Liz Stinson Wants More Thoughtful Watch Design¶
Published on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 10:00:00 +0000
Custom numerals, simplified dials, and user-friendly layouts go a long way.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Pulvirent sits down with Liz Stinson, Hodinkee's new design columnist and editor-in-chief of AIGA's Ion Design. The conversation explores the intersection of design and watchmaking, revealing how Liz's outsider perspective brings fresh insights to the traditionally insular watch world.
Liz shares her unconventional path into design writing, starting as a journalist who discovered design through internships at Variety and Wired, eventually landing at Fast Company's Co-Design vertical. Her first exposure to the watch industry came through a 2015 trip to Baselworld, where she witnessed the magnitude and attention to detail that defines high-end watchmaking. Now writing for Hodinkee, she brings expertise in design criticism while maintaining an amateur's curiosity about watches themselves—a combination that allows her to ask questions insiders might overlook.
The discussion delves into several of Liz's recent columns, including why watch brands often neglect typography despite obsessing over other details, why watch dials have become so cluttered and busy, and how release cycles drive unnecessary complexity. They explore the puzzling "aesthetic of expensiveness" in watches and why fashion brands like Hermès and Chanel sometimes produce more thoughtfully designed timepieces than traditional watchmakers. Liz also discusses her deeply personal column about how motherhood transformed her perception of time, forcing her to reconsider how we value and structure our lives around temporal constraints. The episode concludes with rapid-fire questions about design favorites, misconceptions, and Liz's wish to see graphic designer David Carson create a watch.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Liz Stinson | So if you're expected to release a new watch twice a year, you have to constantly reinvent the wheel. And reinventing the wheel often leads to unnecessary detailing and it leads you to making choices that aren't necessarily driven by need, but rather by perceived want or just as a way to differentiate the new watch from what came before it |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polmert and this is Hodinki Radio. This week I'm joined by our new Hodinki design columnist, Liz Stinson. Liz has an amazing history writing about design from a variety of perspectives for a variety of publications. She currently serves as the editor-in-chief of the AIGA's website, Ion Design. And Liz has written a handful of stories for the website, and we get into those and some of the details of those, but we also talk more broadly about what design is, what design's role in watches and watchmaking, and what maybe you don't think about that impacts the watches that are on your wrist. We also talk about some things that the watch world could learn by looking outside, and some things that Liz learned as a design expert coming to the watch world for the first time. So if you love design, if you love watches, this is a perfect episode for you. Also, just one thing to note, Liz actually just ran a column about some watches made of recycled gunmetal that you should for sure check out, but we recorded this episode before that ran, so you won't hear about it in the conversation. There is a link to it down in the show notes. So without further ado, let's do this. Hey Liz, how are you? I'm great. It's uh it's good to finally chat with you. You've been writing for the site now for a couple months and uh this is this is the first time you and I are like actually meeting, I mean sort of face to face on Zoom, I guess. Yeah. Yes, some semblance of face to face, I guess. Yeah. It's uh you know, it's nice though, because you're in New York, I'm in California and we can we can still do this. So uh we'll we'll just jump right into things. I mean you've become our design columnist over the last few months and that's something that I was really excited about when Nick said he was he was going to bring in somebody to really focus on on design in the world of design and how it relates to watches, not just like, hey, this is a beautifully designed watch, which I was, I was really excited to see. And I thought maybe we could start off with with a really kind of like big question, which is what is design? I think a lot of people when they hear that word think it's about like aesthetics and making things pretty and you know, expensive chairs that you buy at design within reach. But like what what do you think design means to you as a reporter and a writer? Yeah, I mean it's definitely all |
| Liz Stinson | of those things, but it's a lot more as well design can and does mean something different to everybody. Even for me, design can refer to various things depending on the context. I think that's what makes it such an interesting focus as a writer. You get to play with the conception and misconception of the term, because yes, design can speak to the aesthetics of something, but it can also speak to the function of something. And for me, it really comes down to understanding why things work the way they work at a most basic, I think design is all about intention. It's a series of decisions that are made about how something should look or feel or work. And that conceit is actually a really strong foundation for storytelling, I found |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point, right? Is that like because of how multidisciplinary it is and how like foundational it is, it's such a fruitful place for a writer. Like I have also, you know, we we were chatting before we turned the mics on here. Like I've worked at a design magazine. I'm a big like design enthusiast. And as a storyteller, it's so exciting when you have all of those possibilities and all of those layers. And I wonder how you think about design as a platform for you for for telling stories and telling stories maybe that that kind of like matter with a a capital M, if that makes sense. Yeah, design for me is |
| Liz Stinson | a really interesting place for storytelling because like I mentioned, it's really about how things work. And the reality is that we're all interacting with some form of design on a daily basis, whether that is the interface on your phone or the chair you're sitting in or the building where you live. And I think being able to articulate and understand how those things are made and why they're made and the impact that those objects have on your life is incredibly important. For me, design writing is sort of, it's not really where I imagined my career to go, but I think that curious person, it's a really fruitful place to land simply because it merges the worlds of aesthetics with more of the functional side of things. And you know, being able to dive into that and ask people questions and have them explain how something came to be is really exciting. And when it comes to deciding what's a story worth telling, I think that's a question that every journalist asks themselves, design, writing, politics, otherwise. Sure, yeah. And for me at least it comes down to has this story been told before? Is there something here that will surprise people? Are there constraints that needs to be talked about. Potentially with design writing, you're just talking about why something looks the way it looks, which is also a very interesting thing to do. I love trend reporting. I think that's a really fun piece of what we do when we're talking about design writing in terms of graphic design is is figuring out like what how does what you're seeing in the world connect back to the waves of culture, if you want to phrase it that way |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. No, I think that's that's really fascinating. And I I I completely agree with you. And you know, you you mentioned that you didn't set out to be a design writer, which I think is really fascinating. I think, you know, in the world of design, in fashion, in technology, in watches, in in lots of these more like niche subject areas or like enthusiast subject areas, people are first like passionate about the thing and then decide, like, oh, maybe if I'm passionate about this thing, like being a journalist and covering this might be a fun, you know, career. But you kind of went the other way, right? Like you went to journalism school, you're you're a journalist through and through, and then sort of found design later. I wonder how how you ended up on that beat and why you thought that might be like a fruitful place for you to like dig in and spend time. I don't think I |
| Liz Stinson | knew what design was when I was in college. I was always generally interested in uh, you know, I'm doing air quotes here, but visual culture. But the concept of design was not not really on my radar. I mean, I grew up in Nebraska, not that that means anything, but it just was, I was not in a place where thinking about design, talking about design was really top of mind. Like had I known what design was back then, maybe that's a direction I would have gone in. Uh but when I was in journalism school, I figured I'd get out and I'd go work at a newspaper like I had done for all of my internships. But when I left school, I ended up moving to LA and I took an internship at Variety and then at Wired. And mind you, this was 2009 when there were no jobs on the market. Oh yeah. Yeah. And people tend to gravitate towards the things that they are interested in, but it's also a little bit of happenstance. So the way that I ended up writing about design, to come back to your original question, is I had been working at Condi Nast as the executive assistant to a man named Tom Wallace. He was the editorial director. And during that period, I was still doing some freelance work from Wired after having been an intern there. And I met my then editor, Cliff Kuang, who had started a vertical at Fast Company called Co-Design. And I think it was really, it was really the first of its kind in terms of the way a publication approached and talked about design as a thing that mattered. And that was really interesting to me because I didn't realize that was an option to talk about this almost intangible idea that you could talk about both beauty and form and art, but also talk about the way things were made and get into the engineering and the science behind it. It was just this beautiful Venn diagram of all of the things that I was interested in. And I met Cliff, we got along really well. I started writing for him and I guess the rest is history. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, that's I mean, that story is not uh totally unfamiliar. I think a lot a lot of people, like I said, who end up in in these kinds of journalism jobs come through through interesting pathways. And that's that's one I've definitely heard before and one that isn't totally dissimilar from my own. You know, like I did not set out in college to be a watch journalist, you know, but uh I ended up and, you know, a little over a decade later, here, here I am. Yeah, I mean that that last bit there, I I think about why you find design so compelling kind of is is a perfect encapsulation of why I think watches are are kind of a perfect topic for you to cover. They do encapsulate all of those various areas of interest and different perspectives. And in such a sort of like small footprint, detail-oriented object, and one with like tons of history, but also that's deeply rooted in ideas about technology and progress. And like there's all of these things wrapped up in them and I wonder like were were watches something like at all on your radar before Nick kind of called you and was like hey you wanna you want to write about watches for Hodinki |
| Liz Stinson | ? The short answer is sort of. I love watches. I love the look of them. I love the function of them. I like to wear them, although I don't really do so very often. You know, it's a very useful piece of jewelry, which I am into as a concept. And funnily enough, when I was at Wired, I actually went to Basel World in 2015. Okay. I went with the advertising team. They wanted a writer to go and they thought having a design perspective that would bring an interesting lens to watch writing. And so I was there and it was absolutely wild. I I had no idea at the time what the watch world was like. And so to go to Switzerland and be introduced to watches that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars was really mind-blowing to me. And it was mind-blowing to me from both just like the sheer magnitude of the watch industry, but also the attention to detail that people put into their watches. And so I think that was a really an a good foundation for me to appreciate watches in a way that I might not otherwise. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. I mean you can't really get a better kind of like trial by fire than than Basel World from those days. I mean, that was that was the time when everybody was still there. I mean, it was really the the bulk of the industry. And, you know, if you're somebody passionate about watches, you were you were in Basel, Switzerland that week and it's like you said it's your your eyes really open to like the levels at which people can be interested in this. And and I wonder, you know, obviously that was that was your your introduction. And now that you're you know writing this column for us, I wonder just in the last few months, are there any like new layers you've discovered to the watchworld or anything that the watchworld's maybe like taught you about your own sensibilities just since you've been digging into it now? Yeah, I think that |
| Liz Stinson | first and foremost, I've been really pleasantly surprised and frankly sort of amazed by the community that reads Hodinky. People who read about design really care about design. But people who read about watches really, really care about watches. And that to me is really cool. But beyond that, I've been impressed by just how much people know about watches. It's such an insular industry that has its own history. And being able to have one foot in there as I am learning about watches is really valuable. I'm not a watch expert, obviously. And I'm hoping that that brings a different perspective to Hodinky. Obviously, like the people who work at the publication, as Nick says, you know, have watch knowledge in spades. And so that's that's something that i'm i'm learning as i write each piece you know talking to people like yourself or jack who has lots of knowledge and is very willing to sit down with me and say, actually have you, thought about it this way? That having access to that kind of institutional knowledge is really valuable. In terms of my own sensibilities, I don't know that it has really changed so much, except for I can say that the more I know about a subject, the more I can appreciate it, even if it doesn't speak to my own particular tastes |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, that's really interesting. I I I love this idea that you have expertise, but you also have a bit of like amateurism here in in just the watches themselves. And I think that probably makes for some interesting like tensions in your writing process, right? Like you're you're totally an expert and have like an amazing handle on this one thing and then the other part of it is like all new and fresh. And I wonder if you think that pushes you creatively or like ends up putting you in a spot where you can do work that you like wouldn't be able to do otherwise |
| Liz Stinson | . Well I do think having an outsider perspective on a subject matter leads you to asking questions that people who are more intimately connected to that world might not ask. So from that perspective, yeah, I do think that being an amateur in some ways is really valuable. The flip side of that is, of course, your community who knows absolutely everything about watches, and it's terrifying that I might I might miss a fact or not be able to nod to this piece of history or legacy that is considered really important in institutional knowledge. But you know, for me, writing is really about answering questions about the things that I find curious or interesting. Right. And so the watch world, the watch world really lends itself to that for me, frankly, because I don't I don't know a lot about watches from both a technical perspective and a historical perspective. I'm sure that's a horrible thing to say on Hodinky Radio, but it's the tr |
| Stephen Pulvirent | uth. No, no, I I I don't think it's terrible a thing to say at all. And I think, you know, one of the complaints that I think I I have and and some of my colleagues have with the watch world in particular is it can be it can be so insular, it can be so inward looking. It's it's you know for the most part it's a one country industry. It's you know lots of people who are in this business, their families have been in this business for generations. And that that sometimes breeds complacency. It breeds uh navel gazing. And I I think having new ideas and and new perspectives is is crucial both in the industry and in terms of like criticism and coverage of the industry. So I I want to make sure we we get to dig into some of your columns. I mean, not that we're gonna do a like, you know, re read along here, but I had some questions from reading your columns that while while I've got you on the line and the microphones are turned on, I thought we could could dig into. Does that uh does that work for you, Liz? Let's do it. Awesome. Well let's let's start with your first column uh which which is about something that you know myself and and Ian one of our designers on the team shout out to Ian have spent way too much time talking about in the office uh in the pre-COVID days, which is typography and watches, and specifically the sort of like woeful way that typography is typically deployed. Our mutual friend uh Jonathan Heffler, uh, the typographer, the guy who designed Decimal, the typeface, kind of inspired by watches, you know, sort of uh in in your columns said, the choices that have been made are so anarchic, and you then find things like a $65,000 watch with the same typeface used for a jet ski or a sports drink, which I mean, besides the fact that Jonathan is super sharp and that that width there is amazing, is totally true. And it's crazy when you think about the attention to detail put into these products to then just like go buy an off-the-shelf typeface, or even I've seen many Swiss-made watches that use Ariel instead of Helvetica, I'm guessing because the license is much cheaper. And that kind of stuff just like kills me. And I wonder your thoughts kind of at on a on a top level about that concept. |
| Liz Stinson | Yeah. So the reason I wanted to write about this is exactly the reason that you stated. It's perplexing that every other detail about a watch is really considered and the typeface on the watch face is one of the more visible aspects of a watch face, and yet it doesn't really get the level of attention that it deserves. And I think that probably, and I can't, I don't want to speak for watch brands, but I assume that it's a matter of resources and perceived value. You know, why commission, a custom typeface? If you can just use an off-the-rack font, that looks pretty much okay. I mean, I think for people who care about design, the differences between Ariel and Helvetica on a watch face are very obvious, but for the general consumer, maybe they're maybe the watch brand is assuming nobody will notice. Yeah, I think the issue with that is that good typography really does set your brand apart. It's hugely visible. It should be considered with care. And I'm not really sure why watch brands don't think about this more often beyond the fact that I said it's probably a matter of money, time and just not maybe not thinking that it matters. I I actually have a question for you, Steven. Yeah, sure. Was this something that you noticed before this column or did people in the watch world ever comment on the fact that the typography on a watch face was less than good, I guess? |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, I it definitely is. I mean, but I think amongst a very specific set of like nerds, you know. Um like I think like it's something that bothered me. It's something that um, you know, my colleague Ian has, I know, spent a lot more time in he actually likes designs typefaces and like is really he's much more in this than I am, and so I know he's paid a lot of attention. I mean, Jonathan and I have had some some conversations about this, and then you know, I have I have friends who are just design geeks, I have friends who are in the industry who who have all had thoughts. And I think it's it's a thing that more gets noticed, I would say when it's really good or really bad, and the stuff in the middle isn't what gets noticed. And I I think it's really telling that you said that like one of the reasons they get away with it is that it's pretty much fine. And it's like those are those are three like all three of those words are about like inherent compromise yes and like mediocrity. You know, it's like uh it's I get I guess it's okay maybe and it's like you know I don't think these a lot of these watch brands would say that about like case shape, or about the fineness of the machining of their bracelet links, or about the precision of their movements. Like, but for some reason they think that like good enough is okay with to your point, what is like maybe the visually most important element of the watch. And it's, you know, I think it's telling one like, I mean you cite Hermes in your story and like Hermes commissioned Philippe Apaloik to design a typeface just for their watches. And it's like that, that stands out. And there's a reason why the Slim D Aramez got so much attention and continues to get so much attention and so much love because they went that extra mile. And the fact that most brands saying pretty much fine is good enough means that when a brand says, no, no, no, this is this is really important to us, they can really push it and really kind of get some acclaim for |
| Liz Stinson | it. Right. Well it's striking to me that both examples in my piece Hermes and Chanel are fashion brands. Right. And so for better or for worse, they are potentially more attuned to the aesthetic nuances on a watch face in the way that another brand that might be known for its complications or its engineering prowess doesn't really need or doesn't think |
| Stephen Pulvirent | it needs to pay attention to. Yeah, I I think think you you''rere totally right. And I I think it's it's crazy to me. I mean, I won't put this brand on blast by name. I don't think that would necessarily be fair, but like, you know, one of the brands I was referring to using Ariel, uh, and the brand that Jonathan's referring to using this uh the specifically the sports drink type face. I know exactly what he's referring to there, and this is not a small watch brand. Like these are these are big, major brands that are selling hundreds of thousands of watches a year? You know, they're companies worth billions of dollars. Like this is not small potatoes here. And uh I I think it's funny that it's such a blind spot because you would you would think they know better, but I think you're right that there's something maybe about these companies that are coming to watch us from a different place that are used to paying attention to it. So I I wonder if maybe there's an injection of some like new blood into the more traditional players of people who care about this, if it would change quickly, or if, you know, this is just something sort of entrenched in the in the industry in a way that like I have not pinpointed yet and that I I don't think any of us have quite figured out |
| Liz Stinson | . Yeah, you know, I'm not I'm not really sure what the answer is to that, but it's also interesting that it was really hard for me to find examples of watch brands who wholesale designed their own typeface. There were a couple brands in the piece, for example, Gnomos, that didn't have a custom typeface, but they did customize typefaces, if that makes sense. And I think a lot of I think a lot of watch brands take that approach where they say, you know, I I really like this typeface, but to work on this watch, we're going to have to tweak it a little bit. And then they consider that a version of custom typography. There's nothing wrong with that. And I think that's much better than just slapping a typeface on a watch without doing anything to it at all, because obviously a watch has particular constraints and requirements to make something look good. But hopefully that's a nice middle ground where more watch brands can land if they don't want to invest in hiring a type designer to create them a custom typeface. I don't have any idea what it would cost for a type designer to create a custom typeface for a brand. But I imagine if you were selling a watch for fifty thousand dollars, you can probably spring for it. Yeah |
| Stephen Pulvirent | , I think that's the case. Knowing knowing uh a a handful of type designers, even ones living pretty nice lifestyles, I think these brands can probably afford it. But uh I mean this this actually segues us kind of nicely into something else I wanted to talk about, which is your column about why watch dials are so busy. And I'll I'll admit uh I've written probably five versions of this column over the last 10 years and have not been happy enough with a single one of them to to publish it, but you you really like it hit close to home on this one. This is a thing that's driven me absolutely nuts as long as I've been in the watch world. And it I think relates to the the type conversation in a way where it's like there seems to be so much attention paid to engineering, to industrial design, to uh a sort of artistry with these watches, but not always to graphic design and and to what's actually on the dials. Uh and I I wonder what you think about that. Like how how does that strike you from sort of a you know 50,000 foot view? I think the complicated thing is that the |
| Liz Stinson | engineering and graphic design of a watch are very intertwined. What you see on a watch face, as far as I can tell, is often a reflection of the engineering itself. Yeah. And I understand why watchmakers want to show that off. I don't really understand why there has to be so much on every single watch. I think that striking a balance between engineering know-how and the aesthetics is really a challenging thing to do because, you know, like I say in that column, oftentimes it feels like these watch dials or these watch faces are um there it's an engineering flex to show off what they can do. It's really hard to make a paired back watch design and still communicate to your customers that a lot of thought and consideration went into it. And so I'm not really sure what the answer is and how to how to do that. But I do think that there are the tiny details that make a difference. So that could be typography, right? Like if you're going to have a spare watch face, invest in the typography if there's going to be typography on it, and that can make |
| Stephen Pulvirent | all of the difference. Yeah, I think that's that's you've you've hit the nail on the head there, right? Which is like if you're if you're gonna do less, make it less and better. And if you're gonna do more, there there needs to be some sort of clarity. And I think you're, you know, just knowing a lot of watchmakers and a lot of folks at these these watch companies, there's sort of an impulse to like flex all the time, you know, and and as hard as possible. And to feel like, well, we have to let like we're charging a lot of money for these things. So we have to make it obvious to the consumer why this thing is is expensive and complicated and difficult and interesting. And sometimes like maybe maybe maybe pumping the brakes a little bit would actually result in a like more desirable product, even if that product is only sort of extolling 70% of its own virtues on the face of it. Well |
| Liz Stinson | something that I learned in the process of reporting this story is how tied all of these features are to the marketing and release cycles of watches. And that to me explains a lot of this. So if you're expected to release a new watch, and I'm making this up twice a year, you have to constantly reinvent the wheel. And reinventing the wheel often leads to unnecessary detailing, in my opinion. And it leads you to making choices that aren't necessarily driven by need, but rather by perceived want or just as a way to differentiate the new watch from what came before |
| Stephen Pulvirent | it. Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. I think that's a really good insight. I wonder on a related note, like how much you think there's a sort of aesthetic of expensiveness in watches. I feel like there's a certain design language, and I I I can't put a a like fine point on it, which makes me think I I might be imagining it, but it feels like there's a sort of vague aesthetic of expensiveness and not luxury, but of of specifically expense that kind of traces its way across watchmaking. Is that something you noticed? Am I kind of imagining this? I'm I'm not entirely sure to be hon |
| Liz Stinson | est. When I first pitched this piece to my editor, Nick, I think I phrased it as why are watches so complicated? And my initial theory was that exactly what you just said, people are paying a lot of money for these things, so therefore, there needs to be a lot to them. In terms of how that translates into an aesthetic of expensiveness, I think that it's difficult for me as someone who's not deep into the watch world to really articulate what that aesthetic is. But I know it when I see it. And the best way that I can describe it is excess, right? Like it's it's there are things on the watch that don't need to be there. And there's a difference between something looking expensive and looking luxurious, as you astutely pointed out. And those, you know, luxurious things are often expensive, but they don't speak the same language. I'm rambling a little bit because I'm I'm grappling for what that looks like. What does expensive look like? And my knee-jerk reaction to that is it's ostentatious. It's too much. It is a unnecessary dedication to strange materials, to gemstones, to chronographs and date wheels all crammed onto the same watch dial. Sorry, this is not a good answer. I just I'm not sure like you, I' |
| Stephen Pulvirent | m not sure how to talk about this. No, it's a great answer. And I I think the difficulty in speaking about it kind of speaks to you know where where I'm at on this. So I I say it's a brilliant answer mostly because because it ends up agreeing with me, which is is that like there's something there, but it's it's not something precise. It's something a little bit ephemeral and something kind of idiosyncratic to watches. And I think that's something fascinating about watches is like I I, you know, having covered high-end technology, having covered clothing, having covered furniture, like I'm sure you feel the same way. Like watches are kind of a different beast. Like they have their own language and and their own uh culture and their own vernacular. And it's it's curious and it's strange. And for me, it's one of the things that makes covering it' sos so compelling, you know, after more than a decade of of doing it, you know, nonstop, it's it doesn't get old because it is so strange and fascinating and and kind of like imprecise in a way. I just wonder |
| Liz Stinson | how this became the visual culture of watchmaking. That's an overgeneralization, obviously. There are lots of watches that don't take a really busy or how you described it, expensive approach to their design. But what I would love to do is figure out where does this come from? I mean, what are the forces that are compelling watchmakers to do this? Is it the fact that a watch is an object like a chair where it sort of has has built-in constraints, right? Yeah. Like there's only so much you can do with it. And so the way to distinguish your watch from a different watch is to come up with your own design language, and maybe that's what propels people to try to do more with less space. I don't know. That's just one way of thinking about it. But I think it would be very interesting to be able to trace like if someone were to do i don't know to like put together a timeline of of watch design from the early days until today like i wonder if if what we would see through that, you know, like I I just wonder if there would be there would be a lot of consistencies, but I just wonder if there would be a um a point during history where things sort |
| Stephen Pulvirent | of go off the rails. Yeah, no, I think I think that's super interesting. And if anybody listening to this wants to write that book, please do. And you have pre-sold a copy to me. Uh I would I would love to read whatever somebody would be willing to to produce on that. You know, we we could probably talk for the next like two hours about all of your columns here. I mean then we're we're up to you know five or six of them now and they're all fantastic. We'll we'll link to them in the show notes. But the the last one I want to ask you about before we get into a little bit of a a fun like lightning round at the end is you you wrote a column called How Motherhood Changed My Perception of Time. And the deck is changed is probably not the right word, more like obliterated. And I I've I've got two main questions for you here. And the first one is what made you think about writing this article? Like what was the thing that pushed you to want to talk about this? Ye |
| Liz Stinson | ah, so this actually started with Nick again, and he wrote to me asking if I wanted to write something about how Motherhood has changed my perception of time, exactly what the column is about. And it's something that I had been giving a lot of thought to since my son was born. He's about to turn one. And like I mentioned in the piece, when you have a kid, for those of you out there who are listening to this and who have children, you know that time totally shifts. It totally shifts after having a baby. It both expands and contracts in different ways. And the truth is that I was really anxious about time when I first had Sasha because time didn't really exist in the way that I had previously understood it. You know, time itself didn't matter, which sounds like a total stoner thought, but it's true. I didn't need to look at the clock because the clock didn't matter. I was on an entirely different biologically driven schedule. And it really changed the way that I interacted with time. You know, I was really just living by is it light? Is it dark? Does he need to eat? Is it time to change his diaper? That obviously changes a few months in when you start to get back on a schedule, but there's a lot to be said around how schedules are really the way that we think about time. Yeah. Um, you know, having to be somewhere at a certain place, having a calendar that pings you and says, Liz, you have to talk to Stephen at 5 p.m. That structures everything. When there's no structure, things go off the rails a bit |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, no, I think that's that's really fascinating. And for me, the thing that I I took out of this column that that to me is really the heart of this column, right? Is it's it's also about how we value time, right? It's about how we how time has meaning for us, no? Yeah |
| Liz Stinson | . I mean, that is part of this column. I think part of it is thinking about how how did my perception of time change and and why did that matter? And I think the takeaway, if I could go, if I could go back in time, is I wish I could hold on to some of that ability or necessity to not be ruled by all of these external factors that dictate where I need to be and when I need to be there and let that drive what I think of as time. I mean, when you have a child, like you cramp so much into every day that it's really hard to not feel regimented once they actually have their schedule. I mean, today, my life is sort of rolled around his nap. So like I have these two hour increments where I can get something done for myself. And then in between you really have to disassociate from everything else that's going on in your life and be super present. Yeah. And that's where you start to rethink the value of time as you described it. You know, like really being able to say like, okay, for these hours, now this is the most important thing that I need to do. And it doesn't matter that I have a deadline tomorrow and it doesn't matter that I have an 8 a.m. meeting tomorrow. This is where I need to be right now |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I love that. Yeah, I think that's that's incredible. All right. I think we're getting uh close to the end here. Again, I think you and I could probably sit and and talk about these stories and and related ideas for quite a while. But I've just got a couple of like little rapid fire design focused questions for you here. Some related to watches, some not. Can we just run through them? You can give me like, you know, couple word to one or two sentence answers and uh we'll we'll leave some folks with some stuff to go research and look up afterwards. Does that sound good? Yeah, sure. I I can hear just like a tiny bit of trepidation in your |
| Liz Stinson | voice here. So there's trepidation just because if you're going to ask me about favorites, I'm very bad at favorites. I'm just going to preface this round with that. That's all right. I'm gonna ask you a couple |
| Stephen Pulvirent | favorites, but we'll we'll we'll try to stay away from favorites. All right. We'll ask you some some counter favorites as well. But uh let's let's start with going back to what we talked about at the beginning of the episode. What do you think is the biggest misconception that people have about the word design. |
| Liz Stinson | This is such a typical answer for somebody who works in design or is design adjacent. But the biggest misconception is definitely that design is just about the way something looks. That's part of it, of course. But like I said, you know, I'm always interested in the thinking behind how something came to be, how it got that final form. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Okay. Great. Are there other people writing about design today or, who are some of the people writing about design today who you most enjoy reading? Ooh, that's a |
| Liz Stinson | really good question. Yeah, there are definitely people whose work I really appreciate. I'd have to call out my colleagues Meg Miller and Jarrett Fuller, who are both design writers. They're great. Cliff Kuong, who I mentioned is a really brilliant design thinker. He's transitioned from the editorial world into becoming a designer himself. So he has a ton of good insights. He wrote a book called User Friendly. Definitely check that out. Yeah, Cliff's book is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what is interesting about writing about design. Like all of these things in our life that we interact with on a daily basis had to come from somewhere. Someone designed them. And he tells that story of how all of that came to be. So he's a he's a great writer. I think that, you know, there are people who write about I'm really one aspect of design that I'm really interested in is the marketing aspect of it. And so how how design intersects with culture at large and makes us want the things that we want is a really interesting area and people who write about that really well. Eliza Brooke is great. Kyle Cheek is really great. Katie Kellard has a really beautiful writing style that is great for, she writes a lot about colors. So all of those people are awesome. Che |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ck out any of their work. Amazing. We'll uh we'll drop some links in the show notes to some of those folks so that they're they're easier for people to find. Great. I I want to reference one one of of your your columns here, one that we didn't get a chance to talk about, but which which is the story you did about David Carson, uh the graphic designer, uh, and his sort of signature swatch. So he wears this kiwi colored swatch that's a a kind of signature of his. For you, if you were gonna have a signature watch, what would your signature watch be? This is a really fun |
| Liz Stinson | question. Prefacing this with the fact that I don't really love the idea of an object being definitive of me as a person, but I get the appeal of it. Yeah, I think I tend to lean classic, maybe a little bit androgynous. If I had to choose one watch, I think that I would love to own a vintage Omega Seamaster. I think that it is a beautiful old watch. I love a classic leather strap. I love a you know moderately sized watch face and I think that there's just something about it that was beautiful when it was made and it's beautiful today. And if I can find one within a price range that I can afford, I will buy one. Amaz |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ing. We should we should talk afterwards. I can I can help you out there. Thank you. What's one design detail that you're just obsessive about? And it can be aesthetic, it can be functional, it can be something else, but whenever you're looking at a at a product or an object, what's the the thing that just like you always have to take a deeper look at? Hu |
| Liz Stinson | h. That is a really big question, but I do think that this is maybe more interior design than anything else. But one thing that I'm really obsessive about is lighting. I cannot deal with bad lighting in my home, in my office or anywhere. I think that it can totally make or kill a mood. And so that is something if I walk into a room and the lighting is off, even if it's not my house, I just want to go over and turn down the dimmer or turn up the dimmer, maybe usually not. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | That is something that I am obsessive about. Perfect. My wife makes fun of me all the time because I never used like the overhead lights in rooms. I there's always uh it has to be lamps that are like meant to light a room a certain way, like overhead can lights and stuff. I just they drive me crazy. Me |
| Liz Stinson | too. I actually learned from a cinematographer friend that every room should have three points of light in it and that's how you gri get a really a really nice glowy look. So that way if you have it sort of just fills out the room if you have three po |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ints of light. Perfect. There we go. I didn't realize I was going to get a free uh free class in design today. That's awesome. Um who's a designer who you would most like to see work on watches? Whether it's create a watch, whether it's collaborate with a watch brand, something like that. But who's a designer who as far as you know is not working in watches who you'd love to see work in watches? |
| Liz Stinson | That's a good question. And I think I have to say David Carson just because he loves Swatch so much and he has never designed a watch and I feel like he should do it. I think that we might be surprised with what he comes up with simply because his favorite swatch was the plain cream colored watch that he saw on I think his name was John Robert. Oh yeah. And yeah, he said that was his favorite swatch that he's ever owned. And I think that giving David the reins on designing a swatch or any other brand would be really amazing. Awesome |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Well, all right. I'm I'm gonna ask you I'll leave one favorite at the end here. I'm gonna ask you one favorite and that is what is your favorite type of design object? You've got people who are obsessed with chairs, you've got people who are obsessed with lamps. Like what is the thing, the design object that you just like as an object love |
| Liz Stinson | ? So I'm gonna go really big here. I love buildings. Oh, perfect. I love the scale of them. I love the process of of designing and building them and their impact on space. I think that they're the most non-negotiable genre of design because you're forced to interact with them. I if I had to choose one medium of design, I would say architecture in buildings is probably my favorite. L |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ove it. So we've gone from type on watch dials to architecture. That's uh that's a pretty good range here. I think we've we've covered a lot of ground. Ultra big to ultra small. Love it. Well, Liz, thank you so much for doing this. Uh I I really enjoyed this. Uh anybody who's listened to the show or read my writing will know these are these are topics I'm really fascinated by. And it's it's great to talk to somebody like you who's who's doing like really deep smart thinking about them. And for people who haven't read your columns again, we'll we'll have them linked up so people can go check them out. I think uh ever everybody who's listening here should definitely do that. But yeah, we'll have to have you back on the show soon. I would love that. Thanks so much. Awesome. Thanks, Liz. Take care. Me too. |