I like Casio watches but I'd like them more if the watch faces weren't splattered with "Water resist", "Chrono alarm", and such labels. Yes I don't need to be reminded this watch indeed is an chrono alarm, like an advertisement, every time I look at it.
Last year they made a few minimal versions of the f91w with those labels removed https://www.casio.com/europe/watches/casio/product.F-91WB-1A...
Personally I like it more with the labels. Reminds me of web design where sometimes you have to add some unnecessary text or icons or else it looks too bare.
Imo, it looks better with text. These are just another boring watch.
It really was part of the aesthetics in the 80s. I had a gorgeous red cassette player from Sanyo that had text and lines drawn all over it.
There are a few Casios that have cleaner designs.
My favorite is the (partly analog) PRW-7000FC-1JF, as seen on https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-e31c8/images/stencil/1280x12...
I love that, but have dainty little bird wrists. Men's watches look OBNOXIOUSLY large on me.
I wish they made something like that, that wasn't 500mm.
> I wish they made something like that, that wasn't 500mm.
That doesn't sound dainty in the least ;)
I don't agree this is exclusive to the 80s. We kept getting this shit plastered onto everything until well into the 2000s.
The Gen Z obsession with Frutiger design wouldn't be the same without the matching typography.
I actually love that :)
My A159W is my daily driver. I prefer it to my Apple Watch, which I've pretty much stopped wearing. I am not in a wealth bracket to afford wearing mechanical watches.
My Casio is a cheap watch, kind of quirky, and I love it!
I think it suits me very well.
> I am not in a wealth bracket to afford wearing mechanical watches.
The excellent Seiko 5 can be had in a wide variety of styles, many for under $100. Seriously, they're very good.
Orient makes nice mechanical watches for around $300. I have below and wear it every day.
https://orient-watch.com/en/orient/collection/classic/classi...
If only they would stop putting 'Water Resistant' on the dials. It seems such a silly thing to boast about. 'This watch has bottom rung water proofing', great.
Great watches and good value for money but that seems an odd design choice to me. Perhaps it makes sense in the Japanese market.
>The excellent Seiko 5 can be had in a wide variety of styles, many for under $100. Seriously, they're very good.
There's very few (if any) Seiko 5s that are under $100 anymore. Maybe under $200.
I got myself a few Chinese-made clones of mechanical watches. They are surprisingly durable and well made, many have good movements inside (like Seiko's NHxx) and there are certainly plenty to choose from under $100.
It's a bit of a rabbit hole so be careful and not go too deep :)
I bumped up a bit to a 5 GMT (SSK003) and absolutely love it. I think it’s beautiful, it works great, looks good with lots of different clothes, is waterproof, and it just a completely practically daily driver. It’s also less than half the price of the Apple Watch I replaced with it.
If you're Japanese and don't know or interact much with English characters and words it probably looks cool. Similar to how people tattoo random Japanese/Chinese characters on their bodies.
Casio watch with Japanese characters would actually be sick.
Japanese will say it looks bad.
Come to think of it, this reminds me of how LLMs fill every empty space in a design with technical jargon that is technically correct but doesn’t serve any purpose. Basically typographic cornice.
The secret is reminding them that blank space is a design choice.
AND PUT THE FUCKING THING ON A TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND AND DON'T JUST PUT IT ON CHECKERBOARDS
I'm designing some fun stickers for my nieces and can't draw. It's been a learning experience.
To me, its funny, I think the newest models still all do this, it's just so funny -
All the image sites show the checkerboard patterns to get clicks, the LLMs just observe and regurgitate the pattern.
And, as "advanced" as they are, and so much better than the models that came before, they still don't actually understand what you're asking for.
It's funny until the third or fourth iteration when it randomly decides to forget about transparency. Then it gets my blood pressure up.
I use AI to make small edits to designs I've already done (one of our side businesses does deal with graphic design). Like changing the color of an entire layer or quickly editing complicated text. One thing I've noticed is that if you enter more than 2 or 3 edits, every model will just completely redo the design into a generic AI mess. I don't know why they lose the thread, but you have to really work one step at a time and waste time generating multiple images as steps in the process. There's only one super useful AI tool in this space, but it's locked behind an annual subscription by Corel.
Having grown up in Ottawa in Ottawa-headquartered Corel's heyday, it's interesting to hear someone describe a tool they sell as the only super-useful one in a market segment!
They were pretty late to the game, and it's really nothing but a wrapper on other services (you can choose the model when you prompt it), but they do seem to have gotten this right, in my opinion.
It's great for rough drafts, but requires real work to turn into something final. It's PHENOMENAL at macro building and saves just a metric shit ton of time there. It's also very good at multiple simple changes if you don't want to actually build a macro.
They seem to have hit the sweet spot of providing the tool to support the artist instead of just replacing the artist skills.
Edit: I am unaffiliated with the company other than using their product. It actually turned me from a one time purchaser when I needed the updated tools (twice, I think) to an annual subscriber. I said I would never do that, but it really is an extreme time saver.
This was also a thing in the 90s and possibly early 00s, I remember my PC had a bunch of logos and crap written all over it.
Minimalism didn’t really take off until Apple made it fashionable.
A lot of the people replying to you don't seem to realise that it comes from analog/mechanical watches where major features of the watch are advertised on the dial. "Spring drive" "co-axial" "Swiss made" etc.
Except I agree, in an analog watch it's somewhat classy (although people complaintthat seiko sometimes overdoes it) but on a digital watch it seems a bit gaudy, because _of course_ it has those features, it's almost zero effort to add when you're not having to implement them with physical mechanisms.
Turbo, 16V, Electronic Fuel Injection. All over Japanese cars from the 80ties, those were the aesthetics of the time.
I imagine it's because they need to put something on the area around the screen, otherwise it would look weird. Casio do make plainer variants of their watches so you can see what I mean: https://us.firstclasswatches.com/casio-black-382mm-digital-d... . It just kind of looks empty. The F-84W has stuff around the screen but is a bit more understated compared to the F-91W: https://i0.wp.com/centreseconds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/...
> otherwise it would look weird
Weird? It looks much more elegant, if you know what I mean. They should also remove the "WR" sign. But I guess Casio knows what sells and what doesn't.
Casio is a fashion brand. They have G-shock watches in matte black if that’s what you want
https://www.casio.com/us/watches/gshock/product.GA-2100LXB-1...
They also have entire lines that aren’t G-shock such as their edifice line that are more dress oriented
https://www.casio.com/us/watches/edifice/product.EFV-160D-1A...
Fact is g-shock is their most popular line and they release collabs with streetwear brands all the time. People really like the styling
Same, which is why I got the DW-5600BB recently. Lacks features I'd like — no radio sync, no solar, no MIP display, but at least it looks cool and clean. Wish Casio had more such nice looking options.
GW-BX5600 is sooo close to being a perfect watch, but they just had to plaster the watch face with all that text and that ugly solar pattern.
models like the Casio AE-1200 (Casio Royale) look pretty good if you rub off some of the printing: https://i.imgur.com/q1cpCOS.jpeg compared to stock https://www.casio.com/content/dam/casio/product-info/locales...
granted that requires taking out the face plate and rubbing off the print you want to remove
Thinking about it, even a lot of fancy fashion watch brands seem to do this, “Quartz”, “water resist 20m”, however many jewels. The old Casio watches are a bit worse for it though.
But check out the Casio MQ-24, it’s cheap and cheerful but has a much plainer face.
I saw a newish Subaru this week and there was a thin strip near the left rear light that spelled out “symmetrical AWD”. That gave me a slight chuckle. Same with 16g, Turbo or Platinum or “sea salt”.
Those are part of the charm. Fuck 2020s minimalism
lately their gshock and timeless collection watches have become really fashionable.
Just looked down at my casio and laughed because it says both "WATER RESIST" and "WR".
I frankly just wish it had a backlight.