Deconstructing Product Design

Jelly Fish Watch GK 100

Swatch, 1983

1. Swatch — an abbreviation for “second watch,” to promote the notion that consumers would want more than one, but today generally interpreted to mean “Swiss watch” — played a central role in fueling one of the most dramatic industrial comebacks in history, as well as launched a revolution in product design. Driven to the brink of insolvency by low-cost Japanese digital watches, the Swiss watch industry with its high-precision analog watches seemed doomed to go the way of the buggy whip. Enter Nicolas Hayek. Hayek and his colleagues consolidated and reorganized the company. They retooled processes, simplified the watches for manufacturing efficiency, and emphasized the emotional design of their timepieces ...