Personal Profile
Where abouts are you from?
I’m 36 years old, married and I’m from Croatia!
What is your technical background and education?
I’ve been in the multimedia field my whole working life. I started in print media as a journalist, but soon moved into online media and this was over 18 years ago, when most people had no idea what internet was. Then I started to learn more about print and web design, which led me to fall in love with photography. I started doing commercial photography as my main job, but as digital video was becoming more and more important I also learned a lot about video editing and color correction, as well as animation. When I started creating watchfaces I quickly realized that everything that I learned in the past was a perfect match for this and that’s part of the reason why I’ve had such huge success with watchfaces.
What inspires you to design watch faces?
Most of the time it’s everyday objects or elements of technology I interact with. I also draw a lot of inspiration from movies and modern art.
What are some of your hobbies?
I like creating things, so I’m quite versed at working with wood. I have a small workshop in my garage that I love spending time in tinkering with tools.
Drazen Stojcic
Your Brand
When did you create your brand?
Pretty early on I decided I need a brand name, I think it was after 2 months of developing.
How many watch faces do you have in your collection right now?
little over 150 now.
Do you have a particular theme you like to create your designs around? If so, what is it?
I specialize in making animated watchfaces. It makes it 10 times harder to create a single watchface, but I like to design watchfaces that do not exist anywhere else other than on a smartwatch.
What are your top most popular and/or most download watch faces in your collection?
My Pulse series has been very successful, even getting selected into the “Best Watch Face of 2017” by Samsung. Prometheus has also been extremely well received.
What designs are you working on next and when can we expect to see them?
I’m always working on new designs, but for me it’s a very slow process. Sometimes I work for weeks on a single design until I’m finally happy with how it looks. With that being said, I do have a new design coming in a few weeks – I’m calling it Morpheus.
Identify all the items you create for the Samsung Galaxy/Gear series: Watch Faces – Apps – Themes
I design watchfaces, but since I’ve finally been accepted into Themes program (and it’s very difficult to be accepted into the program), I will be turning some of my focus into Theme designs.
Watch Face Community
Please talk a little about the watch face community and what makes it interesting/special for you?
The community was a big help when I was starting out 2 years ago, I’ve actually made a few good friends who are also developing watchfaces and we stay in touch regularly. Nowdays I try to return the favor, so I help out newcomers as much as possible with advices and tips and tricks.
Why should designers consider developing watch faces?
I started making watchface designs because I had ideas that none of the watchfaces available at the store at the time didn’t seem to fulfill. I would draw a design and I had a friend developer who would turn it into a real watchface. A year later another friend told me “why don’t you try making a watchface yourself”, and he mentioned GWD – which I have never heard about until then. With GWD things are much faster and simpler.
What are the common pitfalls you see when designers first start out and how should they avoid them?
The most common mistake I see is that they rush to publish their first watchfaces – which usually looks crappy or incomplete – and they end up being disappointed when no one downloads it.
If you could a new developer one piece of advice, what would it be?
I would strongly suggest to spend a lot of time refining the design and the functionality, and to be as original as possible. Start with extra low expectations, because chances are you will need to spend a few months before actually getting any results, especially if you’re trying to sell your watchfaces.
Which developers create watch face designs you really like and that inspire you?
This is going to sound really lame, but I intentionally avoid looking at other developers. I rarely visit the Store, other than to check if everything is ok with my own designs. I don’t want to be influenced by what other designers are doing, so I try not to look at other peoples work.