Who we are

DAVID DEWITT & SIDDHARTHA KAZAMI.

We are two car designers that share a passion for design and a love of mechanical watches. Our Goal is to share that passion with you by creating beautiful purpose built timepieces, each design telling a unique story.

CREATING OCEAN TO ORBIT

In December 2020 following a conversation about historical watches, watches we owned and watches that we would like to own, we decided that if we wanted to own a watch that in our opinion was perfect, we had to start our own brand. Initially this was just a bit of banter but after a few weeks of sending each other sketches we realised that this was something that we could, and should do. A few months later Ocean to Orbit was born.

From the beginning we decided that every watch we design and make would have a story. The conversation we had in December largely centred on watches worn by the great explorers and pioneers of the early to mid-20th century, watches like the Omega CK2287, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual and the Smiths A409. All worn during the expedition to Mt Everest, when Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit on the 29th of May 1953.

So, it made sense to us that our first watch would be an everyday tool watch inspired by these great historical timepieces. It would be designed and engineered to withstand the harsh conditions faced during expeditions like Mt. Everest, and that we would test our first design in very much the same way.

OUR VISION

Starting with our first watch Lhotse, our vision is to create a range of purpose built watches that speak to the passion of watch enthusiasts worldwide.
We aim to offer exceptional quality at a price that is accessible with an unparalleled attention to detail.

As two car designers with over 35 years combined experience in the auto industry, we bring that creativity, passion and sense refinement
to watch making and watch design.

DESIGN THINKING

“We bring the process that we have learnt as designers in the automotive industry to watch design. We first consider the functional purpose of the design, then we look at designs that fit inside this space and consider where these designs have succeeded and where they have failed. Understanding this gives us the
opportunity to first empathise and then define. Whereby we can approach the design process from a point of improvement and innovation.”

EVOLUTION AND REFINEMENT

“As we evolve the design through a process of exploration and iteration, refinement is often done in a direct view. We apply the same logic seen below in the Ranger Raptor illustration to our watch design. This allows us to evaluate the proportional layout of the overall design without the distraction three dimensional volumes.

When we have reached a certain level of refinement in Photoshop, we can move to Illustrator to create an accurate representation of the final design. When this is finished we are ready to send the drawings to our supplier to develop the tooling and then prototypes.”