Bramwell Brown’s Rob Leigh-Bramwell and Sarah Clifford Bowles on crafting creative clocks – and what made their Aardman collaboration tick

Guys, it’s great to chat. Bramwell Brown celebrates its 10thanniversary this year. Congratulations. Can you tell us about the company, your products and what was the ‘spark’ that inspired you to set up the business?
Yes, 10 years seems like a long time, but the idea is much the same as when we started… Design and handmake beautiful clocks with moving mechanical artwork in the clock face, displaying a little weather forecast or the height of your local tide.

The original spark came from the idea that no one had reinvented the traditional barometer in about 150 years. And people still love to see and interact with analogue products in the home. Our clocks are not just another digital display!

You are a brother and sister team. How do you both share responsibilities?
We do okay together! We make a good team and have fallen into responsibilities over the years that suit our skill sets. We’d both be sunk without each other and it’s turning into a real ‘family business’.

Delving a bit deeper into your product, can you tell us what constitutes a ‘weather art clock’ and its purpose?
So, our Weather Art Clock is a wall clock that tells the time, of course, but also provides a little barometric weather forecast. When the clock senses that the air pressure has dropped, the mechanical artwork moves, and the scenery clouds up. When the air pressure rises, the scenery moves again, and the sunshine comes out! Like barometers of old – that parents or grandparents often had on walls at home – the clock can forecast ‘Very Dry’, ‘Fair’, ‘Change’, ‘Rain’ and, excitingly, ‘Stormy’. We have Limited Edition artworks in our clock or our ‘original’ design.

You recently launched a limited-edition Wallace & Gromit Weather Art Clock. Can you tell us more about this product, the design of it and what attracted you to Wallace & Gromit?
We’re incredibly proud to be associated with Wallace & Gromit. Their inventive and analogue brilliance is so inspirational for a creative clock maker like Bramwell Brown. When we first agreed to try out prototypes with Aardman, we were thrilled that they felt that: “If Wallace ever made a clock, this would be what he’d design”. So, it’s a lovely match up.

“Our Weather Art Clock is a wall clock that tells the time, but also provides a barometric weather forecast.”

The clock itself depicts life at 62 West Wallaby Street in various weather conditions. Out and about in fine weather or tucked up inside eating cheese when it’s rotten outside.

What was it like collaborating with Aardman?
The clock artwork is like a moving jigsaw, but we found Aardman great to work with. From initial discussions to their involvement in the design details, we learnt a lot about them having to balance being creative, but also protecting their assets. We knew we’d come up with some good designs but their encouragement to think above and beyond perhaps pushed us to do an even better job.

I understand each clock will come with a limited edition Wallace & Gromit flipbook?
Yes! We have used flipbooks before at Bramwell Brown as marketing tools, often giving them to VIPs. By flipping the pages, we could handily show our moving artwork – quite novel when you haven’t used one since you were a kid! We thought that they would be a great addition to make the unboxing experience even more exciting. Flip the pages one direction and it shows our clock moving. Flip them the other way and it shows the infamous Wallace & Gromit: Wrong Trousers ‘train chase scene’ where Gromit is laying track as fast as he can! Great fun!. Flip the pages one direction and it shows our clock moving. Flip them the other way and it shows the infamous Wallace & Gromit: Wrong Trousers ‘train chase scene’ where Gromit is laying track as fast as he can! Great fun!

Beyond working with Aardman, you also collaborate with a number of artists to create Weather Art Clocks. One example is a limited edition with Dominique Ramsey. How did this collaboration start?
We found Dominique via an artist open call we held – that’s still open at https://www.bramwellbrown.com/pages/artist-open-call. She applied and had clearly done her research into what might work well. We loved her style and the fact that she had a different audience to our usual customer.

For finding future artists, we are doing things like scouting art shows, subscribing to magazines and asking for introductions from friends and contacts. There are no specific styles we’re looking for, per se. If it’s different to what we’ve done to date, with a natural way to potentially add a bit of flair – and they are enthusiastic about the clocks – then we’re very interested to speak!

I know you also develop and sell Tide Art Clocks. Can you tell us a bit more about these?
Yes, we also design and make Tide Art Clocks. Our Weather Art Clocks sell in much larger number – seemingly more people care about the weather than they do about the tide! Basically, the moving scenery depicts a harbour or beach and the little seascape, with the sea-level, boats and buoys moving up and down to display the tidal forecast. We have a range of ‘localised’ designs depicting different popular seaside locations around the British Isles, and regularly work with customers who want us to create a completely bespoke design just for them.

Are there any frustrations you can share about your design process? How do you overcome these frustrations?
I guess a lot of our design is done in a digital format before going to print. Occasionally there are snags when conversion from design, to digital and back to print occurs. It means we have to do a lot of prototyping… But we are getting faster at recognising all the things that can possibly go wrong with Adobe and initial print runs!

What is the future for Bramwell Brown ? How is 2025 shaping up for you?
The year is quite exciting really! We have several artists lined up and we’re talking to others. We want to continue to do a continuous, season by season, mix of collaborations that are either limited edition by time or number. Each launch we do gives us something to shout about and gets people engaging with our brand.

“Wallace & Gromit’s inventive brilliance is so inspirational for a creative clockmaker like us.”

For any artists reading, do you have any advice to share about how they can market themselves to companies like yours?
I guess one piece of advice is about following up with people. We launched our artist open call where we eventually chose Dominique as the first artist we wanted to work with. We also shortlisted several artists and told them that we’d love to be in touch in the coming months. The artists that actually replied to this shortlisting news and were enthusiastic about doing something have remained firmly in our plans. But we haven’t made fresh contact with those who didn’t have the time to reply to us as we felt it showed that they didn’t really want to work us after all. So, our advice is to reply to people and be enthusiastic – even to emails where you haven’t immediately picked up work.

Good advice! One last question… Thinking about the wider world of clocks, is there a clock designer or clock that you particularly admire?
Not a clock designer, but a watch designer springs to mind immediately: Mr Jones Watches. For a while we had a studio/shop space in the same OXO Tower Wharf building as they did. Their designs are so imaginative, engaging and each design so different. They make a product designed to be noticed, talked about and admired – and seem to have the release of new designs down to an equally fine art.

Good pick. Thanks again!