Inspired By Kepler, This Timepiece Reimagines The Traditional Watch Face

The K452 watch tells time with three concentric discs, an homage to the orbital movements of the solar system.

A rather affordable, yet interesting design or take on time and how it is told… I have always enjoyed time as told through the various watch designs. I am no horologist or anything of an expert on watches, I just enjoy them! The Kepler watch is yet another!

I read this article on Fast Company a publication i have subscribed to for years….

In 1609, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler published three laws of planetary motion that demonstrate how planets orbit the sun. Now known as the father of modern astronomy, Kepler has inspired centuries of astronomical discoveries, including the recent finding of the five-star planetary system that bears his name. For Hong Kong-based designer Joe Kwan, Kepler’s work also sparked the idea for his latest watch series. The K452, now raising funds on Kickstarter, ditches traditional dial hands and instead tells time with three rotating discs that recall orbital movements in space.

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The K452—named for the recently discovered, Earth-like exoplanet in the Kepler solar system—is the second series from Anicorn, the company Kwan and entrepreneur Chris Chan launched in 2013 with a focus on beautifully crafted timepieces. The face of the watch cleverly plays off of Kepler’s “law of equal areas,” which is used to describe the speed at which planets move around the sun. It features three concentric discs: the disc closest to the center (or “sun”) rotates the fastest, marking out the seconds as it turns. The larger minute and hour discs are read through an aperture with an engraved line at the top of the watch, a nod to the imaginary line Kepler drew from the sun to a planet to calculate its orbit. Like the inaugural Series 000 before it, the K452 doesn’t have a battery and is instead powered by the wearer’s natural movements.

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The watch even has a space-themed typeface. Kwan chose “Coupé,” designed by French studio Nouvelle Noir, for its similarity to the stenciled font on the Kepler space telescope.

The K452 is available on Kickstarter. Early backers can get the watch for $249 (for later backers, the price will raise to $329).

About the Author

Bill West
The founder and director of several art and sculpture related marketing companies along with their companion websites. Bill West is all about Art, Sculpture. Music, Architecture, Technology and items that move like cars and all motion related cool - all things Spatial. Bill West first became involved in the visual communications industry in 1972. Starting with a Craft store, then moving into commercial and fine arts store and both wholesale and retail as well as publishing our own 300 page catalog. That morphed in as gallery and large custom picture frame operation. Soon after that we ventured into drafting and engineering supply company and large scale photo reprographics services operation with complete large format color lab! Next came a Computer graphics systems integration company. Selling both cad/cam systems and micro-computer design cad systems which integrated AutoCad and 3D visualization programs to the PC. Always a forward thinker, Bill can spot market changes in the making and is good at positioning companies to benefit from that eventuality. A good example of this seeming clairvoyance is the way he jumped on the internet in 1993. By 1995 he had created a respected internet marketing business catering to the visual arts community.

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