Donald E. McNamara 
Red Dot is one of the most widely recognized design awards, but has not always featured a designated watch category.
In 2015 Red Dot introduced exactly that and now the German awards use a three-person jury to decide on the winners.
This year’s jury included: the editor-in-chief of the German watch magazine Chronos and the editorial manager of the watchmaking division of the publishing house Ebner Verlag, Rüdiger Bucher; freelance journalist Gisbert Brunner; and British design strategist Michael Thomson.
Here is the full list of the 2018 winners:
Nomos Glasshütte Autobahn Neomatic 41
The Autobahn Neomatik 41 has won praise for both its technical credentials and aesthetics, including the curved dial, elongated date window at six o’clock and the luminous superluminova ring which makes the watch readable at night as well.
NOMOS Creative Director Judith Borowski described “Autobahn” as one of a kind and said the brand was thrilled to have achieved such a prestigious accolade so quickly after its release.
“The fact that this watch won an award so soon after it hit the market is especially special to us. She commented.
HYT H0 Black
The black piece with a flash of green gives the watch an eye-catching quality with the liquid time display and the heavily domed sapphire crystal.
HYT describes the brand as the first watch company in history to offer collections that use major innovations in microfluidic technology, which could have helped this piece win the Red Dot Award.
Moritz Grossman Benu Tourbillon
The German watchmaker describes the tourbillon as the crown of the Benu collection and goes on to explain that the three-minute flying tourbillon with stop-second is one of the most formidable challenges in watchmaking.
Zenith Defy Lab
The watch houses a reworked movement, the ZO 342, comprising an all-in-one oscillator that replaces around thirty mechanically linked components in a normal regulating organ.
The absence of conventional mechanical couplings eliminates contact, friction, wear, slack, lubrication, assemblies and dispersions, explains Zenith.
This makes it more precise, more reliable and requires less maintenance.
“Zenith is now renewing its commitment to innovation and fundamental research by presenting Defy Lab and its new oscillator, an invention that calls into question nothing less than the operating principle of mechanical watches invented by Christian Huygens at the 17e century, ”says the company.
Junghans Max Bill Automatic
The latest take on the classic Junghans Max Bill design line, which dates back to 1961 and benefits from an almost unchanged manufacturing process, managed to win the Red Dot jury this year and received the Outstanding Design Award.
More than 6,300 products submitted by various manufacturers have been evaluated by an international jury of experts as part of an evaluation process. As the winner, in the future, the Junghans Max Bill Automatic will also be on display at the Red Dot Design Museum, the largest museum of contemporary design.
Maurice Lacroix Gravity Masterpiece
Maurice Lacroix describes this piece as the perfect embodiment of Maurice Lacroix’s approach to watchmaking.
Released in 2014, it is entirely made of silicon and this design may have contributed to its very successful launch.
Rado True Phospho
This 40 mm high-tech ceramic automatic part is water-resistant to 50 m.
It features a transparent sapphire crystal case back and sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating, a design that will surely have contributed to its success and triumph by winning the award.
Qlocktwo W
Qlocktwo W offers another way to display the time by doing it in words.
At first glance, the only thing visible is a matrix with a seemingly random arrangement of letters until, after a soft touch, this arrangement of letters shows the time and can be in 20 different languages.
Qlocktwo W is available in two different sizes.
MeisterSinger Salthora Meta X
This is one of MeisterSinger’s unusual models, with a jump hour window and a diver’s watch case.
It thought it was recognizable as a product of the German brand because of its single needle rotating around the dial.
Acustica
Acustica is a talking and vibrant wristwatch, described by the brand as a watch designed so that people who can no longer see well or who have lost their sight completely can regain some of their quality of life.
The watch is easy to use on a daily basis and shows the time and date using an advanced voice function or by means of a discreet vibration on your wrist.
Bsolido
Spanish for meteor, the Bólido features a surgical-grade stainless steel case and scratch-resistant sapphire crystal.
It has a 44 hour power reserve and comes with a splash because it can be pushed up to 100m deep.
Rolf Cremer Twist
Rolf Cremer describes the new design as an important step in the brand’s signature, with an inclined dial, quite typical for a Rolf Cremer piece.
The case is an exact square with dimensions of 35mm x 35mm.
