Tonal Layering

Across nine layers consisting of sixty-seven individual dial plates (with pegs and all), Projekt 02 Variant B brings back the much-loved color scheme of Projekt 01 Variant E (and a certain OG colorway of an emblematic sneaker from ’95) and ups the drama. With a vertical gradient shifting from light grey at the peaks to near-black in the dial’s lowest crevasses, Projekt 02 Variant B gives the term “depth” when describing dials a truly literal sense.

kollokium

Projekt 02 - Variant B

CHF 3,666.66
CHF 3,666.66
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Deeper, Darker

Like a hypsometric map, the idea was to highlight and dramaticize the three-dimensional nature of the topographical dial by having each level painted in a slightly different tone. The highest peaks os the dial, representing the twelve hour markers, are hand-painted in a light grey color, then each
successive lower layer gets darker. Across sixty-seven dial plate and nine
vertcial layers, the dial shifts from light grey to a deep black.

The process to perfect the gradient of luminescent paint was no easy feat. Besides the usual headache of finding the right grain sizes, opacity and consistency, creating a transitioning gradient that maintains a unifrom tone or hue took more trials than we’d like to remember. But the end result is totally worth the effort.

Brutalist Artisanship

While kollokium’s designs are meant to evoke a sense of industrialism and rawness, behind the avant-garde object is a tremendous amount of manual, meticulous handwork. And because there’s no equivalent to base our work on, we end up having to find creative solutions to problems no one has encountered before. While we wouldn’t consider ourselves champions of traditional handcrafts, our watches require specialized hands and talent to materialize. We call it brutalist artisanship.

Projekt 02’s topographical dial is made in nine layers, composed of sixty-seven individual dial plates, which are individually hand-painted with a mix of lacquer and Super-Luminova, carefully avoiding the metal contours. These plates are then vertically stacked and pegged on top of each other, one at a time. It takes around 6 hours to assemble a single dial, and the plates can be prone to bending when pressed together, causing the entire dial to have to be discarded and the work starts all over again. Oh, the poor dial-makers…