” kills the battery.
Is there any way @Facer can keep a permanent collection strictly for women so it will be easy for them to search by simply using “Women’s Watch Faces” or something similar? It seems that current “Women’s Watch Faces” search results produce a majority of designs for men.
Happy lunar New Year 
