project-image

Today

Created by Scott Thrift

The 24-hour timepiece beautifully designed to change the way you see your day.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

The Present — Day Moon Year
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 09:05:43 PM

The hunt for the lunar movement has begun!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottthrift/the-present-day-moon-year/description

Happy to answer any questions about name changing, all the changes were made to simplify the concept. 

https://www.wired.com/story/moon-scott-thrift-slow-clocks/

Had to let you know before the end of the day.

No VO on video at the moment, had to launch anyway. It's okay I can still change the video while the project is live. 

I hope you are safe and sound.

scott

We still need to make the movement and there is something lovely about this. It's like a shelf for sore eyes.

our moon in the new moon position
about 4 years ago – Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:39:01 AM

our moon in the new moon position

It's easy to see the Full Moon.

It's not so easy to see the New Moon.

At the moment, the moon is cast in the shadow of the sun. For all the times we've noticed a Full Moon in our lives, we have probably missed an equal number of opportunities to acknowledge the New Moon. 

Without having it on my wall yet, I can already sense the type of understanding and insights living with our moon might bring. With a lunar timepiece, our awareness of each phase will gradually and naturally become second nature. By acknowledging the presence of the New Moon, we also make space to acknowledge the shadow. Illuminating the inseparability of light and shadow, the minimal design aesthetic of our moon is meant to appeal to the searching eye as a place of rest.    

the sun, our moon in the new moon position and earth - not to scale

By living with the natural pace of our moon, I hope it becomes another anchor in time for you. I hope our moon helps you orient yourself with where you are in space, no longer a stranger in a strange place but simply at home here, in the present, on Earth. The calming symbol of our moon might be just what we need to gently reshape our expectations around time.

Portrayals of the fixed lunar phases are among the very first evidence of our ancestors' writing.  The design below was etched over 34,000 years ago.  The path of the moon has changed so little since then that it isn't even worth mentioning. 34,000 years from now the moon will still be following the same path it does from New Moon to New Moon, every 29.5304 days.

The first lunar calendar // 32,000 BCE // Aurignacian Lunar Calendar / diagram, drawing after Marshack, A. 1970; Notation dans les Gravures du Paléolithique Supérieur, Bordeaux, Delmas

our moon will be the latest offering in a long cycle of interpreting the moons' phases throughout time, starting with the one above! Miraculously, the drawing above gives you an insight into what someone was thinking 34,000 years ago. While I am conscious of being vague about the launch date, I can assure you it will take place sometime in the next 34,000 years. If you want to offer support in between project launches, you can help me reduce my prototyping costs by giving the gift of the day. T O D A Y discount code: backer

Dawn. Day. Dusk. Night.

I still plan to launch our moon in 2020 and look forward to sharing the prototypes and new prints with you soon. Thank you for reading this brief New Moon update, I will be in touch again on the Full Moon.

Finally, I also want to mention a live Kickstarter project from my friends CW&T. They are helping me develop the wall clock body of our moon and they currently have a watch that you set and truly forget. 

In time,

Scott Thrift

instagram.com/thepresent.today

Solid State Watch by CW&T

LIVE PROJECT LINK

Solid State Watch

our moon is our design
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 04, 2019 at 12:22:49 AM

I know,

it's odd to see another update from me so soon but I felt it was necessary to reach out again. Your responses were full of positivity and a particular insight that I, in all honesty, had not seen. 

the perceptual oddity of simultaneous contrast

I've lived with this clock design for a while now and to see the hand change is a remarkable experience. What was once bright, becomes shadow and over time, that shadow becomes bright again. It's an altogether moving phenomenon and a profound statement about the nature of change. I was totally focused on THE HAND as the focal point that measures the NEW and FULL moon. From your feedback, I was able to see the bigger picture and I am deeply grateful to you.

It has brought me to the conclusion that when someone asks me who designed the moon timepiece, I will say that it was a collaborative effort between you the backers, Cody (who helped me with PS) and me.

our moon is our design

Now that I write that out it feels apropos; the title of the piece will be called our moon and that makes perfect sense because this is our clock. This is the timepiece that was made possible by you for believing in me and my dream. My dream to make things in this world that can connect everyone on the planet to simple truths; starting points for a different approach to how measure, value and comprehend time.  

This is our day, this is our present and this is our moon

A trilogy of timepieces that could have only ever existed with your direct insights and backing.

thank you

Thank you for believing in me and how important it is to make art that remind us that no one is truly alone and that we are all in this together. 

Please enjoy this brief video that showcases our design of our moon.

release date

For those curious about when I will launch this on Kickstarter, I will set a release date only when I am absolutely solid about how it will be constructed, by whom and what it will cost to make. 

Currently I'm waiting to hear back from the German engineers about the feasibility of designing a 100% accurate wall clock lunar movement and I will keep you up to date as I learn more. 

You can also follow along:

@thepresent.today

Free domestic and international shipping for TODAY is still going, if you want to be considered a great gift giver! 

Thank you for your gifts.

In time,

Scott Thrift

this email needed a bit of color.

This is how I had the idea for the phrase 'Time in Color'. When the timepieces line up that is the phrase that flashes in my mind. Thank you as always for reading.

our moon
over 4 years ago – Sun, Dec 01, 2019 at 11:43:35 PM

Stunning moon photography by James McCarthy & NASA

our moon

Hello, it's true, I've come full circle and have landed on the moon.

I want to thank all of the backers who persistently pushed for a moon base(d) timepiece. It all clicked for me when I realized that the perceptual oddity of simultaneous contrast would illuminate the NEW and FULL moon so exquisitely. I don't know how I did not see it before, without your help I'm not sure I would have landed here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

our moon will accurately represent the phases of the moon by pointing straight up at every NEW MOON and straight down on every FULL MOON. The hand will complete a single rotation once every 29.53049 days. Even though the word MONTH is derived from MOON, our moon will strictly portray the phases of the moon and therefore will be agnostic of our days of the month. 

Like ThePresent and TODAY, our moon will help you familiarize yourself with a time we seem to have lost on our way to ever more progress.   

NEW MOON
HALF MOON
FULL MOON
HALF MOON
NEW MOON

why 'our moon' as a title?

ThePresent represents Earth from the point of view of our sun. ThePresent connects every person on the planet into the same moment of stillness at once, transcending age, race and nationality. Living with it makes time more tangible.

With TODAY we celebrate the dance of Earth from the point of view of our clouds. TODAY connects every person to the timeless experience of day and night on Earth, regardless of age, race and nationality. Living with it changes the way you see your day.

With our moon we memorialize the sphere that brings balance to both the seasons and the length of our day on Earth. This is our moon; everyone who has every lived, is living and will live, regardless of age, race and nationality forms a relationship with the moon.  I believe living with it fill a missing piece in our hearts and minds by reminding us that each one of us is an integral part of nature itself.

The moon glows the same

it is the drifting cloud forms

make it seem to change 

~Basho

The moon has inspired mystery and reverence in the collective imagination for tens of thousands of years. To honor the timelessness of the moon we will render a wall clock that brings us into balance with something bigger than all of us. 

Will you join me as this journey takes us to the moon?

2020

James McCarthy's 16k photo of the moon from November 4th, 2019
Alas, the limited edition of ThePresent as a desk clock is now officially sold out. A company in London purchased the remaining forty pieces as holiday gifts!

Are you still wondering what to get your friend or team? 

TODAY as a limited edition desk clock is available!

For the international set around the world, receive free international shipping  (yes even to Australia) for the next 48 hours only. All US orders always include free shipping. Remember you can always receive a 12% discount with the code: BACKER (email me if you have any problems with this)

T O D A Y
Beautifully packaged for yourself or someone else you love.

If you're on IG and you're looking for ThePresent and TODAY:  @thepresent.today

Blue Sky Thinking
This way to the moon!

Your friend,

Scott Thrift

Any chance you are as excited as I am that our journey is taking us to the moon? Let me know in the comments below or send an email to me: [email protected]

Changing the face of time.
over 4 years ago – Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 12:00:41 AM

Hello!

KICKSTOPPER

I am holding back on a Kickstarter campaign for the time being. I must enter with patience, clarity and certainty. I am close but not close enough to tell the world about it all just yet. 

PRODUCTION SAMPLE

We received the final production sample just last week and it all felt too rushed to launch a campaign at this stage. I do have pictures of where we are now and I could not be more thrilled about it.  For all practical purposes this is the final design of the desk clock body. Shown here featuring ThePresent with some minor details that still need to be ironed out. The goal here is to have one body in which I can assemble into any one of the three clocks. That way if I make 9,999 I can split it three ways across the trilogy.

In case you are a bit lost on where the story is at the moment, here is a refresher. I'm collaborating with the design duo CW&T (Che-Wei Wang & Taylor Levy) to produce a small clock body for the trilogy. They specialize in producing multi-generational objects. 

I love the bamboo versions I produced but I cannot go forward with them for two reasons. The tolerances of machining bamboo are too loose to be economical; meaning that it’s extremely difficult to get two pieces to line up to within 0.10mm so a great deal of pieces have to be tossed. When you have to toss one part that you've already paid for the price of the rest of the parts rises to unsustainable levels. 

The tensile strength of bamboo is close to steel so it wears out the drill bits on the CNC machine so quickly that you begin to lose tolerance very fast. Those edges also need to be hand sanded against a belt sander and any amount of pressure that is not even will offset the parts. If you have the bamboo desk clocks, cherish them! It's amazing that I was still able to deliver all of them. I actually have a handful left of this limited edition of ThePresent & TODAY and will be listing them on my site again soon. 

CW&T and I thought through every single material you can imagine, from cork, to recycled plastic, to ceramic, to stone, to compressed wood pulp, to every other kind of wood, to steel and beyond. In the end, for precision, abundance and longevity we decided to go with machined aluminum, bead blasted, anodized in middle grey.

Again, please allow me to be clear about something. It would be awesome if you backed or got one of these as a gift when they are eventually released but you've already done so much for me. I have no expectations and I am genuinely sharing my news with you not to divine whether or not you will support me but simply because you're part of the evolution of this story. 

IS THIS STILL ONE HOUR?

The following element of the story is one of the key reasons why I had to push back the project launch. Here is the thing. I was pulled into to help concept and edit a video from mid August to mid September. During that time, I lived with ‘this’ on my desk. I was able to give this as an hour one solid month of play. 

I’m telling you, I tried so hard to like this as an hour, I really did. However every time I glanced away from the edit to check in on this it threw me off. It changes so much that I don’t think it’s helpful. I would even say that it is the opposite of ThePresent.

I found this as an hour confusing outside of three distinct situations. It’s amazing to have during a one hour meeting. So this as an hour would be lovely in a conference room or for a therapist’s room. I also found it nice as way to time phone conversations. As ideal as it was for those three situations, there is no way I’m putting a clock in the world with such a narrow use case.

For those of you who loved the idea as much as I did initially, I’m sorry to say it’s not worth your time. I'm also happy that I experimented on myself before making a thousand of them and getting countless reviews stating similar accounts of frustration. 

SO WHAT NOW?

Coming to terms with the fact that this, as an hour, was more or less useless wasn’t fun. It felt like the floor fell out from below the whole trilogy idea. I had to take a step back. I love the design of this so much but one hour no longer made sense. The design itself, its message and the fact that it modernizes the ancient symbol of Yin-Yang was still true in my heart. this simply had not found its time yet.

THEN IT HIT ME

My role as a designer in this field is about providing an alternative to time as we know it. I base my philosophy on the fact that time as we know it, what I call time in black & white, is a format of time that was not designed with the human experience in mind. 

Actually, time in black and white wasn’t designed at all. Our default, factory setting perception of time is more of an emergent phenomenon that chimed its way from the medieval era only to give birth to the industrial revolution. My effort in this space is to consciously design time for the human experience. 

CHANGING THE FACE OF TIME

I’m writing to you because I’ve achieved certainty about what time this is now and forever.

ThePresent = 365 Days

T O D A Y   =   24 Hours

this              =   12 Hours

I could have never seen this coming.

If you would have told me last year that this would wind up being a replacement for time in black and white I would not have believed you. I would have thought, “Hey, where is the innovation in that? A regular clock, isn’t that boring?” Only now I could explain to my past self that the innovation is in the fact this changes the face of time as we know it. 

I feel a distinct responsibility to provide an answer to the problem I see of black and white time, that it was never consciously designed. this removes the second hand, minute hand, lines and numbers of time in black and white and replaces that with a modernization of the ancient Yin-Yang symbol in time. It's a gesture of making peace with time in black and white.

WHY IS this IMPORTANT?

this is time in black and white that is consciously designed for the human experience. It is the first timepiece in the trilogy that you will instantly be able to read! this is familiar, yet surprising and altogether zen. 

It will have a silent twelve hour twice a day movement and you will be able to glance at it and actually see what time it is. Instead of delineating time with lines and numbers you'll instinctually know where we are in time through the single hour hand while also interfacing with the beautifully peaceful design of this. Over time I believe this will consistently offer you a sense of peace when it comes to time. 

The gradient of this is a sight for sore eyes, weary of screen time and the constant bombardment of ads vying for your attention. Look away and rest your mind on this, a subtle introduction to the world of Time in Color. Which brings me to what I believe is the final 50 character message. 

TIME IN COLOR

The trilogy of timepieces that bring peace to time. 

TALKING ABOUT TIME

Yesterday morning I gave a thirty minute talk to three hundred people at the fourth annual LIKEMINDS conference. The theme of the three-day conference this year was “Time” so my work fit right in. I was able to share this in public for the first time outside of these updates to you. I studied diligently to ensure that the gift of attention from the audience was returned in kind. I’ve given a handful of talks in my life and yesterday was different. Something clicked within me.

People in the audience handed the production sample to each other and someone took a picture.

Looking out at the audience, I was pleasantly alarmed by the ability to connect directly with so many people. There were certain points that I could choose to land as shifted my gaze across different people in the audience. So many people were paying careful attention. I was so grateful to be able to present my message on my 40th and delighted to work that fact into the talk.

I discovered how much I still need to learn in this space because while I spoke I would have the distinct sense that I was able to land certain ideas while looking directly at one person. However, it was too exciting and I found myself looking away right as I was about to land a specific idea with a specific someone. I would imagine that with practice I could find the strength to follow through with the connection.

LONDON IS ON! 

I will have the chance to connect again very soon with some of the most discerning people in the world, the British! Roughly 35,000 people attend across the four day event that is New Scientist Live. I can already feel the butterflies fluttering up and look forward to sharing the adventure with you. 

I will be in booth #848 and I plan to use the opportunity to tell as many people as possible about ThePresent, T O D A Y & this. My focus will be on opening business owners up to the idea of gifting one of these timepieces to their employees. I've discerned that method as the quickest way to get as many of these timepieces into the world as possible. Wish me luck!

Also, I get a handful of free tickets so if you want one of those email me at scottthrift@gmail dot com 

As always, thank you for reading and for being a part of this evolving story.

In time,

Scott Thrift