4. Case Design Exploration
Anatomy of an automatic watch.
The case or the body of the watch is the main housing that holds the movement, dial, crystal (cover glass) and also gives the watch much of its appearance along with the dial.
Since I am most likely going to DMLS (3D print) the case out of stainless steel, I have the freedom to design forms that might not be machinable. This freedom to design allows for exploring more organic shapes and lends well to my design goal of attempting to depart from a ‘round’ watch case.
For the case design I have two design objectives:
Create a silhouette that departs from a circle but is still elegant and distinctive.
Make the watch feel like it is elevated off the wrist, presenting the time to the viewer.
For the first objective, the Panerai watch case served as a great starting point. However, I wanted to reduce the chunkiness of the traditional Panerai design and give it a lighter, more modern feel.
The three forms presented below are variations of that basic shape, but each communicates a slightly different feel to the design:
Three silhouettes of the same basic concept.
The perspective views below further show the differences in how the three forms feel with small changes to the rounding of the edges and removal of the bezel for the crystal:
Perspective view showing hardness of 01 to softness of 03 designs.
To explore the next design objective, I changed the amount of undercut, or reduction in diameter of the case as you move from the crystal to the wrist:
Exploring how much to ‘lift’ the case off the wrist, while also balancing ‘thiness’ the effect creates.
Increasing the amount of elevation from the wrist also has the side-effect of how thin the case appears to be. I need to find a good balance between chunky and delicate.
A perspective view helps visualize how this design feature ties in with the first design objective:
Perspective view of the three designs showing both hardness / softness and elevation and chunkiness.
In order to get a better sense of which concept to pursue or modify, I am going to get the three concepts 3d printed after I design the lugs (the legs that hold the strap) so I can put all three on my wrist and get a feel for what these forms are like in reality.