1990 - SWATCH WATCHES - PAM

Swatch is a brand name for a line of Swiss watches and other related products. Initially Swatch needed to re-capture their entry level back into the market share after the introduction of Japan's "Delirium digital watch", and once again popularize the "analog" watch. The directors understood that by offering the concept of simply a good watch was not enough and moved to attractive, cheeky and good fun designs to regain their place back into the market share.

The key factor for the Swatch's success was related to the artistic designs used for the appearance of the watches. Swatch realized that if they varied the designs they could show the public that swatches were of good quality at a low price and that you could own more than just one with the different fun designs available also marketed as an affordable accessory for the latest fashion. Swatch looked at art for inspiration through the artists themselves and took on board artistic designers such as Vivienne Westwood (famous fashion designer), Keith Haring and Sam Francis to name a few. The designs were influenced by the pop generation of the 80's along with renaissance, celestral and oriental influences over the years. Today Swatches dedication to modernist timeless designs and as a daily commodity as a popular fashion accessory, but as a collectible cultural piece of art. Designs overtime have wondered away from it's center every 15 years or so and with designers following fashion trends, these trends typically go too far and designers end up pulling back to the core definitions of good designs and quality branding.


http://www.swatch.com/zz_en/swatchart/artists.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch

www.idsa.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/timeless_design.pdf

http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/hist100.96/weldeproject/heatherlynn.html

http://www.switzerland.com/en.cfm/business/offer-Economy-Companies-318597.html