Hypsometry of Tones

Like all kollokium Projekts and Variants, a little cosmetic change goes a long way, but it also requires much more prep work than meets the eye. Variant C is the culmination of two years of testing and trying to find the best way of achieving the desired visual effect and level of execution.

Like a Hypsometric map, the idea was to highlight and dramatize 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 bright, cool white tone, then each successive lower layer gets darker and bluer. Across sixty-seven dial plate and nine vertcial layers, the dial shifts from  white to deep
turquoise.

kollokium

Projekt 02 - Variant C

CHF 3,666.66
CHF 3,666.66
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Into the Deep Blue

While retaining the same overall design with an emphasis on volume as its predecessors, the third interpretation of Projekt 02’s topographical dial gets a bit more literal, with the color gradient of white to deep turquoise blue giving the impression of islands scattered in an archipelago, or even glaciers below mountain peaks.

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 uniform tone or hue took more trials than we’d like to remember. But the end result is totally worth the effort. And just like in Variant “B”, a compromise had to be found between achieving a near-perfect transition of blue tones and a solid performance of the luminescent pigments. It won’t glow like a torch, but it definitely glows, especially the Lichtblock™ elements on the hour and minute hands.

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…