Funny Faces for the Watch - galaxy watch face6 – watch face

September 14, 2023 「Funny Faces」 for the Watch A New Galaxy Watch Face Story for 2023

This is the key visual for the new Watch Face 「Funny Faces」 content.

Smart watches not only enrich our lives with convenience, but also become great companions that express our individual styles. This is why the evolution of the smart watch is focused both in features and the designs that will fill up the space on our wrists.

「Funny Faces」 is a collection of newly featured watch face designs created in collaboration with artist Eva Cremers. Check out the design story of the witty and playfully creative Funny Faces watch face designs, told through an interview with the artist and a Samsung designer.

Funny Faces

Eva Cremers

A 3D artist and animation director hailing from the Netherlands. Creator of designs featuring characters that inspire playfulness and joy in people across a wide range of artistic mediums, from digital art, sculpting, graffiti, to fashion.
Jihyun Ahn

A Samsung Galaxy watch face designer. Managing watch face designs and projects in the Samsung MX Business UX Team since November, 2020.

Following last year, this is another collaboration with an artist. What was the vision for this year?

Jihyun Ahn We wanted to create a more colorful watch face design along with reinforcing the unique identity of the Samsung Galaxy Watch design. Eva Cremers has been active in her incredible portrayals of bright and witty work through collaborations with brands in various fields such as IT, sports, and fashion. We decided to partner with her because we believed her unique and lively work of art would blend in well with the Galaxy Watch’s overall appeal.

This image is Eva Cremers’s 「Funny Faces」 that introduces characters such as flowers, hearts, and frogs.

This is an image of 4 draft design sketches for the 「Funny Faces」 on the watch face.

I heard that this is your very first watch face design. It must have been an unfamiliar task. Could you explain your experience?

Eva Cremers The project, which lasted about 4 months, was unlike anything I’ve done before and a whole new challenge. I was creating characters and their movements all within a small-scale circular canvas. It was a very fascinating experience to design a character that lives on the user’s wrist at all times. The Samsung designers allowed me to unleash my creativity to the fullest and it was all thanks to their simple and clear guidance without any major restrictions.
There are five characters in Funny Faces. How were they selected?

Eva Cremers As I do with most projects, I explored various characters by drawing numerous sketches at first. After considering the many different ways to organize universal and appealing characters into a single series, I selected a total of five characters: a flower, heart, frog, basketball, and abstract.

This image depicts the visual completeness of the band, reflecting the color and texture of the band on some watchface characters to explain the feeling of matching the product.

I heard that the expression of the character’s color and texture is influenced by the Galaxy Watch band.

Jihyun Ahn The color and texture of the band is often visible when the product is worn. Some characters reflect the bands so the watch face has a consistent feel to it rather than standing out in a distinct way. We enhanced visual completion and added liveliness to these characters with fun expressions by applying rich colors and various textures.

The Netherlands is quite far from Korea. Were there any difficulties working together from such a long distance?

Eva Cremers There were some technical things to consider during the watch face production. To make sure we were always on the same page, I worked closely with Samsung designers to ensure that all design elements like color, texture, and brightness were well-balanced.

Jihyun Ahn We had to manage fine-tuning the scale, color, and movements since the artist couldn’t directly test prototypes in this environment. We refined details by constantly exchanging thoughts and testing the luminescence and color of the actual product along with a text size suitable for the small screen.

This image compares the rough cut of the watch face with the final cut.

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The watch face animation changing based on the user’s context is fascinating. How was this feature achieved?

Jihyun Ahn The Galaxy Watch face provides several animations tailored to certain situations. Take the Flower Garden for example, which was revealed last year. Insects that were leisurely flying around would switch into lively movements when the user receives a notification. We were able to create these unique and witty animations thanks to the artist’s ingenious suggestions.

Eva Cremers I thought of animations that are easy to interact with and portray different user activities. I came up with ideas by simulating different activities and occasions while the watch is worn. Animations like an energetic basketball bouncing during exercise or a frog warning you of low battery by crawling slowly were created as a result.

This image is a Hart character from Eva Cremers’s 「Funny Faces」.

The watch face is finally revealed. Any final comments?

Eva Cremers I am very excited to see Galaxy Watch users express themselves through these characters. I really hope this project will bring even the slightest joy to our daily lives.

Jihyun Ahn The process of working with an artist with a bright and positive perspective toward the world, and the process of incorporating her persona into this product was a captivating and occasionally surprising experience. We just hope that this wonderful experience is conveyed to users through these fun watch faces.

samsung.com