A new, honest, and slightly chaotic look inside how we’re building our watches.
Welcome to The Diary of an Unprofessional Watchmaker: a slow, transparent look at how we’re designing and making the new Creamy Patina watches.
This series exists for one simple reason: people kept asking us how these watches were coming together, and we realised the best answer was not a polished press release or a grand reveal at the end, but an open notebook along the way.
Every couple of weeks, we’ll post an update here showing you:
• what we’re working on
• the design decisions we’re wrestling with
• the prototypes we’re ruining
• the experiments that shouldn’t work (but sometimes do)
• and the unexpected complications that come from trying to build something strange and well-made at the same time
This won’t be a glossy marketing feed.
If we pick the wrong hand shape, you’ll see it.
If we battle over movements, you’ll hear about it.
If a dial looks terrible under a loupe, we’ll show you that too.
In other words: this is a watchmaking diary written by someone who fully admits he’s not a “proper” watchmaker - but is determined to become a dangerously good one.
Your replies shape what we make
Many of you have been with us since the early days of the miniature cufflinks, and we want you to be part of this next chapter.
Whenever we reach a design fork in the road: movement choice, dial architecture, hands, colours, textures - we’ll ask for your thoughts.
And yes, we’ll actually read the replies.
Where it makes sense, we’ll let the majority guide the direction.
Think of it as a collaborative experiment between a watch brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously… and a community that loves it that way.
What to expect next
Entry No. 2 will dive into one of the strangest and most unexpectedly difficult challenges we’ve run into so far: how to print dial markings and indices onto a surface that isn’t flat.
Crumpled parchment looks beautiful in 3D…
but watch dials traditionally require perfectly smooth landscapes.
Our dial has hills, valleys, folds, shadows - and plenty of ways for ink to misbehave.
We’ll discuss the experiments, the failures, the prototypes that went horribly wrong, and the different techniques we’re considering.
And we’d genuinely like your thoughts on what you’d prefer: a cleaner, corrected dial, or one that embraces the full uneven texture but can look a bit messy.
Until then, thanks for reading - and for being part of this wonderfully odd journey.
Still surreal. Still ticking.
Creamy Patina
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