Brief: The previous brand visual was iconically Azimuth, yet the founders felt that more could be done to mould a coherent brand identity. Despite have a global distribution and cult following of their avant-garde watches, it was difficult for the team in the Singapore HQ to deliver a strong impression on what Azimuth stood for. Thus, the founder approached us to develop a coherent brand architecture and brand imagery for Azimuth.
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Based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Azimuth began its journey to unknown universes. Taking on centuries of watchmaking technology, the creative minds behind Azimuth started crafting pieces that defied all reasoning, whilst paying homage to the highest qualities of traditional watchmaking.
The project started with us tidying up the existing identity, giving it a new custom typeface, alongside four newly categorised and created product universes – each with its individual typeface as well.
We then set out to shape a structured representation of Azimuth, strongly rooted in four signature collections, that we fashioned after going through the essence behind every product. Adopting the idea of exploring unknown universes, a dream that captured the founders’ fascination, we deployed the linguistics of out-worldly travel alongside grand notions of revolutions and disruptions to characterise the brand’s DNA.
The brand story had to speak volumes about their electric design aesthetics: 2003 marked the year where the core development team listened to their growing restlessness with the stagnant watch industry, which was restrained by the limits of public aesthetic senses. Sterile timekeeping mechanisms and conventional designs were well received by consumers, but the team knew that watchmaking had not fully explored its limits.
The Azimuth logo is an interpretation of the ‘Spiral’ or ‘Hairspring’. Since the time of crafting early mechanical timepieces painstakingly by hand, the Spiral has been the heartbeat of every mechanical watch. Azimuth has extracted this essence of the mechanism as the logo to exemplify Azimuth’s philosophy of creating only mechanical watches.
The ‘Spiral’ is also a visual representation of a loose scribble before the designing begins.
Raw and unconventional, they knew that it was time for a change – a revolution.
A revolution of the visual senses, of logical clockwork, of traditions and conventions.
Imagine Anything.
SPACE
Gaping black holes, faraway galaxies, unexplored planets, and mysterious orbits – all these are part of the every day in the vast realms of outer space. Everything is infinite.
Excited by the endless boundaries, Azimuth navigates through the different dimensions and pilots thrilling journeys that seek out the mysteries of space.
Join them on board an adventure that will take you to the deepest, darkest depths of the galaxies beyond.
AUTOMOBILE
Speed and precision meet in this universe that only has room for the skilled and thrill-seeking rider.
A world where tailwind is your best friend, and headwind your enemy, cut lanes and race ahead with timepieces that are inspired by the best of automobiles.
Get ready and belt up – you are in for a ride.
SCI-FI
Speculations on futuristic science and technology, time travel, and parallel universes have been rife through the decades, and the Azimuth team was particularly captivated by the wondrous world of steampunk, a subgenre that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.
Anachronistic technologies, retro-futuristic inventions, and retrograde functionalities –all these piece together a world of robots, with various quirky attitudes and character traits, ever ready to introduce you to their universe.
Presenting to you an alternate reality, a future where robots and steam-powered machines rule the land.
JUXTAPOSITION
In perhaps the most provoking universe out there, Azimuth presents Juxtaposition, a dimension where you undergo a paradigm shift in all ideas, logic, and beliefs.
Seeing is not believing.
Challenge your logic with the strangest of creations that twists all human understanding.
