Modern Grandfather Clock

This is a project my wife and I did awhile ago, but we have never gotten much feedback.

The attempt was to take a fresh and new look on the Grandfather clock. Let me know what you think!


I love the idea of doing a modern grandfather clock. The form factor is so grandfather clock (which is important and good in my opinion). I think there is an opportunity to further simplify the silhouette. Does it need to have the serif type fillets at the top? i think there is an opportunity to explore the design of clock mechanism (chains, pendulum, weights) and make it relate more to the cabinet/face.

The fillet at the top is definitely there to relate the form to traditional grandfather clocks but in a very paired down sense. I think, more than just the form of the case, what makes our clock unique is the construction of it. Notice how the clock face and hands are almost seemingly floating in space? We have essentially removed almost all excess.

We took a very heavy and closed traditional aesthetic and made it light and fresh.

Id love to hear what you think could take it even further!

Do your weights have any function or are the purely decorative?

Why do you have your face and pendulum weight as circles? Did you explore other shapes/ideas?

Did you intend for the yellow material to be non-substantial?

Why does the inside walls on the sides appear to be wallpaper? Why did you choose that finish over yellow?

Why do the weights and pendulum have a metal finish and the remainder is a painted finish?

Mack, here are a few examples that I thought interesting. just a personal opinion, but I feel that the big form factor is enough to say grandfather clock, and you don’t need the fillets at the top.




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1.The weights have a direction connection to the functionality of the clock, they turn the hands of the clock, so yes they work.

  1. The clock components like the weights, chains, movement and chimes are off the shelf parts that we felt matched the aesthetic we were going for. We did have to alter the movement to get the weights and face to float like they are.

For the face of the clock we explored tons of options, from shape of the face and the shape of the hands, ended up that the concentric face just felt right really.

  1. Not sure what you mean about this one, the color of the cabinet I think makes its substantial all on its own.

  2. I guess just a modern clock wasn’t a great explanation, the goal was really to modernize the grandfather clock while still paying homage to the history of their design. Grandfather clocks are very ornamental, so to tie that back into the clock we added the flower pattern into the face, and then continued to further tie it in graphically on the inside of the clock. It was also there to highlight the face that this is and open case design, seeing the inside is different.

  3. Same answer as #2, We did experiment with painting them, but they are expensive parts and didn’t want to mess them up :smiley:

@Yo, some of those are pretty interesting! We actually started without the fillets, but felt they added to the overall design. I think standing clocks are a cool products that as a whole haven’t been explored as far as they could be!

Interesting project.
Did you do any mood boards? I think shapes and colors are subjective so any feedback you get will be based on that.

  1. Case Colors - I’m not fond of the lime green. Also in combination with the orange/red face it reminds me of Christmas a bit. Color combo makes it appear like an Art project rather than something you would buy for a modern home.
  2. Case Shape - Seems like you shelled/hollowed out a box. Not very interesting. Yet you decided to add ornamentation to face and inside of case.
  3. Main Focal Point? The floating face and hands is cool but I cannot appreciate it because of all the other extra stuff around it (serifs on top, flower pattern on face, flower pattern and different color on the inside of the clock, etc). I think the red round face is fighting with the rest of the design elements.
  4. I think you played it safe with some of your design decisions. When I think of modern grandfather clocks I think of these:

My two cents.

The material is very thin, perhaps 6mm?

When I think of a grandfather clock, I think of something very substantial, the thinness of the yellow material runs contrary to that aspect. I don’t know if it was your intention to have that juxtaposition or not.

This is a very subjective one here. We are talking about a personal interpretation. Please take the feedback as other people’s interpretations of that vision. I tend to gravitate more to the examples that FH13 showed or some of the mid century examples I posted because that is my home’s personal style.

On the other hand, if there was an image board of the type of home this is to fit into and a target persona we could perhaps have a more objective conversation about it.

Here are my 20 cents trying to stay close to your original intention.
-Kept the lime green but just on the face.
-Made the case more substantial but still clean.
-Optional to add a light ornamental texture on face.
-Added some metal detail

You can still see the floating face and the clock hardware. The casing goes away.

This is great! I didn’t realize it would cause such a divide ( I think i’m the only one on this side :wink: ) which is super interesting!

@FH13, I know you did that image quickly and tried to keep it the same flavor as what I had, but i’m not sure how you could say my choices were safe and then propose a very Vanilla image. I think the images you showed feel very expected, I like them a lot but I don’t know I would call those images much safer.

I think the issue is caused by the word modern, I think if I titled this clock, “Different take on grandfather clocks” there may not be the same divide between the design choices, since we aren’t caught up on our personal definitions of modern.

Like @Yo said, its all about which angle we are looking at it.

Love the feedback guys!

Agree with the safe comment. If anything you were pretty bold with the green/red combo.
Thinking back I guess what I meant was that a traditional grandfather clock is big, heavy and with ornamentation. I feel like you tried to keep those features but found solutions half way/compromising. For example just shelling the structure and keeping the circle with ornamentation.

Like we mentioned earlier. Do you have any mood boards or images of the type of home/living room it would go in? That would help a lot with our feedback if not then it’s just a matter of personal opinion.

I can see where you are coming from with that, makes more sense to me now.

Ill add some more images soon.

Funny, just came across this one. Not a grandfather clock but minimal structure and all the attention goes to the mechanism and face.