Watch Illustrations and Typography with Björn Altmann
Pietro PillaBjörn Altmann is a graphic designer, illustrator and typographer based in London. He has a particular focus on branding and typography but he gained notoriety in the watch space thanks to his first illustrations in 2020. He moved from being an Instagram phenomenon to working with major publications, such as Il Giornale degli Orologi, Calibre 11, Wristcheck, Hodinkee, and Il Sole 24 Ore. This led to some massive projects you may have already seen form him and not even know it.
After many in-depth correspondences on Instagram, both of us being passionate about design, we had the chance to meet in Geneva. After a typical Swiss dinner at the Bistrot du Boeuf Rouge, we decided to uncover some aspects not usually touched by mainstream media. So now buckle up and dive into this interview on Björn’s experience, fonts and design trends!
Your work has been featured not only on Instagram but also in major publications. Which ones have been the most significant for you?
Something that has fascinated me is restoration and finding out how things look when new. Some watches have a design that calls for perfection and where patina gets in the way. One of these watches was the AP Disco Volante, designed by Gebhard Duve. So I made drawings of a few references and would have never foreseen what came next: Emmanuel Gueit (RO offshore and Dennison designer, among many others) sent me a message on Instagram. We had a meeting and I can say this much: I worked on a few projects for him. Very exciting!
Next came Ollech & Wajs, who are a Swiss watch brand with a rich heritage that they wanted to celebrate in 2022 and therefore needed someone with a sort of “scientific approach” to making visuals of the watches in question, sometimes recreating them from photos of parts. Every single detail of the nine watches was drawn by hand, including the typography and all numerals. No existing typefaces would have been a match. A very interesting project, which resulted in an article in Oracle Time.
Still, in 2022 I then started to make cover illustrations for auction house Watches of Knightsbridge, which are always particularly detailed. But then came something really big: I received a message on Instagram from the global editorial manager at TAG Heuer. They were after “a few illustrations for their new book on the Carrera”. Those few turned out to be over 500. It was a monumental task that started around Christmas 2022 and was finished in June the following year.
Finally this year I went to Watches & Wonders and other events for networking purposes – and some of them start to bear fruit now!
Many watch brands, both large and small, tend to use the same fonts in their designs. Why do you think this happens, and could you give us some examples of fonts that could work better with specific designs?
Initially, dial designs would have been drawn by hand, including their typography. This meant that everything was bespoke and fit the space perfectly. With the advent of digital type in the 80s it was quicker to use ready-made fonts. To make these fit, letterforms were then distorted and not drawn specifically for, say, a date window. This then leads to uneven stroke widths, which does not look good. A way to improve this would be to commission a type designer to draw a custom version just for the date wheels of a specific model line.
Certain fonts such as Eurostile were chosen at the time because they were fashionable (it was released in the 60s) or because the typeface suggested qualities like speed that were in line with the type of watch – a chronograph for example. While typography on older Heuer references would have been hand drawn and is sometimes only loosely based on the fonts of the time, later references clearly used a digital version. Eurostile is very special in that it has timeless qualities. It has been used in many science fiction films, has been to space with Apollo IX and the police in the US like to apply it to their vehicles, probably because it looks fast. When Aldo Novarese designed it in 1964, he said: “Eurostile efficiently expresses modernity.” 60 years on, this is still true. And do you know who else really likes to use Eurostile prominently? Rolex.
But there are other fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, and Helvetica, which also see a very widespread use on watches and where it is difficult to see why. Helvetica is a Swiss-designed font (Max Miedinger, 1957), and it also has timeless qualities and is very versatile.
Arial and Times New Roman however are the typical MS Word default choices. The former was designed in 1982 for an early IBM laser printer and the latter for the British newspaper The Times. Even if a typeface is good, it can become overused and then we should look for alternatives. In watches, every detail counts and the further we go into high horology, the more time is spent on detail and finishing. The same should apply to the choice of font. Charles Eames said: “The details are not the details, they make the product”. Times New Roman belongs to a group of typefaces called transitional, having their roots in the Baroque period when one style of typefaces transitioned into the Modern Style, which has a much higher contrast between strokes. An alternative to Times could be Baskerville. Helvetica is a better choice than Arial when it comes to sans serifs, but there are lots more to choose from.
The watch design itself should also be considered: is it classical or modern, is it meant to break with tradition or purposefully in keeping with it?
I have to add that there are big brands that do have stunning typography, sometimes custom-made. However, I have noticed that microbrands generally pay a lot of attention to typographic detail.
You’ve illustrated many Cartier NSO watches. Do you have a favourite piece you’ve illustrated, even if it hasn’t been produced yet?
While I can’t talk about the majority of them for confidentiality reasons, I can say that I have worked on an NSO for Roni Madhvani. Another very nice example that has been shown publicly was for the collector Denson Ng (@dens.watchvault) and he also kindly allowed me to talk about my involvement. It is a Cloche in yellow gold with a blue guilloché dial and Chinese numerals. The combination of blue and gold is just stunning.
Is there something you haven’t had the chance to illustrate yet, but you’re really excited about or looking forward to working on?
I really love the typography on Lange watches. The giant version of the Datograph at Watches & Wonders really lets you appreciate all the detail. The Zeitwerk would also be a nice one to illustrate. But, of course, there are a lot of really interesting vintage Cartier references that I have not done yet.
One of the most challenging to date apart from the Zenith Chronomaster was the Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute Chrono-Matic with its 24-hour dial. Four sets of numerals needed to be drawn for it. The whole illustration took me a week.
What are some design trends in the watch industry you’re excited about or that you think will be influential in the future?
I saw some 3D printed titanium at Watches & Wonders – I think this could be very interesting in the watch industry. We have seen lots of micro brands emerge, and they will typically not be in a position to afford a large production number in the beginning. If other methods would allow ideas to be launched in different ways – maybe also with more organic shapes – that could be very exciting. Injection moulding also seems to be a way to create interesting watch cases at a lower cost – the Timex S2 is an example. Forged carbon has also been introduced into the more affordable spectrum now by Tissot. I think it’s great that there are more and more high-end elements that can now increasingly be experienced at a lower price point.
How do you ensure that typography aligns with the overall personality of the watch design—whether it’s vintage, modern, sporty, or luxurious?
If a modern watch has a vintage look for example, then it’s important that the typography reflects that. Now I’m not a fan of fauxtina, so I don’t think the fonts should be made to look “aged” in any way. But they should be period correct. This is the detail I mentioned before: every element is part of the watch design and needs to be considered.
The font can be a modern version of an older design, for example, a 2024 interpretation of an Art Deco font. That way it matches the watch which was designed today and not in 1935.
Talking about the personality of a watch: if it is an elegant dress watch, then the typeface chosen needs to match this style. That is not to say it can’t be used in a modern way like the oversized Breguet numerals on the Baltic MR01c. We have to look at the watch as a whole: if the case and dial have lots of detail, then the numerals would look at odds with this if the font was a basic sans serif like Helvetica.
In your opinion, what makes a typeface ‘timeless’ or suitable for a watch that is meant to stand the test of time? Do you have some examples of vintage watches that have a timeless font?
Excluding text fonts and just looking at watches as an application for type, we can see that simple sans serifs that were used from the 30s onwards work still very well today. On vintage Heuer watches for instance we find apart from Eurostile the earlier draftsman’s lettering, something close to DIN (the typeface created for the German Institute for Standardisation in the 30s). It’s monolinear and condensed to save space. This makes it perfect for crowded chronometer bezels. In the 50s other fonts such as Univers (by Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger) were picked up by watch designers and modified for their needs. Dial printing required the fonts to be simple and were intra-character space (the counters) were in danger of filling up with ink, they were widened – examples are the flat-topped A, M, and 4.
The Longines Cal.370 from 1966 has extended numerals of a style that can be found on many watches and that was designed around the beginning of the 20th century. Another reason for extended and wide numerals is that they fill the space better Also they don’t run the risk of filling up with ink if they are printed rather than applied.
Simplicity does not have to mean a lack of refinement. Sans serifs can be very elegant.
At the opposite end, we have fonts like American Typewriter from the 70s and Apple Chancery from the 90s, which have very strong characteristics that make them unsuitable for a watch dial. Yet they have been used and those designs do not age well.