The Design Process - An Example Walk Through

Its very important when designing a piece of jewellery to all possible aspects.

• The taste of the wearer.
• The size of the finger the ring is to be worn on
• Other jewellery that will also be worn with the piece - how the pieces will work together both in appearance, and physically. Will other jewellery worn with this piece compliment it? Is the design of the new piece going to fit with the other pieces mechanically, with no rubbing or unwanted twisting?
• How big are the stones and what sort of design will best compliment them?
• What metals will best offset the stone colours. Bright yellow gold? White gold? Silver?
  

In the below example, the client was trying to create a classic piece at very reasonable price. She was prepared with my help to source her own center piece stone, but needed help sourcing complimentary stones. The entire design and delivery was done over the phone and by email, with great results for the client, who received a fantastic piece at a price well below what she would have paid for an off the shelf mass produced piece.

The client bought her own Ruby for a great price off Ebay. Buying stones this way always contains an element of risk, but in this case it worked out well with the stone arriving being of the promised quality, and way below retail price. Alternatively, I could have sourced all stones for her. I presented the client with 8 options showing how the stone could be used in a ring, either as a single stone ring, or with one or two complimentary diamonds. The client chose Option 8

Option 1	Option 2	Option 3	Option 4
Option 5	Option 6	Option 7	Option 8

I took photos of the ring at various stages of production, so the client could see how the piece was progressing, and so modifications could be made if necessary. The centre ring is the final finished piece

The final ring cost $2400 inclusive of GST, which included the centre ruby, two pear shaped diamonds, the gold in the band and my consulting, design and manufacturing charges. A great result, a very happy client who now has a wonderful feature ring, at well below what it would have cost to buy a mass produced piece from a large jewellery chain.

See client testimonial here: A Journey to Perfection