Ming Thein on designs that reward observation

Ming’s design philosophy is central to its identity. Thein emphasises the importance of having a cohesive design language that offers more than just aesthetic appeal.

“There’s an aspect of wanting to be different, not for the sake of being different, but because there’s something very harmonious about that,” he says. The goal was to create watches that maintained their allure and functionality over time, avoiding the short-lived fascination with merely decorative elements.

“There’s a reason why we make the design choices we do, because if we make, you know, just decorative design choices, that doesn’t last. Six months later, after buying a watch, you go, ‘why the hell did I do that?’ What we want to do is make something that has longevity, that presents a different aspect every time you look at it. So one of the principles we work with is the idea of visual layering and playing with reflection,” Thein adds.

This notion enforces the cornerstone of Ming’s design philosophy, which is the concept of visual layering and interaction with light. The watches utilise sapphire in unconventional ways, often avoiding standard anti-reflective coatings to play with the viewer’s perception.

“The sapphire and the dial are not coated, so under certain angles, it inverts like a mirror... Everything looks like it’s floating,” Thein explains.

“So you might have a watch in an angle where basically your left eye sees uninverted and your right eye sees inverted. The whole thing is really trippy because you can’t quite place where the markings are. Everything looks like it’s floating. And that’s a deliberate choice,” he adds.

Innovation extends beyond aesthetics to the technical aspects of the watches. Ming’s approach to luminous material application is a testament to their commitment to pushing boundaries.

“Luminous material is basically brittle and powdery. Normally, it’s mixed with a binder, which is some sort of epoxy; effectively, it’s glue. So, the more luminous powder you have, the brighter the outcome. What we’ve tried to push is both the brightness and the precision,” Thein shares.

Citing an example they worked on, involving a dial with ceramic luminous material melded into the sapphire, Thein breaks down the process: “So you laser a channel into the sapphire, fill it with the powder, and bake it in an oven at 300 degrees Celsius to solidify it, then polish it flat. Basically, the ceramic luminous material fuses with the sapphire. This is one of those things we spent a lot of time and effort developing. Part of that is because it gives the watches a very distinctive signature. It increases the utility so you can read them at night. And honestly, it’s just cool, right?”

See also: How Ming created one of the lightest watches

Thein also talks about the Ming LW.01, possibly the lightest watch in the world, and the rationale behind its conception. “We had internal discussions about what we can do at a level that will push [boundaries]. We can’t do the most complicated or the thinnest [watches] because the R&D is just ridiculous for that. What else is there, realistically? There are diving depth records, which we will go for at some point. We are working on that. We are launching another diver watch this month or next,” he says.

“But coming back to the concept of what’s new and the question of tradition versus innovation, if you take the idea of an ultra-light watch, it forces you to ask the question: what is a watch? It’s a device for keeping time. It has to be something that a non-watch person would identify as a watch. Which realistically means it’s probably going to be round and reasonably sized. It should be metal because otherwise, it doesn’t carry the right tactile qualities. And to keep things relatively affordable, we want to use as many existing parts as possible, which means we take an existing movement rather than develop one from scratch. And it’s got to be wearable; you can’t make something that’s just so fragile. Those are just some pretty serious constraints if you think about it,” Thein describes. 

The only way for him to go about it was to get creative with its construction and materials. “We use metal, but it’s a magnesium alloy that’s actually less dense than carbon fibre. The structure of it was computed to make sure that it has correct torsional rigidity so that it’s not weak. We took out as much material as we could from everything to the point that we’ve got sections that are about 0.44mm thick that have to be reinforced with buttresses. We didn’t use sapphire because it’s too dense. It was the first watch we’re doing which doesn’t have luminous material because it adds weight. It’s optimised to the level that we didn’t put in conventional spring bars because those are steel and they’re heavier. It’s very analytical, but also, at the same time, it can’t look like crap,” he shares.

Thein also discusses the ebb and flow of creativity in watch design. For him, there are bursts of productivity where multiple designs might emerge rapidly, followed by quieter periods focused on administration and production.

“I don’t think this is a linear process. It’s not like you can say I directly translate X to Y. It doesn’t work that way. All of the things that you’re seeing and absorbing go in, and they chunk around your subconscious, and somehow something comes up. It’s a very disappointingly unromantic way of looking at it. It’s not that level of sexiness, right? The media or, in fact, the brands themselves, typically portray this process as like, oh, some guys walking around, feeling inspired and looking at the night sky. The reality is it doesn’t work that way. The reality is I look at everything, and I go, ‘That’s cool.’ I’m not sure why, but okay, let’s file it away somewhere in the back of your mind, and you go and you do something else,” he candidly shares. 

Don’t miss: Reflections on holistic design with architect Nur Safuraa Abd Razak

Ultimately, Thein aims to create watches that not only tell time but also tell a story. He strives for designs that invite observation and reward the viewer with layers of interest and detail.

“The thing that stands out the most should always be legibility, time functions and all that, and then basically you keep going down the order from there. You can keep adding details, but the more details you add, the less noticeable they have to be, which is a bit paradoxical, right? So adding those final layers of detail is actually the hardest because you want to do it in such a way that it adds to the overall texture of it. It adds to the realism of a movie set versus a documentary. We want to have a documentary because it feels real. It’s detailed and interesting. You look at it and you go there’s something more to this, and it rewards observation.”

NOW READ

Jane Lau on motherhood and the values she holds dear

Raymond Tham on the art of designing a successful menu

Superstar designer Kelly Wearstler on curiosity and innovation in her maximalist work