Thanks to Braun watches, we've been able to pass on our thanks to three of those who answered our questionnaire about the London Design Festival. We've passed these newly issued timepieces to three randomly selected people,
Though new, these watches are based on the classic design ideals of Dieter Rams who led Braun's design team led from the 50s onwards. Rams championed democratic simplicty and functionality in a way that has proved highly influential to a younger generation of designers like Jonathan Ive; as Sophie Lovell points out in her biography, Dieter Rams: As Little Design As Possible it was a passion that derives from Rams' own need impose a kind of order on the chaos of the post-war world.
"I wanted to clean up, to get rid of the chaos," he told Lovell, "But the chaos has got worse since then. Chaos from products, noise and pollution. We are not really in control of anything. In those days I just wanted to tidy up people's immediate environment. Now we have to clean up a whole world."
In the 1970s, Dieter Rams and fellow designer Dietrich Lubs began applying those design principles to watch and clock making. Their first design was an LED watch:
The futuristic DW20, released to the market in 1977
Subsequently they moved into the analogue watches on which today's watches lines are based:
Dietrich Lubs' first analogue quartz watch, issued in 1989 [See DesignApplause]
The Braun watch and clock brand are now licensed Zeon, the watch company founded by the British entrepreneur Richard Tibber at around the same time Braun were moving into watches. Find out more on their website www.braun-clocks.com
The new Braun generation: BN0035WHBKG. Main picture above, Braun BN0021WHWHL
