Are you an aspiring jewellery designer?

Are you an aspiring jewellery designer?

At Seventy Seven Diamonds we love to encourage talent and support up and coming designers in their struggle to become more skilled, successful and recognised.  This new blog series will identify some of the key challenges faced by jewellery designers and offer advice and information on current opportunities which they, as aspiring artistes, can use to their advantage for both creating and selling their pieces.

 

The Job

Jewellery design can be an extremely creative and rewarding career, it is just difficult to know where to start in transforming your talent into profit.   You can keep it low key and make a go of it at your local market exhibition stall or craft fair, or stretch to bigger targets of expansion through networking and employing a team to push design and sale.

Jewellery designers prepare sketches, either by hand or on the computer, to conceptualise their design. After consulting with the customer or the manufacturing team, designers fashion detail drawings, a structural model, computer simulations, or a full-scale prototype.

They often need to produce computer models because they allow superior flexibility and ease in exploring a number of design alternatives, which therefore reduces design costs and the time it takes to deliver a product to market.

The range of raw materials is exhaustive - from economical and easily available materials like paper, wood, terracotta, jute, to highly priced pearls, diamonds or crystals.

It is a great idea to focus on the materials and design technique which works best for you, and work towards compiling a portfolio full of your successful designs to impress employers or judges.  Always take clear photos at any exhibition stall you go to, of you hard at work, and of the finished product.   Brush up on business skills and learn how to pitch your vision and future ideas to potentially interested parties.  If you are beginning to learn, make sure you choose your course, training and school wisely so you get the best development from your time.

 

How to work?

Designers can enter the jewellery sector through pursuing a number of avenues, including:

Jewellery designing house

Export house - If you join an export house, you can see your new designs in the international market. The majority of students start their own business by setting up a production house.

Fashion house

Self-employment

Freelance designing - As a freelance designer your job is to draw a design according to the specifications of the jewellers' house. Sometimes the manufacturing of the jewellery needs to be directed by the craftsman of the jewellery house.

 

Getting started

Previously, the single way to learn the necessary skills for jewellery designing/making was to be an apprentice to an experienced jeweller. But these days, one can take up a diploma course in jewellery design after school. Numerous institutes present diploma courses in jewellery designing; a student is usually required to pass an aptitude test and interview before qualifying for courses. One could be from any field, but an art background does help to show more direction.

The majority of courses are geared towards providing you with essential information on the diverse kinds of stones, colour schemes in jewellery, design themes, presentation and framing, designing individual jewellery pieces, men's jewellery, costume jewellery, jewellery costing, etc.

However, to become a professional in designing jewellery does not require formal training, so a professional in any other field can take up jewellery designing workshops and set up a business production house.

 

Schools

Throughout this blog series we hope to bring to you a number of exciting ideas to inspire you to study and pursue your dreams as a designer.  Here are a few to get you started!

The London Jewellery School is an independent Jewellery school offering high quality jewellery classes to people of all ages and abilities, from beginner through to experienced jewellers.

http://www.londonjewelleryschool.co.uk/

Residential Jewellery Making courses of between 1 and 5 days duration are available at ‘In the Studio’

http://www.inthestudio.co.uk/main/courses.html

Flux Studios is a new purpose built jewellery workshop in South London, which provides affordable opportunities for graduates, interested adults and the local community to explore and develop jewellery making skills.

http://www.fluxstudios.org/

The University of Lincoln has unveiled an exciting new degree programme in design. BA (Hons) Jewellery and Object begins every academic year (September) in the University’s prestigious Lincoln School of Art and Design.

http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/lsad/spotlight/jewellry/index.htm

‘Designer Courses’ offer a unique programme of hands-on training in contemporary craft and design.

http://www.designercourses.co.uk/

A jewellery school based in Hatton Garden, London is a popular choice: Holts Academy of Jewellery.

http://www.holtsacademy.com/

‘Flux n Flame’ jewellery courses are held at the Flux n Flame workshop situated in the heart of Dorset and caters for absolute beginners and more experienced.  They have a purpose built, fully equipped professional jewellery workshop, providing for a capacity of 8 students only in order to keep a great student-teacher ratio.

http://www.fluxnflame.co.uk/

Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery is an independent jewellery school which offers some of the widest range of jewellery making classes and skills training in the UK.

http://www.mcsj.co.uk/

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) UK has some fantastic jewellery and gem-based courses available.  At the moment they are offering classes on the following:

Business development strategies, Gemology:  Coloured stone intensive, Coloured stone grading, Gem identification, Jewellery essentials intensive, Jewellery intensive professional diploma, pearl grading.

Jewellery Design:  CAD and CAM for jewellery, quick design and design.

 

Abroad

For those of you who are more adventurous and interested in travelling abroad to develop your interests, there are several prestigious jewellery schools around the world.  For example:

The Indian Institute of Jewellery,  Mumbai.

http://www.iij.net.in/

Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Jaipur.

http://www.gjepc.org/

The Hong Kong Jewellery and Jade Manufacturers Association is recommended for its wide range of courses with a focus on retail, including Advanced jewellery model wax carving, CAD in jewellery, Selling skill in jewellery wholesale/retail, Gem identification and grading.

http://www.jewellery-hk.org/

The GIA also have schools providing jewellery education and design classes in a multitude of countries across the world.