Founder of G.P.H.G. ‘surprise’ winner reveals winning secrets

On Nov. 4, 2021, a Shenzhen-based watch brand stunned the Swiss watchmaking establishment and the jury, beating five different contenders to take home the award in the Challenge Watch Category of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (G.P.H.G.).

CIGA Design, a home-grown watchmaker based in Taoyuan Subdistrict, Nanshan District, became the first Chinese brand to win a Grand Prix prize. The annual awards event, commonly known as the Grand Prix, is often described as “the Oscars of watchmaking.”

Zhang Jianmin, founder and president of CIGA Design, poses for a photo holding the G.P.H.G. trophy in Shenzhen. Due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, Zhang was unable to attend the awards ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 4, 2021. Courtesy of CIGA Design

The winning piece was the company’s Blue Planet automatic wristwatch, a 46-millimeter titanium mannequin that includes a rotating blue aluminum 3-D globe.

“This was the first award given, and also the one that surprised me the most, not in a bad way, I just wasn’t familiar with the company,” wrote by Logan Baker in an article published on Bloomberg’s website Nov. 6.

Founded in 2016, CIGA Design may seem to be a real dark horse for many, but in the eyes of Zhang Jianmin, founder and president of the wristwatch manufacturer, CIGA Design’s win is not so much a complete surprise as a natural success based on the company’s continuing commitment to innovation and refinement of technologies over the years.

A view of a Blue Planet watch, the prize-winning piece of CIGA Design.

“I would not say it was pure luck. In fact, as early as 2013 I started being engaged in the design that has developed into the Blue Planet, which was supported by our self-developed nonsynchronous follow technology,” Zhang told Shenzhen Daily in an exclusive interview in his office in late February. Zhang added that the prototype was a single hand wristwatch, which won the internationally renowned Red Dot “Best of the Best” award in 2013.

Zhang stated that the technology subverted lots of years of watch and clock design. “Instead of using two or three hands to inform time, we made it single hand with the compass rose serving as the hour hand and a revolving minute disk indicating the minutes. The hour hand rotates 30 degrees and the minute hand rotates 390 degrees,” Zhang explained.

Zhang continued to refine the design until he settled on an avant-garde display dominated by the 3-D globe, microcarved to reflect actual terrain data. Zhang said he was inspired by his reflections on the relationship between humans and the earth in the pandemic era and wanted to remind people to safeguard our planet.

On JD.com, one of the major online shopping platforms in China, the Blue Planet is priced at 7,999 yuan ($US1,266), something like in the range of an entry-level Swiss timepiece. Zhang said that he didn’t want to take the model to the upmarket, but to keep CIGA Design’s watches affordable to younger consumers.

According to Zhang, CIGA Design is planning to make the watch available on Amazon in March where its other watches are already marketed.

Deeply influenced and inspired by Bauhaus design principles, which uphold the philosophy of unifying the principles of mass production with individual artistic vision, Zhang strives to produce good-looking, reasonably priced watches for a wider group of consumers, particularly the younger generations. “Good designs should be beautiful, easy to use and affordable, and can be shared by all. This is also the best way to make the most of China’s supply chain,” Zhang noted.

Zhang graduated from the Northwest Institute of Light Industry in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design in 1991. (In 2002, the institute was renamed the Shaanxi University of Science and Technology.)

In 1993, Zhang moved to Shenzhen, where he spent the subsequent 20 years designing graphics and guidance systems for mass transit and civil architecture projects. He was among the first batch of designers in China to win the title of the Top 10 Outstanding Designers of China Industrial Design.

The award-winning designer told Shenzhen Daily that he entered the watch industry not as a watch specialist but as a professional designer. “Design thinking is concerned with solving problems through design. And I noticed that nowadays young people don’t use watches as timekeepers, but as accessories to go with their look,” Zhang said.

On the other hand, Zhang also observed that young consumers today are much more confident about Chinese products and they buy things to please themselves. “Millennials prefer unique, fashionable things that can best express themselves; that’s part of the reasons why we are able to win over young consumers,” Zhang said.

In the new media era, CIGA Design also focuses on new marketing strategies such as crossover collaborations and partnerships with key opinion leaders (KOLs). For example, in 2019 the company worked with the Palace Museum and launched its Full Hollow Ceramic Edition in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the opening of the museum’s Hall of Clocks and Watches.

Zhang revealed that CIGA Design will create a special Blue and Green Planet edition to mark Earth Day on April 22 to reinforce its support for environmental protection.

“The Blue and Green Planet will feature blue oceans and green lands and mountains to depict a homeland that we all wish for. The watch will be launched globally on the American crowdfunding website Indiegogo to show our country’s corporate environmental responsibilities,” Zhang said.