« Signatures on the Dial »
A memorable logo can be crucial to a product's success in the market. That is especially true for products shaped in large part by their design. No wonder, then, that makers of particularly high-end watches place great importance on a distinctive emblem. After all, when it comes to timekeeping accuracy, and therefore a watch's practical value, the wearer will hardly notice any difference between various models from the luxury segment – whether the watch is a Breitling, Junghans, Longines, Omega, or Rolex.
Rolex: The Crown on the Dial
One of the best-known watch brand logos in the world is likely the five-pointed crown that appears on the dial of every Rolex. The manufacturer has never offered an official explanation of the emblem's origin or meaning. Instead, the prestigious company remains as tight-lipped on this subject as it is known to be in other respects – regarding its revenue or production numbers, for instance. By tradition, Rolex neither denies nor confirms the various rumors and stories in circulation. When choosing the brand name, founder Hans Wilsdorf is said to have been guided by the fact that the coined word Rolex, trademarked since 1908, is easy to pronounce in a wide range of languages and sounds roughly the same in each. Its relative brevity, which allows it to fit easily on any dial, is also said to have played a role.
The distinctive crown, however, did not appear on Rolex watches until seventeen years later – and even then not consistently on all of the company's products. The reason was that it was only gradually becoming customary at the time to put the maker's name or emblem on watches. Before that, it had usually been omitted altogether, or at most the retailer's name, rather than the manufacturer's, appeared. That the maker's name is now typically emblazoned on the dial is owed in part to the exceptionally shrewd marketing of Wilsdorf and some of his competitors at other watch brands.
One rumor – unconfirmed, of course – holds that the five-pointed crown was chosen to symbolize the five fingers of the watchmaker's hand or the five letters of the brand name. What is undisputed is that the logo has appeared on every Rolex dial since 1939.
Longines: A Winged Hourglass as the World's Oldest Registered Trademark
Among the various brand emblems, Longines can boast a particularly interesting history, as the company from Saint-Imier holds a remarkable record. Its logo is today the oldest trademark in the registers of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that has remained unchanged and is still in active use. The emblem, consisting of a winged hourglass and the brand name, was officially registered as early as 1889 with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property; four years later, protection was extended internationally.
Longines duly celebrated the 120th anniversary of the trademark registration in 2009. Alongside an exhibition at the Cité du Temps in Geneva and the presentation of a book on the subject, the brand also released two watch series limited to 120 pieces each, named Heritage Retrograde and made specially for the occasion. The brand name and logo, incidentally, go back to Ernest Francillon, who had a factory built in 1867 to bring together under one roof the workers who had until then been scattered far and wide while working for his watch trading house. The new factory offered them not only a workplace among their colleagues but, above all, access to the novel technologies and means of production used there.
Francillon derived the factory's name – which over the decades would become an internationally renowned watch brand – from the local field name of the new site: Les Longines meant something like "the long meadows." He also added the image of a winged hourglass to the name, which, apart from minor graphic modifications, is still in use today.
Breitling: An Initial with Anchor and Wings
Among watch brands with especially strong ties to aviation, Breitling undoubtedly ranks at the very top. Pilot's chronographs for aviators and navigators – above all the famous Navitimer – were instrumental in the brand's rise into the international ranks of haute horlogerie. This is also reflected in the history of the brand's logo, which has gone through several changes over time. The company name is also the founder's family name. Léon Breitling opened a watchmaking workshop in Saint-Imier, Switzerland, in 1884, and it grew rapidly over the following decades.
The company was particularly successful in advancing pusher technology for chronographs and, from 1932, in building onboard chronographs for aircraft, used by the Royal Air Force, among others. At the time, the dials bore only the "Breitling" lettering and a large "B" as its initial.
The two wings that now adorn every Breitling wristwatch, flanking the "B," were not added until the 1950s. They originally came from the emblem of the pilots' association AOPA, which Breitling used on its watches for a time to emphasize its close ties to aviation. Later, two stylized airplanes combined with the name served as the logo.
The company's current emblem, which features an anchor in addition to the lettering, the two wings, and the large "B," was introduced only in the 1980s, after Ernest Schneider revived the brand. Since the 1990s, the distinctive "B" with the anchor has also frequently appeared on the central seconds hand. Incidentally, the chronograph manufacture's partnership with carmaker Bentley, in place since 2003, is reflected in an additional extension of the logo with the words "for Bentley."
Junghans: A Star with an Initial
A true star among watch brand logos is that of Junghans – the famous Junghans star. Founded in Schramberg in 1861 by Erhard and Franz Xaver Junghans, the company has held its own in the market for high-quality watches to this day thanks to its spirit of innovation and constant pursuit of precision – even alongside strong Swiss competition. In 1903, the Junghans watch factory was even the largest of its kind in the world. The well-known logo with the eight-pointed star has existed since 1890. Interestingly, the star, which today is perceived simply as a star and appears together with the initial "J," was originally derived from a watch gear wheel.
The emblem took on a tragic significance in 1977: Palestinian terrorists had hijacked the Lufthansa aircraft "Landshut" and murdered its captain, Jürgen Schumann. Co-pilot Jürgen Vietor then had to fly the plane, and one of the terrorists noticed his watch. He interpreted the logo – the star and the "J" – as a symbol of Israel and threatened, in agitation, to shoot Vietor as well. Vietor was only able to defuse the explosive situation by taking off his watch and crushing it underfoot. He later received a new, particularly valuable gold-plated watch from Junghans as a gift.
Omega: The Name Is the Logo
Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, stands for perfection and completion. In that sense, the name and logo of the watchmaker named after this letter speak for themselves and express its commitment to quality. After Louis Brandt founded a so-called comptoir d'établissage in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848, he initially produced key-wound silver precision pocket watches there, which he sold throughout Europe. His sons Louis-Paul and César later took over the business and produced ever-larger numbers of pocket watches and wristwatches.
In 1894, their manufacture presented a production-ready 19-ligne pocket watch caliber that impressed with its simple yet extremely reliable construction and the interchangeability of all its components. It was named Omega, a name registered as a trademark in the spring of 1894. It was thus the first watch brand whose name derives from a caliber. Since 1982, the company has operated simply as "Omega SA."
