Firstly, we should see this as a debate, rather than an argument.robinbarke wrote: Don't like to disagree with you Richard but it was on the basis of your mock up that we subscribed to the FLE. To my eye the watch has changed significantly and it seems to me another example of sloppy design. What is the point of carefully describing minite markers all the way around the dial only for the minute hand to wallow in no man's land between 28/32 seconds. A smaller sub dial would be fine and the solution adopted by Stowa, Bell, Thomas Ninchritz and others using the Unitas movement. The movement and case are given so surely we must get the dial right avoiding unnecessary compromises like the wretched date positioning of the C60!! Maybe the 2011FLE committee should consult and perhaps vote on this.
The issue here is whether or not the larger, sunken sub-dial is a strong element of this watch. Personally, I think it is vital. Sure, we could have a smaller sub-dial, but we would lose something in the process.
Below are two images - first the prototype..
And then a mock-up showing the approximate reduction in the subdial in order to retain the sunken dial feature and show the minute markers at 28,29,31,32.
I deliberately left the space white - to show the scale of reduction.
To my eyes, this would kill the watch. The sub-dial looks like an afterthought - as it does on many, many watches with the 6497/6498 movement.
In fact there are a lot of watches with gaps in the minute tracks, and I don't think it is necessarily sloppy design. Here is an example..
And here is another..
And of course there are many, many watches with no minute markers at all (including some design icons), but people seem perfectly happy with them, and are still able to use them as timepieces.
So, I think it is perfectly possible to have functional watches with missing minute tracks and personally, I think we should be quite happy with the prototype design.*
Oh, and by the way, I like the Trident date position.
* In any event, I have no idea whether or not the design can be changed at this stage, or what delays it would bring. I am merely arguing that we should not change anything.