Most writing about clocks treats them as instruments, judged on features. In a bedroom or a living room a clock is also a visible object on a wall or a shelf, in view for years, and the ones people keep tend to be the ones that look right rather than the ones with the longest specification. It is worth thinking about proportion, material and finish deliberately instead of by accident.
Size is set by the room, not by the clock
The usual mistake is a wall clock that is too small for the wall it is on, which reads as an afterthought. As a rough guide, a clock on a large empty wall wants to be substantially bigger than feels natural in the shop, whilst a clock above a mantelpiece or between two pictures should relate to the width of whatever it sits with. Cut a paper circle and stick it up for a day before committing.
Wood, metal and the light in your room
Warm materials suit rooms with warm lighting and soft furnishings; brushed metal suits harder, cooler interiors and looks cold in a bedroom lit by a single lamp. Wooden-cased clocks, including the digital ones sold by JALL, are popular in bedrooms precisely because the case hides the fact that there is a display behind it when the numbers are off. That matters if you dislike the look of electronics on a bedside table.
Matt beats gloss almost everywhere
Glossy faces and chrome bezels catch every downlighter and lamp in the room, and reflections make a clock harder to read from the angle you usually see it. In a room with spotlights, a matt or lightly textured face stays legible from everywhere. This applies as much to a large statement wall clock as to a small bedside one.
Judging a clock before you buy it
- Check the numerals from across a room, not from arm’s length in a shop.
- Look at the case from the side, since many wall clocks are much deeper than the photograph suggests.
- Consider what the display looks like switched off, which is how a bedroom clock spends the night.
- Ask whether the movement is silent, if the room is one where anybody sleeps or reads.
- Think about the colour of the light in the room rather than the colour of the wall.
Legibility is part of the aesthetic
Very fashionable clocks often remove the numbers, thin the hands to hairlines and reduce the contrast, at which point the object is decoration and you will keep checking your phone instead. There is a middle ground: clean typography with real contrast between hands and face. If two people in the household have to squint at it, it has failed as a clock regardless of how it looks.
Grouping and placement
A clock hung at the same height as surrounding pictures, aligned to something, sits better than one placed in the middle of a wall by instinct. In a bedroom, avoid putting it directly opposite the bed if you have any tendency to watch the time at three in the morning, which is a real habit worth designing around rather than fighting.
What ages well
Solid or veneered wood, painted metal and simple dials look the same in ten years. Printed patterns, novelty shapes and anything with a coloured plastic finish tend to date quickly and stain. If you want a clock to remain part of the room rather than becoming a thing you keep meaning to replace, plain and well made is the safer bet.