The “Spinning Beach Ball” Watch turns every designer’s nightmare into a fun, dynamic timepiece!

Posted on 24/08/2023 by Sarang Sheth

Equivalent to the ‘blue screen of death’, the spinning beachball is easily every designer’s worst nightmare. It makes its appearance on your MacBook or iMac when a program crashes, generating feelings of existential dread as you realize that you probably didn’t save your work before the software crashed. The spinning beachball represents hours of time wasted, and work lost… However, the folks at Anicorn want to turn that symbol into something a little more lighthearted.

The Spinning Beach Ball watch cleverly turns a scary icon into a fun, dynamic watch face. The timepiece comes with a relatively minimalist design, drawing your eye to the timepiece’s face, which features the 6-colored ball. Move your wrist around and the ball actually spins, mimicking the rotating action of the cursor symbol on MacOS devices!

Designer: The Trio of Time by Anicorn Watches

“This design inspiration brings a touch of familiarity and playfulness to the watch,” mention the folks at Anicorn Watches, a design-driven watchmaking studio responsible for some beautiful contemporary timepieces. When the watch is active, the bearing comes to life, imitating the spinning motion of a beach ball and the well-known “Loading” symbol. The circular disc rotates seamlessly and fluidly, producing a captivating visual effect that contributes a distinctive charm to the watch’s overall design. In a way, it’s also a visual reminder to just sit back and wait rather than rush through life… much like you’d be forced to sit and wait at the laptop while the loading sign would spin.

“The spinning beach ball represents moments of transition and the promise of what’s to come,” says the Anicorn team. “Drawing inspiration from this symbol, our team set out to create a timepiece that captures the essence of this iconic image.”

The watch is an understated beauty, featuring a 316L stainless steel body and genuine leather straps. A Japanese Miyota 2025 Quartz movement powers the timepiece, while an independently movable watch face comes with the beach ball pattern, swinging around every time you move your wrist. The entire apparatus sits underneath a mineral glass cover, which gives the watch 5ATM of water resistance too.

The Spinning Beach Ball starts at $229, although it’s only up for pre-order at the moment. The watch will begin shipping in November 2023.

The post The “Spinning Beach Ball” Watch turns every designer’s nightmare into a fun, dynamic timepiece! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Anicorn and NASA made some ‘out of this world’ watches

Posted on 18/10/2018 by Sarang Sheth

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Anicorn is probably one of our favorite watch brands. Their signature simplistic style and creative twists usually result in watches that can be minimal yet extremely interesting. The lack of elements doesn’t really make the watch feel empty, because the treatment of these elements give the watches their sheer beauty (case in point, the Hidden Time watch)

Their latest watch comes as a collaboration with NASA to celebrate the 60th anniversary of NASA’s establishment. Limited to just 60 pieces (and sold out in under one minute), the watches come with the color scheme of NASA featuring white with red and blue accents. The hand-less watch contains a Miyota 9015 automatic movement on the inside, encased in 316L Stainless Steel with a Sapphire-coating reinforced Plexiglass window on both sides. To add a signature aerospace touch to it, the watch comes with white textile straps and an embroidered NASA logo (making it feel almost like an extension of the spacesuit). You even get a NASA embroidered patch to put on your clothes, and a metal card with the GPS coordinates of the Kennedy Space Station etched into it (with a sneaky remark that says “Designed on Earth”)!

Designers: Anicorn & NASA

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Time shall reveal itself

Posted on 26/10/2017 by Sarang Sheth

“Sheer simplicity, sheer beauty” would be the words I’d use to describe Anicorn’s Hidden Time watch. Designed in collaboration with designer Jiwoong Jung, the Hidden Time watch captured Jung’s visual interpretation on how one should focus on the time at hand… literally. Using focus as the visual key, the design plays with gradients that help bring numbers to focus when they’re relevant. A gradiented disc rotates, creating contrasts against the white numerals on a transparent level above the disc, allowing you to see numbers at the darkest points i.e., where the contrast is the highest.

Hidden Time is a part of Anicorn’s TTT Project (Trio of Time). They plan on collaborating with three designers from around the world with different interpretations of time, to create three, beautifully designed watches. Hidden Time was the first, and it’s no surprise that the watch sold out almost instantly. I remain to see who Anicorn collaborates with next! I’ll be sure to report my findings to you!

Designer: Jiwoong Jung for Anicorn Watch Co.