A CLOCK can be defined as an instrument for recording, measuring, and indicating time. The earliest clocks were based on observations of the movement of nature, such as the sundial that traced the sun's movement to mark the passing of a day. The clocks that we are most familiar with today, however, are products of technology, with their origins in the ropes and gears that struck the hours in medieval monasteries. The clock is no longer just a way of translating nature, but a way of rationalising nature.
This collection of eleven clocks is a set of windows looking deeper into this devised structure that dictates our living and working life. They are a deliberately incomplete attempt to make sense of how this structure came to be, how it shapes our identities, how it informs our relationships with the world, how it has built the world we know, and how we can re-define our place in time.
They are for everything.
SPECIAL THANKS TO...
Everyone who lent me your screens and helped me set up for my presentation.
Anther Kiley, for being the kindest advisor.
Emily Rye, Paul Soulellis, and Minkyoung Kim, for your generous feedback.
Sage Gerson, for your encouragement in turning thoughts into words and beyond.
Ed Brown, Julia Gualtieri, and the Graphic Design Department, for support and resources.
My 8th floor studiomates and Degree Project sectionmates, for keeping me company.
My roommates, friends, and whānau (family), for keeping me sane.
The coastlines of New England, Aotearoa New Zealand, and southern China, for shaping me to be who I am.
COLOPHON
This Degree Project is typeset in Voyager — a forever work-in-progress typeface advised by Cyrus Highsmith and Richard Lipton — alongside Work Sans and Fragment Mono by Wei Huang.
The book was first printed in the RISD Design Center and bound by hand in the Spring of 2026. Images and texts are reproduced without permission and used for educational purposes only. If there are any objections, I will be happy to remove them from further editions.
Edited, designed, and developed by Maggie Xian.