Product

After giving my sketches some thought and playing around with programs such as Illustrator, Fusion360, and Vectorworks, I came up with a final design of my project. I decided to go with a design where the clock had a rectangular base, with a message reading "TO MY DEAREST HIPPO", and the bottom right side of the clock would have a engraved hippo with a clock on it. 

I have posted a screenshot of my component designs on Fusion360 below. In order to go along my theme of keeping the design elegant, while still maintaining the fun-natured idea of incorporating a hippo clock, I chose an elegant font (Lucida Calligraphy) for the text as well as the numbers. I also chose to outline a simple design of a hippo, and nothing too funky to go along with this theme. Furthermore, I thought it would be classy to have a border around the main rectangular design, so I incorporated that as another layer in my design. Finally, I had to measure out the dimensions of the clock kit, to make sure that there was space to place the kit on the design, as well as a circular hole on the hippo.