Keeping time with Zach Raven

For Zach Raven, design is an ongoing process. Since successfully completing a Kickstarter campaign in 2011 and launching his line of handmade watches, Raven has continued to experiment with new technologies and materials and now has completely redesigned his Series: 1 line of timepieces.

Raven highlights the upgrades. "The new case is printed in laser-sintered titanium. This is one of the latest and most precise methods of 3D printing, usually used for medical implants and in the aerospace industry."

Several other improvements have been made with his watches, ranging from new materials (acrylic photopolymer, UV cured acrylic polymer) to a partnership with Worn & Wound out of New York City to provide their handmade nubuck and top grain NATO straps.

What remains the same from the original concept is the process. "Each watch is still handmade to order. We don't stock any parts, so the customer is buying their watch, not some watch that has been sitting on a shelf for a month."

Raven, an industrial designer, "is perfectly content" to run his watch business as an "experimental side project." Besides the satisfaction of selling his designs, the biggest benefit has been the opportunity to learn about the potential of 3D printing and rapid prototyping.

You can order Raven's watches through his website, rvnDSGN.com. He estimates it takes between four and six weeks to complete each watch once the order is placed.

To learn more about Raven's timepieces, you can visit his site here.

Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs News Editor