Deathblinger: Satirical Designer Watch Knockoff

Craft & Design

deathblinger-1.jpg

Sean Michael Ragan has created what he calls the “Deathblinger.”

He describes:

“[A 2006 BoingBoing article] describes what might be called the ‘gentrification’ of the skull as cultural icon; the death’s head–once a decidedly kitschy, lower-class, and marginalized symbol–has gone uppercrust, or so they say. Striking evidence is presented in this pavé diamond watch face by Lucien Pellat-Finet/Jacob Arabo, the price of which is left tastefully to our imagination. Being generally opposed to the gentrification of, well… anything, I undertook to reclaim this design in more accessible, familiar, and kitschy materials, viz. rhinestones. Copying the paving pattern from the photo was easy enough with the aid of some hex-graph paper from incompetech.com. Some fancy footwork with Illustrator and Photoshop produced [an] image, which was printed to scale on 65lb card stock and used as a pattern.”

I love Sean’s sensitivity to the irony in the designer watch face. Not only is this a smart and funny project, he also provides great documentation for making your own rhinestone skull clock face. Link.

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Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

View more articles by Becky Stern

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