At first glance, this watch appears to be running backwards or even entirely randomly. The second hand functions normally, but the minute hand runs backwards very fast while the hour hand never budges. As for the numbers on the face – well, there is very little order to their arrangement. What is going on here?

This is the Out of Order watch design from Sam and Heather. The watch uses e-paper to create a digital face that looks analog (and totally wacky). Although the numbers on the face look completely random, there is a trick to reading the time: simply look at the bottom three numbers – those in the 7, 6 and 5 positions.

The hour hand stays put to remind you where to start reading the time. When the digits on the bottom time-keeping positions change, the rest of the numbers on the face switch around randomly just to keep things interesting.

The designers submitted their idea to Tokyoflash, the watch company that relies on crowdsourced concepts. It hasn’t been picked up for production at this point, but it is one of the most creative watch concepts we’ve seen so we’re rooting for Sam and Heather.