Round-UpAnd The Red Dot Award For Best Wristwatch Design Goes To Ressence, Hublot, Nomos, Grand Seiko, Maurice Lacroix, And Seiko
Ressence, Hublot, Nomos, Maurice Lacroix, Grand Seiko and Seiko timepieces feature among the designs celebrated by the prestigious Red Dot Design Awards this year
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For the Red Dot Design Awards 2024 jury, ‘good’ design is gauged by the product’s degree of innovation, functionality, quality, durability and ergonomics, among other criteria. Among this year’s winners are Hublot, Maurice Lacroix, Nomos, and other watchmaking brands, whose designs check all these boxes. Ressence were the recipients of the Red Dot ‘Best of the best’ prize for their Type 3 BB2 timepiece in black. An international jury of experts—designers, professors and journalists—assess entries individually in a process that lasts for days. A tag of quality and exceptional design since the 1950s, the Red Dot awards are among the best recognised design accolades in the world. Innovative and stunning, these watches were awarded under the ‘product design’ category.
Best Of The Best: Ressence Type 3 BB2
The highest honour at the Red Dot design awards 2024 was conferred on the Ressence Type 3 BB2 timepiece for its unusual and highly legible dial. The timepiece features a curved crystal over the dial with oil that refracts light and projects the numerals onto the glass. This makes the timepiece easy to read from any angle, and the dial appears closer than it actually is. Filling the watch with oil also helps lubricate all the watch parts, which, in turn eases overall maintenance of the timepiece. Time is displayed via the Ressence Orbital Convex System, or ROCS, rotating discs. The date track sits on the flange, framing a clear minute track nestled within. Hours are displayed in a sub dial on the left of the dial. At 12 is a rotating disc that subtly displays days of the week, while the temperature of the oil is indicated on a sub dial between four and five o’clock. All these discs are in constant motion, which results in animating the Ressence Type 3 BB2 timepiece. “Industrial design is at the core of everything we do at Ressence. Receiving a price of this importance encourages us even more in our pursuit of our goal: offering a 21st-century vision of fine watchmaking,” says Benoît Mintiens, founder of Ressence.
Hublot MP10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System
For their manufacture piece (or MP), Hublot play with material, dimension and engineering to create the MP10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System timepiece, released at LVMH Watch Week earlier this year, and felicitated at the Red Dot design awards 2024. Measuring 54mm by 41.5mm, the microblasted titanium case of the timepiece features the brand’s proprietary H-shaped screws fixing the structured rubber straps onto the futuristic-looking creation. The watch itself has no dial, as timekeeping display functions are fused with the movement. On the upper half of the watch face, the hours and minutes are displayed on rotating displays, making actual timetelling relatively easy for such an avant-garde timepiece. Time is read from top to bottom with the hours first, followed by the minutes, and the seconds on a smaller disc around the tourbillon at six o’clock. The 48-hour power reserve of the timepiece is displayed via an indicator above the tourbillon. With a total of 592 components, this Hublot MP10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System belies its complexity when it comes to the watch’s functions.
Nomos Club Campus 38
Known for their Bauhaus-inspired designs, Glashutte-based watch manufacture Nomos have won numerous Red Dot Design Awards since 2011. At the Red Dot Design Awards 2024, it was the brand’s Club Campus 38 Endless Blue timepiece that received an accolade. A 38mm steel case that boasts a water resistance of 100m houses the brand’s in-house hand-wound Alpha movement. But it may have been the striking blue dial that won this timepiece its acclaim. The California dial features a mix of Arabic and Roman numerals, and indexes, all outlined in orange and filled with lume. A matching orange hand decorates the small seconds at six o’clock. “The Club Campus 38 endless blue impresses with its design reduced to the essentials and the clear typography, which gives it great conciseness,” was the verdict of the jury.
Maurice Lacroix Pontos S Diver
Maurice Lacroix released the Pontos S Diver in 2023, based on a 2013 dive watch, which, incidentally won a Red Dot award in 2014. Most of the Jura-based brand’s 13 accolades so far, have been presented to their Masterpiece watches. This year, it was the Pontos S Diver that was felicitated at the Red Dot design awards 2024. The 42mm timepiece, with a 300m water resistance, was developed in collaboration with free-diving world champion Lidija Lijić. A crown at three sets the time and winds the watch, while the internal rotating bezel is operated via a crown at two o’clock. The grained black dial features Super-LumiNova-filled indexes and minute markers, and an orange, lume-filled minutes hand makes for easy reading of the time underwater. The Maurice Lacroix Pontos S Diver was awarded for its ‘sporty and elegant appearance’, according to the jury at the Red Dot Design Awards 2024.
Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Tentagraph SLGC001
Grand Seiko’s Evolution 9 series receives a Red Dot design award for the third consecutive year. A mechanical hi-beat chronograph, the Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Tentagraph SLGC001 is powered by the brand’s spring drive movement, an updated calibre 9SC5, with a power reserve of 72 hours. The 43.2mm case of the Tentagraph is made from titanium, and features a ceramic bezel with the tachymeter scale marked on it. Contemporary mushroom-style pushers at two and four o’clock flank the crown and its guards at three on the case. The textured, deep blue dial of the watch is inspired by Mount Iwate, a peak that is visible from Grand Seiko’s Studio Shizukuishi, with recessed sub-dials in a contrasting, smooth finish. The Red Dot jury awarded the “technically sophisticated” Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Tentagraph SLGC001 that “offers a high level of aesthetics and craftsmanship”.
Seiko Prospex Speedtimer SRQ047J1/SBEC021
Inspired by the brand’s chronographs from the 1970s, the new Seiko Prospex Speedtimer retains all that was good about their historical watches while updating it to appeal to a contemporary audience. This includes a panda style dial, with contrasting orange-tipped chronograph hands. The 42mm steel case features brushed and polished finishes, and a dual curved sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating over the dial. A black flange with the tachymeter scale frames the textured dial, with recessed sub-dials in a dark hue. Baton indexes and hands are generously filled with LumiBrite. Behind the dial and powering the watch is the brand’s 8R48 automatic calibre, with a power reserve of approximately 45 hours.
Seiko Prospex Speedtimer 1/100 Sec Solar Chronograph SFJ001/SBER001
A solar-powered quartz watch by Seiko, the Prospex Speedtimer 1/100 Sec Solar Chronograph boasts highly precise displays of up to 1/10th and 1/100th of a second. The 42mm steel case has a crown at four to adjust the time, while three pushers at two, 10 and eight o’clock control the chronograph and stop seconds functions of the timepiece, with clear indications for each. The panda dial features a timekeeping sub-dial at six, and three other sub-dials for each unit of measurement—1/1th, 1/10th and 1/100th of a second—in the top half of the watch face. What impressed the judges at the Red Dot design awards 2024 was how the separate dials have been arranged “in a small space in such a way that a high level of clarity is ensured”.
Each of these watches display the brands’ audacity with innovation while keeping the function of the timepieces intact, indeed, deserving of the Red Dot accolade awarded to them.
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Nomos Glashutte Club
724.GB
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Maurice Lacroix Pontos
PT6248-SS00L-330-J
