There was an entire she-bang at Zouk on Oct 1, and the psych was all reserved for the Official Swatch Launch Party “Colors Living in Motion”. The bash was to celebrate the genesis of their latest watch collection: a hand-in-hand with art toy brand kidrobot and 8 designers.

Each of the wrist candy was distinctively different, and had its own brand of spunk, sass and story. They all come with a 3-inch Dunny, a kidrobot icon, that has been personalized according to each of the designer’s styles.

To also commemorate the launch, Swatch had also flown in Joe Ledbetter, one of the 8 designers. We managed to catch up with the cool cat pre-soiree to find out more about what makes him tick (I pun, I pun).

Joe’s design for the colloboration

We found out that Joe is a really nice guy. And conveniently, he is also insanely talented. The designer started to grope around in the world of design at a pretty young age. He recalls designing flyers a lot in high school and even album covers for his band in college.

Even though he kept his hands almost permanently dirty in the design scene, Joe never really did attend art school. Apart from a momentary stint that included weekend classes while he was still in high school, he studied Sociology while in college.

If you think that’s a far cry from being a designer, Joe explains that Sociology is actually a great tool for designers who intend on being aware of “what people think, or how people react to things”.

We don’t know about you, but talking to the LA-based designer made us realize that it’s completely fine to not be absolutely religious to what you’re currently doing in school. You could be doing something hopelessly unrelated to your passion, but if you’ve got enough drive and practice, you just might be fantastic at it too.

“There are a lot of talented people out there that are very intuitive naturally and I don’t think age has everything to do with it,” he says, referring to whether or not the age of a designer matters when creating good work, “But art and design is one of those things that the more you do it, the better you get at it.”

For those who harbour designer dreams, Joe advises you to be friendly. His words of wisdom may seem hardly revolutionary, but it apparently “goes a long way”.

“I know a lot of grumpy designers. They spend too much time in front of the computer,” he shares.

However, if you intend on being the Mozart of the art and design world, be prepared to pick up odd and very erratic societal habits.

“Geniuses typically go back and forth. They’re moody,” Joe points out, “They’ll be angry, and then happy again. First they’re super social, and they want to be left alone.”

When asked if he’s like that, he laughs, “No, not so much.”

And it’s true. Joe maintained such a pleasant demeanor throughout the interview, almost as happy and cheery as his design work, which is largely made up of “cute animals in very adult and unfortunate or awkward human situations”.

We saw Mr. Nice Designer again at Zouk for the party, changed out of his flannel shirt and ready for some fun.

The club was in its usual glam mode, with all 8 watch designs on display around, along with the addition of a maxi Swatch and maxi Dunny on stage. Ex-DJ Chew Soo Wei hosted the event (in really cute Jeffrey Campbells, we must say) and warmed the crowd up with a little game of treasure hunt one of our editors took very seriously.

Later, Joe was invited to do a live designing demo on the maxi Dunny, and the crowd got a first-hand experience of the work that goes into creating Joe’s design.

The night was topped off with good, clean fun in the form of a Swatch-ified game of Twister.  3 contestants were picked out from the audience, and were made to contort their bodies into baffling positions. The sadists in us enjoyed it very much.

There was also a design-your-own-Swatch competition for the guests. Blank larger than life Swatch timepieces were printed out and 4 guests were called up to go all Neil Buchanan on them. The best design won a Swatch from the kidrobot collaboration.

Photos courtesy of Noel Teo and Swatch.

The kidrobot x Swatch collection is available now at all Swatch outlets.