The clock might be one of the most continuously redesigned objects in history, yet its function is unchanged. While a clock cannot give us more time, how we draw time can change what we notice about the time we have.

Carlo Rovelli, among others, covered the topic of time in a personally very interesting way in The Order of Time. Therefore, I will not explain time but rather explore its graphical forms and the various ways we can perceive it.

Drawing time

For centuries, clocks have translated an invisible concept [of time] into positions, divisions, movements, and numbers. These conventions became so familiar that we lose connection with its fundamental meaning.

Twelve marks and two hands have objectified time. Even with digital clocks, time’s format became more compact, the information more direct, but 12 and 24 remain the brand voice of time, a widely accepted subjective take on a physical phenomenon.

This makes the clock an intriguing design object. There is nothing left to explain, but plenty left to draw, which makes drawing clocks less about how to tell time and more about exploring new meanings when time is given alternative visual forms.

Not all time is “clock time”

My personal relation with time sits somewhere between atomic and vague. Atomic when things get serious, or when I care; vague in the opposite scenarios, but almost always somewhere in between. Certainly not atomic when it comes to habits. I also don’t think I ever get on clock for anything. On time, maybe, but not on clock. So, not all time is clock time; most of it is a matter of personal perception in a given moment.

I believe there is some space between measuring time and perceiving time. The measurement may stay the same while its representation changes, and with it, something about how we experience it.

Time is one of the few things everyone has at some point, but no one can keep. But this might go for almost anything, and as we approach the singularity, anything anyway can go for anything … anyway.

it’s time