Watch Fonts/Typeface history

fourmations

hi all

this may be mind-numbingly boring and ignored but.....

I see a lot of typefaces in my line of work and have noticed
that there is a particular typeface that comes up very often,
ive seen it on Panerai's, Hamiltons, Seagulls and many many more

its pretty much the one below but has a "closed" 4
some version have an "open" 9 and 6
any info on this, who used it first, any reason it is so widespread?

rgds

Wibbs

Other than fashion one influence on watch fonts would have been the invention of luminous material on hands and dials. They had to get bigger for a start. In the early days anyway when they were hand painted. EG

Watch font just before the lume came along:



Watch font just after the lume came along:



Same font, made larger and bolder and outlined for the lume.

Early panerai were similarly designed around lume.



As lume printing got better and finer this influence tailed off a fair bit.

Fashion has much to do with it. So 1920's/30's watch fonts tend to be "Art Deco" in nature, particularly US made examples.



Military and tool watches tended to be much more conservative and aim at legibility over fashion when compared to dress watches. Usually blocky, sans serif. Your example would be one used a lot.

fourmations

thanks wibbs, interesting stuff

any idea where that particular typeface turned up first watch-wise?
it seems omni-present for decades

cheers

Wibbs

I'd bet it started with military issued pieces F. If I were to guess the mid 1930's. Previous to that time fonts tended to be flowery, "deco" or "gothic". As an example here's my German issued Doxa from '41.



It's pretty close to your example above. German, US, British issued stuff were all variations on this clear sans serif font.