Silver Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design · 2017
ttmm for Pebble Watchfaces Apps
- A' Design Award 2017 Silver Winner in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design
- Awarded April 15, 2017
- CLIENT: Ttmm
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 51,442
- Verification code 5A3B002709 · Verify this award
About ttmm for Pebble Watchfaces Apps
TTMM is a 130 watchfaces collection dedicated for Pebble 2 smartwatch. Specific models show time and date, week day, steps, activity time, distance, temperature and battery or bluetooth status. User can customize type of information and see extra data after shake. TTMM watchfaces are simple, minimal, aesthetic in design. It is a combination of digits and abstract infographics perfect for a robots era.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The TTMM it is collection of 130 absolutely original watchfaces dedicated for Original Pebble and Pebble 2 smartwatches. Thanks to smartphone connection TTMM not only shows time but also date, week day, steps, activity time, distance, temperature in your city and battery or bluetooth status. User can customize type of information and see extra informations after shake. TTMM is simple, minimal and aesthetic. It is a combination of digits and abstract infographics - pure time signs for a robot era.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Binary apps for Pebble are from 50Kb to 550 Kb
- Tags
- watchface, smartwatch, time, clock, minimal
- Production Technology
- TTMM collection was designed in Adobe Illustrator. Fonts for watchfaces were prepared with Type Tool 3. All bitmaps were edited in Adobe Photoshop. Programming was made with Pebble SDK and XCODE.
- Design Challenge
- Pebble smartwatch has extreme low black and white 144×168 pixel screens resolution and e-paper technology show graphics thanks to reflected light. So design needs to be readable in good and poor light conditions. That is why I used pixel perfect graphic and fonts. To preserve battery life I avoid unnecessary animations. In some design battery consumption is very high and it expresses metaphor that life needs an energy like in MOMENTTMM.
- Project Duration
- The project started in March 2016 and finished in March 2017 in Warsaw in Poland. Programers work in France and USA.
- Operation Flow
- TTMM watchfaces can be uploaded to Pebble watch through TTMM app for Android and iOS. In TTMM app you can view design, read description, buy and upload watch faces and prepare your favorite models list. You can use watchface settings to choose color version (black or white) and setup extra information such as: date, steps, activity time, distance, temperature, battery and bluetooth connection status. Extra information you can see after shake.
- Research
- I just made my own watchfaces market observation and analyze and was shocked that there was so little original thinking and design. Mainstream projects are imitations of mechanical clocks and classic CASIO like lcd screens. The reason of that situation is that watchfaces were made by programmers. New e-paper technology provides us with a new "space"; the opportunity is priceless and we need to take advantage of it in the right way. That is why I experimented a lot and inventing new forms of the 21 century era.
- Inspiration
- The inspiration for TTMM collection comes form Future and sci-fi movies like: 2001 Space Odyssey, Star Wars and Predator. Great influence for me was Tokyo Flash Japan portal and Nooka.
- Image Credits
- "Pebble 2" by Pebble, used under Pebble Copyright License
- Patents
- 2016 COPYRIGHTS Albert Salamon
Colors of ttmm for Pebble Watchfaces Apps
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Interface Design and Digital Product Innovation Services
We specialize in creating innovative digital interfaces and user experiences that blend minimalist aesthetics with functional excellence. From mobile apps to smartwatch interfaces, our award-winning design expertise transforms complex digital interactions into intuitive, memorable experiences.
G0E2 ShopDesign Interview about ttmm for Pebble Watchfaces Apps
Readability and Style. Pebble smartwatches use low resolution (144x168 px) e-ink displays which in daylight make graphic perfectly clear, but in medium light cotrast is very low. To balance these two completely different way of showing time I design simple and clear graphic with rather large visual elements and digits.
New forms of time. I experimented with new abstract ways of showing four digits of time. There is PLAITTMM with a new font where every element in digit counts, so 1, 2, 3 are light digits and 7, 8, 9 are dense. In other models I wanted to express metaphor that life is precious and means something. MOMENTTMM is new way to see time passing by - unpredicted change in endless combination pointing for you something unique which last only for a moment like luck or love, and in CELLTTMM time is in a cage of grid eats nothing and grows so that each hour can count. TTMMFALG shows how "wind of the TIME" blows. TTMMAZE reveal the maze of the time and TTMMSTRING is kind of time instrument where hours are strings.
I am going to find partner or investor to design and produce TTMM hardware watch. If you are interested let me know.
This project took two years. I have spent a lot of time learning e-ink screen technology and finding the best colors combinations, optimal size of typography and graphic elements. Basically, design ideas come very fast to me, documentation takes one or two days. Sometimes I have to design fonts which will be pixel perfect and Pebbles resolution was a challenge. Then programmers coded binaries for Pebble and other for App Stores. There were a lot of PR work like: WWW, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, mailings etc.
I simply was tired of simulations and imitations of classical mechanical or electronic and CASIO like watches. There were no attempts to define a new form of TIME. In opposition to that, there was NOOKA and TOKYOFLASH blog where bold, avant-garde ideas were present. NOOKA and TOKYOFLASH was an inspiration and encouraged me to make my ideas real. I wanted to see watchfaces I like - so in fact I made this collection for myself. And DNA of TTMM is to define and invent new signs of the 21 century era and soft(ware)time in a new way.
I am a designer, brand owner and producer. I am selling TTMM watchfaces for Pebble smartwatch, Android Wear devices in TTMM App Stores. Also offering TTMM design for Mac, and iOS devices. TTMM is simply a software brand specializing in watchfaces and now I am looking for a partner or investor to produce TTMM hardware watch.
A “desert" of different ideas. I just discovered that (software) watchfaces are “blue ocean” and decided to be a pioneer in that field. I started in 2011 with WIMM smartwatch. Then there was the rewarded GENUSE collection for I’m Watch and after that an award for the collection for original Pebble, color Pebble Time, and now for Pebble 2.
NOOKA and TOKYO FLASH encouraged me to design my own design and with the past 5 years and over 150 different watchfaces I achieved my characteristic minimal abstract TTMM style.
People interested in something new. Open to an abstract and minimal amount of forms to mark time. I believe that many users of smartwatches want not only a great-style hardware but also seek a new expression for time.
TTMM is designed by a man (still human not an AI or bot) and has an extreme and personal minimal look. And after this there is an idea to not only watch but also THINK about time.
The name TTMM consists of the word TIME and HH:MM and with its mechanical pronunciation it represents dehumanization and digitalization of our era.
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, TypeTool 3
Personal and subjective style.
I hired programmers to code binaries for Pebble and to code iOS and Android TTMM App Stores. Watch faces design: Albert Salamon. Pebble programmers: Artur Salamon, Elijah Kang and Gregoire Sage
Technology used by Pebble (always on an e-ink screen) provides a great space for experiment while a low resolution screen determines pixel perfect fonts and graphics.
Nope. None - I just wanted to design what I like and what would be useful for me.
The main challenge was to design highly readable watchfaces on a low resolution screen with only a couple of pixels to draw, and with a limited to 2 color palette. The second challenge was battery and formal solutions to reduce energy consumption. So some of TTMM models are with five minute accuracy like (NEXTTMM, PARTTMM, CROSSTTMM, TTMMROE, TTMMRIVAL).
This is my 5th A Design Award - so for me it is natural to participate in it and present my work to professionals and publicity.
Firstly - I have experienced a great speed of change in technology, so everything I develop lives for a very short period of time and automatically becomes unimportant history. Secondly - design vs production, development and promoting are all different and very important processes. They take more time than design itself. So to achieve success you need to connect and balance all these processes, manage programmers and coordinate their work.
I think that TTMM watchfaces and collections are equivalent to songs and music albums, and if this metaphor is true, I released, in just one year, 7 albums of TIME and maybe people don’t have time to “listen” to them.
Grand Interview about ttmm for Pebble Watchfaces Apps
I designed the TTMM for Pebble collection out of pure desire to create for my own pleasure and to discover my creativity. The black and white screen of the Pebble smartwatch was like discovering a new world for me. I can compare it to discovering sheet music and experimenting with what can be depicted on it. The Pebble watch allowed me to compose and visualize my own graphic melodies of time. Harmony, rhythm and flow were important. It was breaking the sound barrier and flying into the future.
Both movies are peppered with small elements of abstract graphical interfaces in spaceship cockpits. In Star Wars Episode IV, in the X-Wing cockpit during the finale of the attack on the Death Star, you can see buttons with dots, circles and lines. These unassociated and unspoken, yet characteristic abstract graphic elements meant something and had their functions. These elements stuck with me and triggered questions "what are these strange buttons for and what do they mean?" And so I decided to create my own designs that I understood and liked to look at.
Tests, trials and improvements. The visual appeal came from treating the watch screen like a postage stamp field or a miniaturized poster that had to convey the content (TIME) quickly and attractively. The limited 1-bit resolution of the Pebble smartwatch screen (144x168 pixels) required a completely new extreme approach to graphic design. Working on the projects resembled creating single-color animated icons from which a significant image emerged. I was most pleased with the micro icons that represented a specific visualization of the dial and which had a size of 24x28 pixels.
This recognition worked by removing all brakes, pressing the gas pedal and fast-forwarding into the unknown. The fuel for my courage was the attitude of two companies that inspired me and encouraged me on this journey: Kisai (Tokyoflash) and Nooka. And my work is a creative transformation of science fiction literature and film, which resulted in bringing the future to the Pebble device.
The challenge was communication and a clear description of how a specific project visualizes time. I tried to predict how a programmer would find it easiest, fastest, and therefore cheapest to program a given solution. I described the positions myself and cut graphic components, which very often took the form of fonts containing repeating elements instead of letters. Thanks to this approach, TTMM projects took up very little memory.
I acted impulsively and explored in practice how additional information (beyond date and time) could be visualized and how such information could interact with time. I added possibilities to personalize the experience to expand the audience of TTMM products. I tested the results of these activities on myself. It was an experiment.
Tests and improvements, and if the design was originally simple, legible and stylistically nice, it was implemented. Someone is always responsible for the final result, which is why I responsibly signed the designs with my name. In my opinion, the work of a designer is subject to special ethics and criticism. Digital products of industrial design can be reproduced in hundreds of thousands or millions of copies. For me, this means duplicating beauty or ugliness, sophistication or vulgarity. Unfortunately, smartwatch manufacturers care about profit and the number of copies sold, not value. They allowed their platforms to be drowned in random and ugly designs created by amateur programmers, irreversibly degenerating the tastes of recipients.
It reminded me of Heraclitus's saying, "You can never enter the same river twice." I understand this saying as the impossibility of repeating the same space-time. I decided to visualize the uniqueness of a unique moment (a second) in the MOMENTTMM project. You can observe this project your whole life and theoretically the same accentuated moment will not repeat itself twice.
Every choice brings the paradoxical result that we do not choose everything else. After 5 years of studies and 10 years of teaching students and working for commercial clients, a suppressed need for my own expression and for signing reality with my vision awoke in me. I decided to take the position of a client towards myself. I assumed that I would create only what I consider good, paying for it the price of responsibility for the success and failure of my work. It was a statistically satisfyingly painful experience - true Responsible Freedom.
I believe that in my lifetime I will be able to design and introduce to the market a design product (hardware) that will make me independent from the uncertain fate of smartwatch manufacturers. This will allow me even greater Freedom and financial independence. It could be a wristwatch or maybe a wall clock. We'll see.