I’d like to suggest updating the default watch time on Zazzle mockups to 6:25. That small adjustment keeps the hands from blocking the artwork especially designs with upper / centered illustrations and gives customers a clearer view of the product.
I’ve been testing this in my own mockups by prompting the time change, and the improvement is beneficial: you get a clear view of the artwork, the watch face looks balanced, and buyers can appreciate the design itself rather than the clock hands. It’s a subtle tweak that would benefit creators and help customers see the product more clearly before purchase.
Here’s one of my mockups of a wolf watch with time changed. Showing as an example. I think there are several product views on the landing page, maybe one default mockup could show 6:25
No matter where it is set, it will always be in the way of certain designs. But I think it would be worse to cover the bottom half of the watch. There are a lot of designs that put monograms or text at the bottom of watches. Most watch brands put text at the top and/or bottom. If you google watch images, almost all of them are in the placement Zazzle has as a default, pointing to the 10 and 2.
The traditional 10:10 is what a lot of commercial watches use thats because of the text at the top and bottom, but with art based designs like mine the hands cut right through the focal point and customers can’t really see the artwork, so shifting the time to 6:25 keeps the hands out of the center and lets the design show more clearly. It won’t be perfect for every single watch, but for illustrated or photo driven faces it makes a difference. It was just a suggestion, I can always prompt my time change in my mockups
Here’s a suggestion that would work for all creators: Since different designs have different focal points, what if Zazzle offered a default mockup like 10:10 for monogram/text-heavy watch templates and 6:25 for illustration/portrait designs? That way, creators aren’t having to manually prompt time changes just to keep clock hands from slicing right through a central portrait or graphic. (offer it on the product landing page which would allow the creator to choose the Zazzle default mockup that was right for their artwork)
