Square Wall Clock with a Wavy Doodle Face and Silent Quartz Movement

A square wall clock in the playful, wavy doodle style: a squiggly hand-drawn outline, bold, easygoing numbers and a second color framing the edge. It reads more like a piece of illustrated wall art than a timepiece, and that is the whole appeal. It keeps time as quietly as anything on the wall, and gives the room something to smile at while it does.

No tick in the evening. No plain white circle that looks like it came with the office. Put a battery in, set the hands, and hang it where you will see it.

Most wall clocks are designed to disappear, and this one is not

You already know what a wall clock does, so the real question is what it looks like on your wall for the next ten years. Most of the ones in the shops answer by trying not to be seen at all. A round white dial, a thin black rim, and a row of printed minute marks that blend into the paint.

This one goes the other way. The face is a rounded square with a freehand-style outline that wobbles along every side, the way a line does when it is drawn by hand. Inside it, the 12, 3, 6 and 9 are written in the same loose marker style, with a short dash for each hour in between, and two slim black hands turn around a small brass-toned center.

Around that sits a flat band of color out to the square edge. The whole front has a glossy, glass-smooth finish that catches the light from a window. At only 0.8 inches deep, it sits close to the wall.

Quiet enough for the bedroom

The movement is silent quartz, so there is no tick to notice once the television goes off and the house settles down. That matters most in the rooms where a clock is usually a problem, like a bedroom, a study or a reading corner. It can go wherever it looks best, not wherever you cannot hear it.

It runs on a battery, which is not included, so there is no cable running down the wall underneath it.

Picking the colors

Every option is the same drawing in a different pair of colors, and the name tells you which is which: the first color is the face, the second is the border. So Beige & Black is a beige face in a black border, and Yellow & Navy is a yellow face in a navy one.

The beige faces are the easy ones to live with. Beige & Black, Beige & Green, Beige & Taupe and Beige & Teal all sit well against a white or gray wall and next to wood furniture. White and Beige are the quietest of the lot. The bright pairs, like Orange & Green, Yellow & Navy or Pink & Yellow, are for a kitchen, a kid's room or a wall that could use a bit of noise.

The Small suits a desk, a console table or the space beside a doorway, and the Large is the one for a bare wall with nothing else on it. Exact figures for both are in the specifications.

Whichever pair you choose, it is the kind of clock people ask about.