Seiko Champion

This studio was mentioned in a post last week and a comment from Paul at Fnord, but since then I’ve visited their web site and looked around in more detail, and thought it deserved it’s own post.



This is the location where Seiko use master craftsmen and their apprentices to manufacture their higher-end watches. With the help of micro-tolerance machinery, 20 watchmakers produce approximately 15,000 mechanical Seiko watches every year.



When you click TOUR you get the cute cutaway schematic of the plant layout above.Many of the people icons will show a picture of that area of the plant when you mouse over. Several however show “click”, and for some when you do so (or you click their area in the upper left square), you are rewarded with a scrollable image (semi 3D look) of the room, or a small movie insert, or a full slide show plus of one of the plant’s master craftsmen.







This is the location where the premium Grand Seiko models are made (the oneexception is the Spring Drive models, which are made at a separate facility).



There’s quite a lot more to the site also. I would highly recommend it for anyone who owns or admires current high-end Seiko mechanical watches, or who just likes armchair tours of watch factories. I’d also recommend it to web designers – it’s an extremely interesting multi-media site … not the easiest to quick navigate, but definitely one of the better “explore and find neat stuff” sites I’ve been to for a long time.