Saw this on Core77 a few months ago and had to post since I stumbled upon it again. Must have taken forever to get the gearing to align properly. Talk about hand craft skills since this was done in paper.
Monthly Archive for January, 2003
I love Lum-Tec because of their small scale approach to manufacturing limited edition pieces. Apparently the company founder/lead designer can often be found in their official forum bouncing ideas off of customers and fans (official forum here). Lum-Tec has now taken the relationship between the designer and the customer one step farther by actually allowing customers to help design a new project.
So, this could be dangerous but now anyone can play an integral role in designing a new Lum-Tec watch that will be sent into production. In a newly created, design-dedicated forum on WatchandClockForum.com, the Lum-Tec team will allow users to decide what features the watch should have, what it looks like, and even what type of movement to use, literally every aspect of the watch. But they get the final decision on what gets made; plus they own the IP!
Many watch companies claim to be responsive to what their customers want, but Lum-Tec is raising the bar for sure. The forum has just gone live and is welcoming new would-be designers. Membership to this forum is completely free and only requires an email address. To sweeten the deal, Lum-Tec and The Watch and Clock Forum have announced that once the design of the watch has been completed, there will be a drawing among active participants for one of the watches. So you can help design a watch and maybe even get it for free…interested?
If you don’t want to own your design and get the chance at winning something that you might not even want then go for it! I do like an open source approach to development, but this one only works in favor of the manufacturer. Still, no one else seems to be doing anything remotely close. Via Hodinkee.
and I am not a patient person. i lost two solid posts too. sorry for delays.