Journal Entry 1.0

Photo Credit: Zachary Pina

Some background:

I went to art school initially for ceramics. I wanted to become a potter and I was good at it. I loved it but I was extremely stubborn and failed my major class because I didn’t want to make the 104 small studies we needed to pass. I was a pain in the ass. I wanted to make bigger pieces and make stuff I could sell. I had sold a few pieces during the semester, and thought I could make some money to buy skateboards. After getting kicked out of that class, I became interested in design and got my BA in graphic design. I grew up a skateboarder and at that time I wanted to try and become sponsored but really wasn’t good enough to have a sponsor. So, with my design background I started designing skateboard graphics and t-shirts for Girl Skateboards and Fourstar Clothing. I ended up designing a board for Sean Malto and did a few t-shirts. I think the best part was getting packages of boards and clothes sent to my house. I did that a for a couple of years and during those years I became interested in watches. My dad had an old Wittnauer watch with a dark blue dial and diamond indexes. It was broken and I always wanted to learn how to fix it. Inevitably, I learned how to take it apart and put it back together. Not without breaking a few more parts. I broke many other watches during this phase. After teaching myself how to service a watch and change batteries and remove hands, I actually started buying watches at Target and printing out my own dials for them and kind of branding my own stuff. It was all terrible, but at the time I thought it was great and it was a good learning experience. I then began working at a watch startup in KC and really got into the details of watch service. I started apprenticing under a friend who worked for Omega. I really learned a lot during those years working there.

I eventually moved to Florida to be with my wife (Mica) and work for Honeywell as a watchmaker. No, Honeywell doesn’t make watches, but they do hire watchmakers to work on extremely delicate equipment. We stayed in Florida for about 2.5 years and then moved to Santa Fe, NM for a new career path. It was during lock down when I thought it was a good time to start a brand. (Its very difficult to start a watch brand during a pandemic and economic crisis). Little did I know how many roadblocks I would have to navigate. I had always wanted to design a dive watch. A dive watch is kind of the ultimate utility watch. Its simple technology, easy to read, and can be used to for more than just diving. So, that was the watch I would create. The name Marin comes from the word Marine. I took the e off and thought it was a good fit. I really didn’t do much research into a name. I didn’t want to name it after anything that had history or drove the brand into a certain direction. Little did I know that Marin meant “of the sea” in French. I wanted it to be a strong word and it needed to fit correctly on the dial. 5 letters fit well on a watch dial without having a symmetry problem. So the name stuck.

When it came to designing the watch, I knew the direction I wanted to go. I wanted to create a mix of two of my favorite dive watches, Rolex Submariner 16610 and a Seiko 7S26-0030. And so we did our best to make something that was our own, but was also influenced by these two watches and brands. I wasn’t trying to fundamentally change the design of a dive watch, I just wanted to make it “it’s own” design. The Skin-Diver is the first watch in our collection and I hope to continue to create amazing watches for a long time to come.

JW