The DIY (Do-It-Yourself) revolution is no longer limited to the world of arts and crafts. From cars to clothes and even smart device user interfaces, the DIY method can be applied to just about anything you care to mention. It is often a perfect means of adding a touch of your own personality to something.

In response to this trend, Samsung has developed the Gear Watch Designer—a program that allows you to make your own unique watch face. It is easy to use and requires neither expert knowledge nor coding skills.

Five of the Gear Watch Designer’s key developers explained more about what makes the program “tick.”

The Gear Watch Designer is home to designer-friendly tools and functions, many of which resemble those used in Photoshop and Flash programs.

DIY Watch Faces Made Easy with the Gear Watch Designer

Previously, non-developer Gear S2 users were not able to personalize watch faces based on their unique preferences, much less share their designs with others.

But the introduction of the Gear Watch designer has changed that.

“In the beginning, we intended to create the Gear Watch Designer as a utility program to help developers. But as we progressed, the general consensus was that it would be better to make a designer-oriented program,” said Young Jae Min, Senior Designer of the UX team.

As a result, the team developed the Gear Watch Designer to allow designers to better express themselves, even if they lacked development expertise.

The Gear S2 maximizes customization, so that users can directly configure its hardware or software, and edit functions according to their tastes. And the Gear Watch Designer only enhances these customization features yet further.

With the program, you can easily add and arrange calendar, heart rate or daily fitness information directly to the watch face, for example.

You can also fully express yourself by customizing the index, hour hand, minute hand and second hand in the colors and styles just as you desire, all the while checking to ensure the designs function properly as you edit them.

It has only been a short few months since the Gear Watch Designer was launched as a beta version, in December last year on the Samsung Developers website. However, a number of users have already since shared their own unique watch face creations with the Gear Watch Designer’s online community.

“In the beginning, we intended to make the program simple. However, over the course of its development, it has become more complex as the team has diversified its ideas,” said Moo Chang Kim, Senior Engineer of the Tizen R&D Team.

This rather unique development process, in which the team constantly and collectively brainstorms and shares ideas, has allowed the Gear Watch Designer to advance consistently and in a multitude of ways.

“It has been interesting to gradually expand this project by incorporating our ideas,” explained Hyung Jo Yoon, Senior Engineer of the Tizen R&D Team. “It was a refreshing and novel experience to be able to share ideas between multiple departments in pursuit of a single goal.”

Sample watch faces made with the Gear Watch Designer.

Boundless Creative Potential

While anyone can use the Gear Watch Designer to make their own watch face, graphic designers in particular can let their creativity run wild by using their own images as part of the program. As such, the team focused on making the Gear Watch Designer as user-friendly as possible so that designers could use it with great ease.

However, as the developers were not all designers themselves, they explain that they found it difficult to find flaws and limitations in the program before they actually launched the beta version.

“We actively encouraged designers to start use the program when it reached the 60-70 percent completion mark,” explained Sang Min Jung, Senior Engineer of the Tizen R&D Team. “We then proceeded to hold contests internally, through which we were able to improve the tool based on employee feedback.”

Thanks to feedback and regular inter-departmental brainstorming sessions, the Gear Watch Designer soon developed into a more complete experience.

As a result, the program now boasts a number of familiar tools specifically aimed at designers, such as animation functions and graphic interfaces. Even more useful functions will be added in the future in the form of updates.

Both experienced graphic designers and keen amateurs can use the Gear Watch Designer with ease, a fact that has led to more and more people sharing their watch face designs online. In fact, some of the most popular of the paid watch faces available were created using the Gear Watch Designer.

“The Gear Watch Designer has allowed for some significant developments, allowing designers to directly create an end product without the help of developers,” said Sang Hyun Park, Principal Designer of the UX design. “As a UX designer, it’s rewarding to design for the product itself. It’s also very meaningful to be able to create tools that encourage other designers in different fields to create their own designs.”

On March 11, Samsung hosted a workshop at the California College of Arts, UCLA, focusing on watch face design using the Gear Watch Designer. Around 30 design students participated in the event, creating their own unique watch faces using the program.

Design students at the California College of Arts, UCLA participate in a Gear Watch Designer workshop.

The team will also showcase the program’s various functions at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC), to be held from April 26 to 28 in San Francisco, California.

The Gear Watch Designer team (from left to right): Senior Designer Young Jae Min, Principle Designer Sang Hyun Park, Senior Engineers Moo Chang Kim and Hyung Jo Yoon and Engineer Sang Min Jung.

The collaboration of Samsung Electronics and Italian designer Alessandro Mendini was a significant event in the tech world. The Italian designer brought his unique sensitivity to the sleek design of the Gear S2, impressing consumers around the world on launch day.

Previous smartwatches were simply regarded as an extra mobile accessory, but the release of Samsung’s Gear S2 marked a turning point, demonstrating how a digital device can transform the face of a traditional fashion item.

The Gear S2 is a smartwatch that was designed to enhance the everyday life of the consumer by providing convenient access to essential and customizable content right from one’s wrist. Early smartwatch faces, for example, allowed health enthusiasts to instantly measure and monitor their fitness and diet data at a glance, while sports fans could keep a close eye on the big game. However, despite the variety of customizable features available, there was still room for enhancement.

A Design Tool for Both Amateurs and Experts

Enter the Gear Watch Designer. This new tool allows anyone interested in creating a Gear S2 watch face to design, produce and distribute their own using a variety of editing tools. While such a program may sound complicated, users don’t need to be professional coders or designers to use it.

Utilizing a basic UI, the program lets users choose from a selection of design elements, such as watch hands and backgrounds, to create their own watch face. Additionally, they can also upload their own designs created with professional programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and apply them according to their preferences.

Anyone interested in creating a Gear watch face can join the beta version of Gear Watch Designer is now available for download. To get a better idea of how the program works, watch this tutorial video, and then check out the tips below for designing your own personalized watch face with ease. Here is a quick guide to use this program.

Step 1: Create a Personalized Background

There are a number of default background options available, but users can click “Import Image” to open and use their own personal photographs to make their watch face truly one-of-a-kind. The “Appearance” menu on the right is for adjusting the contrast, opacity and brightness of the image.

Step 2: Select Your Style

Diverse types of plate indices

In the Index Setting menu, users can set the dial to include 12 hours

While the numeral index displays the hours like a traditional watch, circular and square indices can add a simple, contemporary look to the customized watch face. The “Index Type” menu gives users the option to arrange indices by hour or minute and second. Select “Custom” to set the index to one week or 12 months.

Step 3: Get Things in Order

Move the bar in the timeline and watch the hands rotate

Create a background first then add the watch hands to ensure that the images do not overlay. When arranging the watch hands, it is recommended that the hour hand be set first, followed by the minute and second hands, respectively. Otherwise, altering the order later will be more complicated. The same rings true for adding “Complications,” which include shortcuts, notifications, fitness data and battery usage, among others.

Next, drag the blue bar along the timeline at the bottom of the screen. The hands will tick and users will then be able to add other elements more intuitively.

Extra Tip: Pivot for Differentiation

“Pivot” takes the sophistication of design to the next level

Want a digital watch with a unique face? Then right-click on the watch hands and select “Show Pivot.” The pivot is the central point of the watch face and lets one easily rotate the indices or move the point on which the hands are pinned.

Once your unique watch face design is complete, click “Run” on the top right of the screen to check if it works. Users can review their design while adjusting time and battery status. Click “Run on Device” to transfer the watch face to the Gear S2.

This sample watch face displays battery level, heart rate and step count

The program also makes it fun to experiment with different options, such as adding an additional “Day of Week” dial to the watch face, as shown in the video demonstration. In fact, one of the best things about Gear Watch Designer is that it allows users to set up the theme exactly the way they want. And, thanks to the simplicity of the program’s step-by-step guide, users will have no difficulty designing their watch face.

Watch faces generated by WatchMaster designers using the Gear Watch Designer

Designed primarily with preset elements, the sample face designed in the video is fairly standard. But there are plenty of more elaborate watch faces created with Gear Watch Designer displayed on Samsung Gear Apps. Since the beta release on December 29 last year, a number of designers have introduced watch faces crafted with Gear Watch Designer. In particular, well-known creator WatchMaster offers an expansive collection of unique watch faces crafted by certified designers from all over the world. It just takes a bit of intuition and an imaginative idea for any user to create watch faces that are just as stylish.