Clever Clocks by Douglas Chalk tell time in an inventive way.
The fact that the big hand on most clocks points to the minutes the smaller unit of time never made sense to Douglas Chalk. Neither did the idea of the ticking of a clock. “If a clock starts and stops, jerking as each second passes, well that’s completely incongruous with the passage of time, which is continuous,” said the Oakland-based designer and owner of Cleverclocks. His clocks tell time differently. Each clock runs on a battery that enables a continuous sweep motor to cut out the jarring and noise, so the hands move smoothly and quietly. And the large hand points to the hours—the logical choice, said Chalk.
Reading a Cleverclock can require some guidance at first, and so the clocks are packaged with a card that shows how to read each one at six sample times throughout the day. Handmade with his partner Eva Letts, each clock is individually signed by Chalk. Cleverclocks are as much works of art as timepieces.
