Singapore-based watch design studio Humism has launched on Kickstarter its Kinetic Art Collection. Humism’s designs emerged from a dissatisfaction with the generic minimalism that is currently flooding the micro-brand watch field. As designers, they view the watch as an artistic canvas and are excited by its unique creative possibilities. But most watches never fulfill this potential.
“We wanted to completely re-imagine watch design, to create a timepiece that makes the most of this medium’s uniqueness,” explains the design team. “And the most unique and fundamental part of a watch, as we see it, is movement.”
The designers were inspired by the potential of using time’s movement to create visual beauty, and perhaps even a philosophical meaning. In their design research, they drew inspiration from the Kinetic Art movement, vibrant in the early 20th century. Kinetic artists broke from traditional static art pieces and created art that produced beauty through movement. These innovative visual experiences created new interactive relationships between the artwork and the viewer.
Humism’s debut collection consists of three watches with dials featuring an animated spiraling pattern. Each model is named after ancient Greek philosophical concepts: Eudaimonia, Geist and Dasein. Eudaimonia features four concentric circles that dilate as the discs rotate, while Geist uses organic shapes to create an illusion of differing speeds, and Dasein is a geometric floral pattern that radiates from the center of the dial.
The watches are available now on Kickstarter for $265 USD. 5% of the sales will be donated to The Red Pencil, a non-profit that uses art therapy to help those suffering from emotional trauma.
all images courtesy of Humism