The winner of the Moto 360 design face-off contest, David Pascual gets candid with HNGN about his experiences on winning the competition and his hands-on with the Motorola's upcoming smartwatch.
Motorola announced the winner of its month-long Moto 360 design face-off on Wednesday. After receiving over a thousand submissions for the Moto 360 watch-face designs, Motorola shortlisted 10 finalists and let the fans choose the winner. With a massive lead of more than 14,000 +1s on Google+, David Pascual of Virginia won the contest for his simplistic and feature-packed watch-face design.
Pascual's watch-face for Moto 360's classy design and the sensible use of notifications on the main screen is a practical choice. Besides a regular round dial watch, Pascual's design shows notifications for Hangouts, calls, Gmail and battery. It also shows connectivity features such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi symbols. The calendar is the highlight in the watch-face and shows date and day distinctively. With all the notifications along with the classic watch dial, Pascual's watch-face is not crowded.
With thousands of votes for the elegant watch-face design, Pascual's excitement is boundless. Headlines & Global News contacted Pascual via email and conducted an interview on his experiences with the contest among other things.
HNGN: Can you tell us more about your watch design, like the notifications shown on the watch-face and how different is it from the rest of the designs?
David: Really I just created a design I thought I'd like to wear. My primary goal was to have it be readable as a watch with traditional design cues. Then, I wanted to add in features that would be useful at a glance. The calendar was the key item I wanted to integrate, which is why it's such a prominent part of the design. Beyond that showing basic notification and status information seemed to make sense.
HNGN: Do you think your graduation degree in Media Arts and Design was an added advantage for your victory?
David: Having familiarity with tools like Photoshop I'm sure helped, as did having some understanding of design fundamentals. Beyond that, I think you run this contest 10 times and you probably get 10 different winners. I was just lucky enough to win this time.
HNGN: You are pursuing your MBA from Georgetown University, what are your plans for the future?
David: I've actually just started the MBA program so I'm a few years off from figuring this one out. I work in marketing at SiriusXM Radio, and this was a logical next step to further my career opportunities.
HNGN: Would you like to share your experience with the Motorola team and your hands-on experience with the Moto 360?
David: The team was as awesome as the watch. Everyone I met was really nice and engaging. The most surprising thing to me about the watch was size and weight. It's extremely light, really comfortable, and not nearly as large as I'd imagined. The watch is every bit as well crafted as they've talked about. I've gotten a chance to wear the LG G, Samsung Gear Live, and Moto360 - the Moto360 is in a class by itself. They've done just a remarkable job.
HNGN: Given a chance to work for Motorola's Moto 360 team in the future, will you be interested?
David: It'd be fun to work with their team again, but I think this is probably it. It's been a fun experience and I certainly thank them for having the contest and being so inviting in person. Also - thank you to everyone who voted for the watch! I didn't expect to win and really appreciate all the positive comments that have been posted.
