Last week we wrote about dial texture and materials. This week we will talk about some of things put onto dials or within them to create interest, add functions, and enable the wearer to tell the time.

The key point of the dial of a watch is to enable the wearer to use the watch functions, however many there may be. The designer has to decide how to display the functions of the watch on top of the piece of metal that creates the dial itself. If the watch has no functions other than telling the time, dials can be very simple, and then the colour, material and finish of the dial matters most. They are often printed, lacquered, engraved or enamelled or can even feature pictures, prints, text. Sometimes they are transparent, a feature often called a “skeleton” dial. Mostly, they are a single colour, and designed to be simple and easy to read.

A Lange & Sohne, Saxonia 1815. A beautiful simple dial

Almost all watches use indicators of some sort to represent the numbers and help the wearer to tell the time. These are known as numerals (numbers), indices, or batons. There can also be dots, stars, roundels, or markers. Some are raised up, some contain luminous material to enable the watch to be read in low light, and some are painted on. Here are some examples:

Subdials are often used to add more features to a watch. At their simplest, they show the seconds moving. For chronographs, or stop watches, they show the minutes elapsed, and some times the hours too. They are also often used to show days of the week or month on calendar watches, plus the phase of the moon if that complication is included in a calendar.

Watchmakers sometimes use radical design of dials to make themselves stand out, with different things all over the place, and departing from putting the hands in the middle or having simple features that are obvious. These unusual watches require more complicated movements, or mechanisms that power them, and are often more expensive.

Andersen Geneve Worldtimer - Blue Gold Dial