A wall clock made of twelve numeral circles

The dial is a single part. Twelve circles hang like beads on a string around a wavy centre, and each circle holds a cut-out numeral. Because the numerals are genuine cut-outs, there is no paint and no print that could flake off: what you see is always whatever sits behind the clock — the pale studio backdrop in these photos, the colour of your wall later on.

Two details are what make the numbers possible at all. The zero in the ten, the six, the eight and the nine have closed counters — they would drop out as loose discs. So they hang on narrow bridges, exactly as they would on a stencil. And the typeface is chosen so those bridges do not read as a mistake, but as one more stroke in the shape of the digit.

Everything else is off-the-shelf. A hole in the centre takes a standard quartz movement; the hands are bought in and pushed on. Three different sets sit in the same disc across these photos — green, red and gold. The same dial reads three different ways, and that is exactly the appeal of a cut part: whatever comes after it stays interchangeable.