Even design aficionados have some idea of what “Red Dot” stands for. The prestigious international design competition – formally the “Red Dot Design Award” – recognizes those who distinguish their business activities through design. Excellent concepts are chosen by expert juries in the areas of product design, communication design, and design concepts.

Like with other industries, winning a Red Dot Design Award for a timepiece is an important achievement. It indicates an internationally recognized label for excellence. Needless to say, when a watch brand wins the prize, we heard about it. This year, it was NOMOS and HYT making the news.

The new Autobahn line wins its first Red Dot award

This year NOMOS took its first big prize for its sporty new automatic model, the Autobahn. The full name is the Autobahn neomatik 41 date, and both aesthetically and technically speaking it has a lot of offer to design enthusiasts even beyond watch fans.

The watch is defined by its striking dial, which sports a series of curves, one around the lip of the dial and another on the sub-seconds dial. The stylish curves are reminiscent of the banks on high-speed corners, designed to carry more speed during a turn.

The Autobahn is also full of substance, thanks to the brand’s highly precise neomatik caliber with date function: the DUW 6101. To help with the overall look of the watch, and just like the first neomatik caliber, the movement is quite slim, especially considering that it’s an automatic and has a date function.

This is certainly not the first Red Dot Award for NOMOS - ten other watches have already been honored with the prize. But having been released very recently at Baselworld 2018, the Autobahn line is clearly off to a flying start.

A second big winner this year was HYT, which took home an award in Product Design for impressive H0. Fans of the brand will already be aware of its unique capillary system that helps tell the time, powered by the brand’s exclusive mechanical manual winding caliber.

The impressive HYT 02

But what some might not be aware of is that HYT went all the way back to ancient Egypt for inspiration for this design concept. Some 3,400 years ago, Clepsydras were essentially the clocks of the Pharaohs and they transported water from one container to another to measure elapsed or “stolen” time. It resulted in a clever way to visualize and quantify the passage of time, which HYT has brought back to the 21st century with its unique timepieces.