Few product brands concluding for more than 35 years. But the Casio G-Shock line is a cultural institution. Developed past engineer Kikuo Ibe after he dropped and broke a pocket watch given to him past his father, the G-Shock line includes the globe's most durable watch every bit accounted by observers from the Guinness Volume of World Records later it survived the weight of a 25-ton truck. Today, the G-Shock'south entreatment stretches from military personnel to outdoor adventurers who demand its resilience to weekend warriors who only similar its fashion, a countercultural statement against the loftier-priced sleek minimalism and app-driven versatility of the Apple Sentinel.

Over the decades, the line has expanded across a range of digital and analog designs and an array of sub-brands: Baby G, Chiliad-Steel and the epic-sounding Chief of G. There's also a make called Mr. G., and over the years he'southward had plenty of companion brands: Mudman, Frogman, Rangeman, and Gulfman—a veritable Justice League of tough watches fighting the supervillains Water, Dust, and Shock. (Casio has shifted away from such gender typing with its recent Mudmaster series.)

The K-Daze Mudmaster is an entire line unto itself. [Photograph: courtesy of Casio]

Despite the hundreds of colour and style variations over the decades, Casio still sells a model, the DW5600E, that is nigh identical to the original G-Stupor watch that the company launched in 1983. Its hallmarks have included four corner buttons that are notoriously and intentionally difficult to press and a bulky, loosely octagonal face up with a matching plastic strap.

According to Tadashi Shibuya, senior product managing director of the time products division at Casio America, the scout'south toughness transcends the textile choice and price brackets. "Whether a customer is purchasing a $99 K-Stupor or a high-finish model at $7,500, a shock-resistant construction and the ethos of absolute toughness are built in. While we might be better known as a resinwatch brand, we have several materials we work with, including stainless steel, titanium, and carbon fiber."

Casio'south pattern decisions assist reinforce the sentinel'due south ruggedness. Merely ruggedness does not imply simplicity; the designs are ofttimes intricate, visually overwhelming affairs. On the analog forepart, you accept the likes of the Casio Men's XL Series G-Shock Quartz 200M WR Shock Resistant Resin Color: Gray With Camo Face—likewise known as Model GA-100CF-8ACR—a sentry that pairs a busy proper name with a decorated face up. Below its hands are three smaller round indicators and 2 LCDs for alternate time zones and the date.

Some G-Shocks are digital; some are analog. The GA-100CF-8A is both. [Photo: courtesy of Casio]

The digital G-Shock watches, on the other hand, tend to include printed text—lots of text. These indicators serve a range of functions that include the typical (branding), the functional (button labels), and the quirky (proclamation of features). The last feels unnecessary given that features need to be advertised just before the sentinel is purchased. Only there's a example for a kind of viral marketing chemical element for anyone else who happens to run into your G-Shock.

This "Reddish Back" G-Shock is a collaboration betwixt Casio and shoe-fan mag Sneaker Freaker. [Photo: courtesy of Casio]

And Casio isn't shy about driving home the message. The 21 words printed on the DW5600E face up include "Illuminator" below the Casio brand and "Electro Luminescent Backlight" below the brandish. Both are redundant given that the two buttons on the watch's right side are labeled as controlling functions related to the watch'southward backlight. And if you were unaware that the G-Shock brand included shock resistance, the words "Daze Resist" appear above the product make while the broader "Protection" appears at the top of the face up.

Shibuya explains G-Shock's verbosity. "Think of it every bit a kind of, 'functional expressionism,'" he says. "Of form, Water Resistance is indicated, that's manufacture standard, but our technology similar Tough Solar or Bluetooth, that'south similar having V6 or Hemi on your car or truck. Sure, part of information technology is marketing, simply nosotros want to convey the functionality of our watches." But if the G-Shock were a car, that vehicle's visual identity would be more similar a NASCAR race aspirant than an SUV with a lone sticker boasting of all-bicycle bulldoze or the number of engine cylinders.

The Grand Shock DW 5600E in all its 1980s-artful glory. [Photograph: courtesy of Casio]

The G-Shock paved the way for products that consumers bought fifty-fifty when they were designed for far more than farthermost conditions. The Hummer has gone the way of the dinosaurs that fueled information technology while Canada Goose jackets drift from closets every winter. But unlike those brands, Chiliad-Shock watches don't control a huge toll premium compared to pop fashion watches from Fossil or Swatch. Then that may help explicate why its owners don't mind Casio doing a bit of bragging.

What happens to all this functional expressionism when Casio must deal with the constraints of a smartwatch display? The company has created an outdoors-focused watch based on Google'southward Vesture Os called the Pro Trek. It's marketed equally being tough—that is, for a smartwatch—only it's not a Grand-Daze.

Shibuya says that the company gets asked all the time about how information technology might create a smartwatch that lives upwards to users' rugged expectations for its storied brand, but that any such product would have to be a Grand-Daze get-go. "I believe you can remainder assured that information technology volition be uniquely Thou-Shock in its form gene, dissimilar anything we take seen before." If Casio carries its tradition forward, you'll exist able to read all about it—right on the face of the lookout itself.