Grand Seiko — Four Modern Japanese Watch Designers
Seiko released information and photos on its Japanese Web site about four of its Grand Seiko designers. They are, from left, [Nobuhiro] Kosugi, Toshiro Matsubara, Eichi Hiratani, and Shinichiro Kubo. This post features Kosugi.
Kosugi is a designer of both the Grand Seiko Classic Line, and the Grand Seiko New Line.
The Grand Seiko Classic Line
The Classic Line includes the Grand Seikos pictured below. According to Kosugi, the Classic Line features watches that are “beautiful, gentle, have a feeling of warmth and practicality with classic lines.” In addition, they use dome-shaped (box) sapphire crystals specially designed for Grand Seiko. Seiko Japan worked for years on developing the glass to Grand Seiko standards of cut, thickness, and polish. Development of the glass began in 1996 and concluded in 2001 with the release of Grand Seiko SBGW001. Watches in the Classic Line use 9S Handwinding or Automatic/Handwinding movements.
The Grand Seiko New Line
Kosugi also designed — along with a design team of three other designers not named, and project leader Naoto Fukasawa — the Grand Seiko New Line models pictured below. The distinguishing characteristics of a watch in the New Line are the crown protector, and hour indices on the dial that have curved corners, rather than straight rectangular lines. Watches in the New Line use 9F or 4J Quartz, or 9R Spring Drive movements, and include both mens’ and women’s versions.
One fan of Kosugi’s designs is Japanese blogger Takaki Kuwahara. He shows photos of his Grand Seiko model SBGA015 Spring Drive from the New Line on his Web site at kuwahara.org.
###
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 am
Hi Bryan,
Your article’s link to Kuwahara’s site was very interesting. On his site, Kuwahara spoke a little bit about simple design and his philosophies are similar to what you wrote about “The Citizen” in your other post. I also saw that Kuwahara was a fan of the design of Nintendo’s DS Lite. The DSL is a guilty pleasure of mine!
I bet it’s a nice job within Seiko to be a GS Designer. Good to see that they have what appears to be a mix of ages in the staff. I think it shows in the lineup too.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:31 am
Hi Pete,
That’s a good point about varying ages. The younger guys bode well for the future. I should write a story on Eichi Hiratani (pictured top in gold-colored sweater). He’s the one who designed the Grand Seiko Chronograph Spring Drive movement. It’s based on the vintage 6139 caliber movement, he said. Good stuff, but very technical (time intensive to translate)… Think there’d be any interest from our readers?
Regards,
Bryan