A note from designer Matt Smith-Johnson of Sentient Creative:
"Although its origins are mysterious and often disputed, most enthusiasts know exactly what a "California Dial” entails. Numerals 10, 11, 1 and 2 being swapped from Arabic to roman numerals. It’s a quirky and memorable look, and it’s almost a right of passage for a brand to produce one at some point.
For VERO, we wanted to participate in this trend, but I decided to approach it with a twist. With Oregon being California’s West coast neighbour to the North, I call this unique configuration the “Portland Dial”. because, well, y’know, Portland is just a bit different.
By making every other hour marker a numeral, and instead flipping the 10, 12, and 2 to Roman numerals, the visual weight of the dial balances out much more evenly.
On the "California" layout, you end up with XI (11) being across from I (1) left-to-right, and Arabic 7 top-to-bottom. It’s a tricky balance, and sometimes looks off to my eye. The “Portland” layout kind of corrects this imbalance. It also makes XII (12) the logical visual anchor of the dial, carrying the most visual weight and being in the centre.
I’ve never seen this layout being done, and it just makes sense to me, so here we are! And if this catches on, perhaps people will remember the origin of the Portland dial configuration."
