Artistic instead of artificial intelligence: our collaboration with the Japanese design duo YOY

In the middle of the digital age, the Japanese design duo YOY is giving one of our best-known faces an update that is as contemporary as it is analogue. The True Square Undigital combines two real design icons. The angular bars of the digital display meet the square Rado ceramic watch. But not everything is as it seems at first glance… This watch is truly smart. And absolutely undigital.

The digital display and the square Rado ceramic watch: both were the epitome of futuristic designs in the 1980s. YOY likes to use such well-known greats and gives them a completely new meaning, creative, clever and humorous. Just like its vision of the Rado True Square. The Undigital plays with the distinctive shapes of the seven-segment display – the classic face of a digital watch – and transfers them to the analogue time display with hands. Luminous white Super-LumiNova clearly stands out, both during the day and in the dark, from the matt black dial, which has a completely puristic appearance.

The unique high-tech ceramic case of the True Square provides the appropriate setting and, thanks to its innovative monobloc construction, is ultra-flat at only 9.6 mm high. The matt black PVD-coated titanium back and the smooth, matt black high-tech ceramic bracelet also contribute to the low weight of the watch.

Style icons, contemporary design talents, innovative manufacturing technologies and high-tech materials that impress with a unique feel, durability and scratch resistance: the Rado True Square Undigital combines everything that makes Rado what it is. The watch is driven by a modern mechanical movement whose automatic winding is not only a work of art in itself but also a role model in terms of sustainability – in other words, completely undigital.

About YOY

YOY is a Tokyo-based design studio founded in 2011 by Naoki Ono and Yuki Yamamoto. Under the motto “Between space and object”, they are dedicated to the design of furniture, lighting and interior decoration. Their work can be found all over the world, such as at MoMA. YOY has been awarded numerous international prizes around the world and has been teaching at Musashino Art University since 2015.