I always wanted to explore designing faces for digital watches. As a user of Apple products, designing a watch face for the Apple Watch seemed logical.
After a quick brainstorm about which watch face I wanted to adapt, my decision fell on the Rolex GMT Master II, which is a very iconic Rolex design!
Tools used:
Accurate Translation
The first thing I did was collect references of the official GMT Master II in high resolution to make sure that I have the best reference to start building my explorations after.
After that, I researched the design sytem for the Apple Watch. Element sizes, dimensions of hands and text, and much more were essential to keep consistent to Apple’s design in order to make it seem ✨official✨.
There are multiple different versions of the GMT Master II. The biggest difference is the color(s) of the bezel, so I wanted to explore multiple different variants with different bezel compositions.
One essential and cool feature established by the Apple Watch Ultra and iOS 17 is 🌙Night Mode🌙.
This mode sets the watch into an alternative watch face that is less bright and noticeable during the dark, morphing its elements into a dark red tint, which is still readable, but emits as little light as possible.
After I created this super dark red mode, I also wanted to explore a more fun version – one that resembles glow-in-the-dark elements, including a faint glow around all elements to make it seem like it emits light.