Over at Hackaday, the user sjm4306 has posted some pretty cool projects in the past, including a Nixie-tube clock and a tiny IV-21 VFD clock.
Now he's created something else delightful -- a little clock that uses LEDs to spell out the time by backlighting cut-out words. I've seen lots of word clocks but never one with such an elegant little form factor.
He worked neatly with some design constraints too, as Hackaday notes:
One design challenge for the letter matrix was fitting all possible minutes into the array. Rather than making a larger array of letters, [sjm4306] had the clock describe the time down to five-minute intervals then add asterisks for the full time. It’s a pretty understandable solution for keeping the design simple, and the letters all fit onto the design so well!
Here's his design video ...
... and some more pix of the finished clock:
