Louis Moinet - RED DOT: How Design Ticks
Out of 4,515 registered entries to the annual Red Dot design prize, more than 1,000 actually received the coveted recognition in two categories, "Living" and "Doing." Of these, only 60 entrants were awarded the honor of becoming the "best of the best," representing just 1.3 percent of all entries: 30 each in the Living and Doing categories. The best of the best are not otherwise category-referenced, but represent a cross section of what the jury found to be the best industrial designs submitted, regardless of categorization or the objects' purpose.
The companies and design studios awarded with the coveted "best of" prizes by the 30 international design expert judges from 19 different countries are of world renown. These laureates included Porsche (for the Carrera S), Apple for the iPad 2 and its truly innovative cover, Toshiba for a backup disk, and Porsche Design for two products: an outside television and a leather blazer - the only piece of clothing given the award on July 2. Porsche and Porsche Design, in fact, went home with a combined total of four awards that evening, a fitting tribute to Professor Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, who passed away on April 5 of this year.
Red Dot Watches
Among these objects and names of world renown, one watch brand had the honor of being included: Ventura, who was awarded this highest design honor for the inimitable mechanical quartz Sparc MGS with its visible rotor on top of the case.
Ventura founder and owner Pierre Nobs and the designer of this interesting watch, Simon Husslein, could hardly have expressed more joy over the honor. Nobs, already having been awarded this highest of design honors for the timepiece simply called Watch designed by Flemming Bo Hansen in 1992 - followed by other awards in 1995 (best of the best), 1998 (Red Dot) and 2000 (Red Dot) - should have been old hat at this. However, his joy seemed unbridled, and the reason is fairly clear: the 2007 bankruptcy of the company he originally founded in 1989 was surely a large personal blow. Able to resurrect the brand in 2009 (
), the Sparc MGS has become Ventura's new flagship - and a successful one that expresses Nobs' decades of accumulated knowledge and experience.
Husslein, the relatively young designer of this watch, had perhaps even more reason for joy at this confirmation of his abilities. His place of business is Studio Hanneswettstein, the Zurich design establishment founded by industrial designer Hannes Wettstein (
), who passed away in 2008. Wettstein collaborated with Nobs on a number of Ventura timepieces as well as with Nomos on the Zurich series.
Husslein joined the team in 1999 and began work with Wettstein on the Ventura Sparc FX. "It is wonderful that Pierre had so much trust in us and our agency, even after Hannes's death," Husslein said. He describes the Sparc MGS as "typical of Wettstein's philosophy and style, but the next generation. In a certain way, it is an evolution of Wettstein's first designs."
Out of the many watches submitted to the 2012 Red Dot jury, nine received Red Dot citations: the Louis Moinet Geograph, Maurice Lacroix's Masterpiece Roue Carree Seconde and the second-generation 43 mm Double Retrograde, Duo 24, Jacob Jensen 700 Series, Mutewatch Touchscreen, Halda Space Discovery, and the Porsche Design P'6620 Dashboard. The Ventura Sparc MGS topped the heap by winning the "best of the best," which was celebrated at a gala event at the Aalto Theater and an exhibition at the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen on July 2. The honor makes Ventura's Sparc MGS one of the 60 best industrially created objects to be released in 2011 in the eyes of Red Dot - the most coveted design prize in the world. "The design of the Sparc MGS is a skillful presentation of innovative technology. It features a highly functional and ergonomic implementation. It is a successful merging of tradition and modernity," the jury aptly wrote in the official Red Dot yearbook.
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