One of the most beautiful parts of the Apple Watch Series 4 unveiling last week were the gorgeous new motion watch faces. Considering Apple is a technology company, you might expect that those faces were computer generated. But you’d be wrong.
A new behind-the-scenes video reveals that the Fire, Water, Liquid Metal and Vapor faces aren’t rendered, they were shot in a studio using the real elements.
I vary between this info-dense watch face and the new ultra-minimal and very hypnotic Fire, Water, Liquid Metal and Vapor faces. And these faces are more special than Apple let on during their keynote. They’re not rendered—each face is high resolution video shot in a studio using real fire, water and vapor elements.
Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of UI design explained to Hodinkee why Apple decided to create the motion watch faces using the methods they used.
We probably could have done this digitally, but we actually shot all of this practically in a studio. What I love about the fact that we did this is that it’s just so indicative of how the design team works. It was really about bringing together some of our various talents to create these faces. There are of course art directors, and color experts, and graphic designers, but also model makers who helped build these structures that we would eventually, you know, set on fire.
In addition to the full screen versions shown off on the Apple Watch Series 4, circular versions were created for use with older models of the Watch.
(Via 9to5Mac)