Drawing inspiration from the Kinetic Art movement of the 1950’s combined with a deep frustration of the “generic minimalism” saturating the current watch market, Singapore-based design studio Humism launched their first line of watches transforming time into spellbinding art. Powered by the wearer’s own movement and crafted from materials like stainless steel and sapphire crystal glass, each timepiece is unique in its kinetic abstract design.
Humism Watch – hour & minute discs tell the time.
The Inspiration
From inception – to hundreds of design drafts – to a final prototype, the entire process to create the watch took the Humism creative team one year to complete. This dedication resulted in three timepieces – each noteworthy in every detail.
Why the need for perfection in a watch design?
On their initial successful Kickstarter page, lead designer David Sze explains the philosophy behind the timepieces, “We are inspired by the potential of using time’s movement to create visual beauty, and perhaps even philosophical meaning. In our design research, we were influenced by the Kinetic Art movement, vibrant in the 1950s. Kinetic artists broke from traditional static art and created art that produced beauty through movement. These innovative visual experiences created new interactive relationships between the artwork and the viewer.”
Davis Sze, Humism Designer
The Watch Designs
Humism doesn’t go into too much detail behind their creations as they believe, “The meaning of a work shouldn’t be shackled by the creator.” However, illusion and dynamic visual patterns are strong themes running throughout each timepiece design.
The Eudaimonia Watch – Humism
Making a play on perspective, the Eudaimonia consists of four concentric rings of circles with alternating expansion and contraction.
The Giest – Humism
Offering uneven layers and patterns spiraling outwards, the Geist model also has different angles creating an illusion of differing speeds.
The Dasein – Humism
The Dasein features patterns that change in shape and size as the hour and minute discs move across one another.
More Than Just A Watch
As a studio “with a social heart,” a portion of watch sales will be donated to The Red Pencil, a non-profit that uses art therapy to help survivors of natural disasters, domestic abuse, and human trafficking. The timepieces start at $275 and Humism is currently taking pre-orders on their second campaign at Indiegogo.
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