Iconic graphic designer Philippe Apeloig has just reinvented the hours

Elegant, light and discreet, Slim d’Hermés watch physical design is immaculate and comes with a typographic twist. Hermés didn’t want just to come with a new watch, it wanted to come forward with a bang. Therefore artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas approached French graphic designer Philippe Apeloig to create a new font that would define the watch’s light character and the super-slim movement that powers this timepiece. “Typography is a key part of Hermés” says Dumas. “I am always impressed by Philippe’s didactic style. His essential approach that says: "what can I take away until it doesn’t say anymore?””. “The Slim d’Hermés font is very fine, a combination of straight and curved lines, a single line that is broken, with no difference in thickness. The font is simple, sober” says the designer. “The watch dial is very small and you have to think of the function, so the font has to create an interesting dialogue between the numbers and the shape. It should not be an effort to see the numbers when you glance at the watch” he added on the font that leaves nothing in chance. “The fine breaks in the font convey a message. They represent the “start and stop” of time. The fact that they are not complete creates a kind of attraction, like a magnet that attracts the lines together but also the viewer to look” explained the man whose work almost always involve type and letters that have to communicate a message. “Typography is a balance between shape and emptiness” says the unofficial French ambassador of graphic design on the Slim d’Hermès, the first new collection from the house since 1992 that counts the hours with a custom made broken typeface that will stand the test of time. 

Images via Wallpaper, portraits by Elodie Chapuis