Vintage Dive Watch Homage Build - Part 2: The Dial

PREVIOUSLY - Part 1: The Idea

I’m an engineer, I develop homage watch faces for Fitbit devices, and in general I enjoy sketching / designing things. I’m going to apologize right now for what will surely turn out to be an unreasonably long post.

This journey began where we all typically begin in this day and age with a Google Search of high-quality images. I settled on a couple of good reference images and started breaking down the dimensions, ratios, fonts, etc.

In the process of looking at different dials, one of my open items was answered: I do not want a date window. So it looks like my first part has been added to the list: NH38 or NH71.

Adjusting the Logo

Using the reference images I put together a mock up of a blank dial to use as a canvas to refine the remaining aspects. The first thing I noticed is that my logo was definitely not designed to go on a dial. It’s too thin compared to the Epochal wordmark and minute track lines. So I doubled the thickness for a chonky Epochal logo:

An Aside About Fonts

With the logo sorted the next step was working on the font for the wordmark. Digging deep into fonts and with a little trial and a lot of luck I found what Rolex and Tudor use on their dials.

 From Rolex:

Clarendon, Caslon, Engravers MT - Depending on the reference and the era one of these three (or slight variations of them) are used for the Rolex wordmark on dials. Clarendon is used for the modern Rolex logo for the company in general.

Copperplate Gothic - Older Rolex references used Copperplate to note water resistance, the model, “oyster perpetual”, etc. Newer references use the same font, but remove the little serifs and/or use condensed types.

Helvetica Neue Medium Extended - The font used for “SWISS MADE” on the Submariner

 From Tudor

ITC Bookman - It is really difficult to find any information about the Tudor wordmark. My best guess is it’s some kind of tweaked Bookman with some of the serifs straightened out.

Arial - To the chagrin of many of watch enthusiasts the world over, Tudor uses Arial as the font for their dial writing. Yes, the standard font for Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and WordPad from 1987-2007. The khaki pants of the font world if you will. Likely some non-negligible portion of the money you saved buying a Tudor instead of a Rolex is because the dial was designed in PowerPoint.

Helvetica Neue Medium Extended - Used for “SWISS MADE” on the Black Bay.

Choosing the Wordmark

When I came up with Epochal Analogs, I never thought about a wordmark or the font I would use. I have a soft spot for Helvetica and Plantin as a combo for Sans/serif combos (which is way better than combining ITC Bookman and Arial). But if I was going with a grotesque font, it would have to be Aktiv Grotesk (because everyone uses Helvetica, and the name fits for a brand that develops for fitness trackers). With the letters and size I’m using, there’s really no difference between Aktiv and Helvetica. Plus polls are limited to 4 choices. Which brings us to the first poll for this build.

Which font do you think should be used for the Epochal wordmark in this build? VOTE HERE

For now, I’m going with Clarendon. With the letters involved, I feel like it does the best job of straddling a vintage and modern vibe and it just looks sharp. Depending on how the vote goes you might be able to convince me otherwise😉.

But wait, there still more logo to decide upon! Which leads us to the second poll of this post:

Which font do you think should be used for the Analogs wordmark in this build? VOTE HERE

Watch Information

With the design for the upper half of the dial locked in, it was time to fill out the rest of the information. To balance out the logo, 2-3 lines of text with one line in red seemed best. Some of my ideas for what to write:

• DIVER

• 200m:660ft

• AUTOMATIC

• SUBMARINER

• OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED

• PROFESSIONAL DIVER

• ROTOR SELF WINDING (smiley style)

On top of the above, there is the bottom edge to think about. Should it say Japan NH71? Swiss Made? Have a logo? Nothing? There are way too many combinations to do a poll and this post is already getting quite long. If you’ve made it this far, and have any thoughts or ideas then let me know in the comments.

Otherwise, I decided to go with 3 lines with the water resistance rating slightly larger and in red. On the bottom edge, "SWISS MADE" didn't reel right and "JAPAN NH71" doesn't look the best either. I chose to emulate the current Submariner:

Throw in a couple of hands and voila!

I applaud your dedication for making it to the end! You spent almost an entire page reading, learning, and voting on fonts, but by gum you’ve made it. Let it be known that you are one bad mother Cruncher. If you are still awake, feel free to let me know what you think about my final design, or any of the other parts in this post.

UP NEXT – The Bezel

(I swear this next one will be significantly shorter)