Cocoa Stuff

I’m of the generation where, as a kid, there wasn’t common access to computers. I started programming calculators, the TI-57 and TI-59, in the late 70s. In high school I could afford to buy my father’s preferred brand, Hewlett-Packard (HP-34C, HP-67, HP-41CV), which offered hardware of superior quality and much more intuitive interface (yes, I still prefer RPN, and I still use my immortal HP-12C bought in 1984 before starting on Copenhagen Business School).

I don’t know where my uncompromising sense of quality comes from, but combined with my wish to improve on existing design, it becomes an expensive problem. When I wanted to buy a watch in the early 90s, I had to face up to the fact that I had to buy the Swiss hand-made Reference 2 of the Danish watch brand, Urban Jürgensen. This is a very limited watch, manufactured in only 250 copies (100 gold, 100 platinum, 50 rose gold). The problem was that I wasn’t quite happy with the layout on the dial (in retrospect, there wasn’t really anything wrong with that). The dealer had just spent an hour explaining the manual, and very time-consuming, manufacturing process, so I thought, hey, why don’t I just design my own dial?

An early version of Illustrator¹ and two months later, I had my design. Suffice to say the dealer liked it, and the manufacturer didn’t mind putting his name on the dial (nor mine for that matter):

In fact, he asked me if I’d allow him to make another limited series, based on my “Bondo” design. This became the Reference 9. But where all the series have their serial number (below the moon phase at 12 o’clock), mine has my last name. And the text on the dial is Danish because, well, I’m Danish.

¹) If I remember correctly, this was before layers were introduced. It was certainly back when Adobe made lean code and great UI.