APD Week 2 - Play and Time

Theme

We often think of time as an abstract, flowing, invented concept, but time is also physical. Sometimes it exists as a measuring mechanism, an informative device, or simply a decoration - a clock or a watch that we use every day to capture time. Almost all clocks and watches have the same design, twelve numbers and three hands, but every living thing has their own schedule, what if animals want to use watches but it's too confusing?

So in response to this week's theme Play and Time, I want to explore the relativity of time in its physical form by designing a clock surface for my dogs.

Context

During a family gathering at a friend's uncle's house, I noticed he has a clock in the study room that says ''Who cares? I'm retired'' with all the numbers cluttered at the bottom (similar to the image below). I find it very interesting because it makes so much sense, since he doesn't need to worry about work or study anymore, time is represented differently in his perspective. It makes me wonder how else can I make clock designs for different purposes.

Photo credit:

https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/532682150/who-cares-im-retired-pendulum-clock

Method

I sketched out a pie chart of my dogs' daily schedule which consists of three parts, sleep, eat and play. Then, I redesigned the clock hands so that the hour hand becomes a little stick figure holding a ball launcher (me!), the minute hand becomes a pupper in a running pose, and lastly, the second hand turns into the ultimate target tennis ball. I glued each layer onto a foam sheet and used a toothpick to stack them together. By turning the toothpick, the hands will move and it looks like the dog is playing fetch with the owner.

Initially I wanted to make an animation loop, but I think making an actual clock adds more interactivity and it's also a cute decoration to remind me that it'll always be play time for my dogs.

Reflection

Overall I'm happy with the clock I made. I used all the materials available at hand but turning with the toothpick is still very wonky. I wanted to be able to turn each hand individually so I need to figure out a way to do that. There's a lot of room for improvements besides the turning mechanism. For example, I can also draw a few more items for each clock hand so it's swappable and can represent a different scenario.

While I was searching for ideas of clock design, I realized there's actually a big market and it got me into product design. I think these simple, silly designs are great visualisations for an abstract, profound concept and it makes me happy thinking that our life is a little more delightful because of them.