Zeitgeist

To develop the image of the product embodying the competences of Nanotechnological Center of Composites Ltd. (development and creation of products from composite materials). The product as a brand-attribute.

There is no target consumer. The product is primarily a reflection of the combination of the company's competencies and the ideology of our time.

A brand attribute is an inherent and enduring association related to a brand. The product it produces is also such an association. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the product under development precisely from the point of view of its association with the company NCC Ltd.

NCC Ltd. is engaged in the development and production of products from composite materials. "Composites" justify themselves on many criteria in relation to traditional materials such as steel and aluminum when considering their application in industries such as, for example, shipbuilding, automotive, aviation, space, sports and utilities. With the automation of technology, "composites" are becoming more accessible while noticeably improving the quality of products and making them lightweight, discreet, energy efficient and longer lasting in use. These are the qualities that a thing strives to acquire, and these are the qualities that express the spirit of our times. As NCC Ltd. is in the process of scaling the production of composite products, making them the materials of our time, it would be interesting to create a product that directly responded to this idea.

Design object. A direct object that responds to the idea of time is the clock: the movement of the clock hands conveys the immateriality and intangibility of time, its ephemerality and omnipresence - exactly what things also aspire to be.

Design aids. Light can be a means of realizing and reinforcing the idea of ephemerality of both time and thing (clock): it can be an indicator of time, appearing, disappearing, and reappearing in the divisions of the dial. Light is also a means of conveying the existence of something: it illuminates matter from the abyss of darkness and timelessness. Light is a means of conveying the presence of something, though we do not see its nature and form – we see its spirit, its emanation. And the light that shows time itself and sets the image of the clock is the spirit of time.

The product is a wall clock, which is a straight form symbolizing time as an idea, using steel as a material of a bygone era and carbon fiber (carbon fiber), which symbolizes and reflects our era and the competence of the company NCC Ltd. In the clock, the "clock mechanism" is electronic with LED hands. Light and backlighting in the clock symbolize the ephemerality of time, and composite materials and steel - the transmission of the spirit of time of the modern era, the assertion of its eternity (durability). The color of the backlight expresses the personality of the owner, conveying his inner mood, which is an integral part of the need of our time.

Zeitgeist wall clock are a reflection of the image of our time. The traditional motifs used in the clock become post-traditional, they are integrated into each other: the frame becomes the "dial", the "dial" becomes the hands", and the central part with the hands has become empty, reflecting the absence of the classical clock movement, which has been replaced by an LED movement. The missing mechanism reflects the postmodern cultural mechanism where the center is equally distributed among all the elements of culture, and in the Zeitgeist clock movement, this center with the hands has become the time indication, illuminating the equally distributed elements of the "dial".

General form. The plasticity of the shape of the clock is built on the movement and play of steel, as the material of a bygone era, and carbon, a composite, as the material of our time. The tunnel of the steel ring, which conveys a sense of space-time, passes into a flat, torus-shaped form made of carbon that stops this movement. The play of steel and carbon fiber is a play of continuity and superiority. Steel has a homogeneous opaque structure, creating a sense of secrecy and at the same time density, hence a heaviness not only physical but also psychological. Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (carbon fiber), on the other hand, has a complex multidimensional structure covered with a transparent layer of epoxy resin, which creates a feeling of openness, lightness at the same time, but also strength due to the weave structure associated with fabric. The play of textures from micro to macro scales in Carbon also emphasizes the idea of decentralized modern culture, where each element plays its own important role in the creation of the whole: each person and each individual culture is an integral part of the whole.

The carbon fiber element is completed with a steel ring, bringing the shape of the clock back to the wall, symbolically returning its idea to its origins. This symbolizes the cyclical nature of life, traditions, thoughts and images that come with time in new qualities. When completed, this movement of the steel ring does not reach the wall and transitions into the light of illumination. This transition is the transition of matter into the immaterial, the ideational. Here the light symbolizes ephemerality, the spirit of the clock, the spirit of time both literally and figuratively.

The dial plate, or more precisely the dial divisions, are located on the front of the clock, which is made of carbon fiber. The light of the clock hands organizes the complex chaotic play of reflexes of the carbon texture, thus conveying the mysterious nature of both light and time: order is born out of chaos.

The dial has no numerals, but only divisions: double short slits to indicate the hour and single long slits to indicate the minutes and seconds. The light coming from inside a certain division is the time indicator. Depending on the duration, the single long slots display seconds or minutes. The light of the seconds is an order of magnitude dimmer than that of the minutes, so that they are not confused when looking at the clock at one moment. The absence of numbers symbolizes and is explained by the loss of the sense of time in mankind as a whole: people live both day and night, certainty is something constant and boring, and an unnecessary reminder of numbers, which seek to control life, is a sign of power and its measure, which in some cases is arrogance. The absence of numbers symbolizes the absence of the power of time over a person, or rather, the control of numbers over a person's personality. The countlessness of time is also connected with the end of the linear history of mankind, according to postmodern philosophy. If traditional history assumes the coherence of cause-and-effect relations, modern history loses a single thread of coherence with the phenomena of the past, and the objects of the future derive from the plurality of multiple causes of the extra-historical present.

Backlighting and time indication: realization of the concept. The illumination of the dial divisions and the general illumination on the back, have a close interaction with each other from an aesthetic and visual point of view. From an aesthetic point of view, the light sets the general idea for reading the idea of the clock. From the visual point of view - light helps to determine the position of the clock in the room, which is especially relevant at night, and to determine the time itself: the light that is perceived in the hands of the clock, moving in parallel, relative to the plane of the illuminated wall, and the information about the time transmitted by the dial in the dark can be obtained from the contours that highlight the entire silhouette of the clock circle. It is worth noting that in the dark the whole meaning of the Zeitgeist clock is revealed: only the hands of the clock and the backlighting remain visible, creating the impression of the hands floating in space. All that remains is a sense of the clock's presence, its spirit, but not the clock itself. There is a dematerialization of the body and materialization of what initially seemed ephemeral. This game of materialization and dematerialization is something that is characteristic of our contemporary culture at all levels of life: the invisible becomes visible, the material, and what remains of the material is the spirit, which can be felt in things from the past. In the Zeitgeist, however, this play and transition is easily realized by turning off or turning on the light in the room at night.

Finally, the color of the light is adaptable to the specific consumer, to the specific personality. You can choose the appropriate color thanks to the two buttons on the back of the clock, or you can adapt it to you via an application on your phone. By default, the color changes depending on the time of day, according to the mood that a particular period of the day evokes. This is the final part of the Zeitgeist clock concept: here the spirit of time becomes tamed by its owner. The clock has become a reflection not only of the spirit of its era, but also of the spirit of its owner. Their image is a fusion of the achievements of modern society and culture, as well as the possibility of adaptation to the individual state of the person or the interior environment.

Zeitgeist as a sign. In order for the image of the clock to be clearly readable and recognizable on an intuitive level, it was created according to the rules of familiarization, as any form is also a sign. The project uses a formal language of proportions, which provides a clear and uncluttered formulation of the image of the "Spirit of Time" that reveals meaning through materials and textures, without the use of superfluous cultural images associated with the image of "something" else. All articulations between elements are built not only on the principle of combination and difference between the textures of materials, but also on geometry: contrasts and nuances in the proportions of elements create a dynamic game that reveals meaningful meanings.
It is also worth noting the ratio of proportions in the perception of the clock's torus to the inner empty part: if we divide the radius of the clock into the part of the empty inner space and the part of the torus where the divisions are located, and look at their ratio, we get a value close to the golden ratio. In this division we have taken into account the curvatures, i.e. visual distortions obtained by radius inner and outer roundings of the carbon fiber element. These radiuses visually eat up the volume, so if in fact the ratio is 0.78:1, it is almost 0.63:1.

A' Design Awards (website link)
NCC Ltd. (website link)

1. Design research;
2. Design development;
3. Author's support of the project;
4. Participation in assembly