You saw it here first folks - the announcement of the start of the most important jewellery event of the century - with prizes too!

This is probably the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken. What started as something small is snowballing into quite a large and hugely entertaining project.

As the title suggests, I'm organising a jewellery design competition. It's an open competition meaning that anybody who feels they have a talent for jewellery design can enter, from hobbyist jewellery makers (such as many on this forum), professional jewellery makers and jewellery students etc.

I'm working on the website which should be live next week and ready to start taking entries. The brief is simple:

Design a piece of jewellery!

1 category - 1 winner and 2 runners-up.

It can be anything, but it must have commercial appeal. The piece will have to be designed to be produced to a certain trade budget (yet to be decided) and you will need to show your calculations as to how you arrived within that budget (material costs + man hours at a set rate). Other overheads won't be taken into consideration at this point because everyone will have different figures.

I am hoping to whittle down the entries to 30 finalists and then, hopefully the designs will be rendered to near picture perfect quality for a public vote.
This public vote is purely for fun because, on a public website, polls are open to abuse and visitors could vote more than once on separate occasions for the same piece.

The judges decision is the one that will count based on design, accuracy of costing and commercial appeal.

I will not be a taking part as a judge so any flirting or flattery directed at me on this forum, although appreciated, will not get you anywhere - but hey! have a go anyway

As a final stage of the contest, the top three designs will be produced by the entrants for final examination and a winner announced.

Prizes in the pipeline include, for the winner - a full ecommerce website with free hosting for life and domain name for the first year built by GETi and hard cash shared by the winner and two runners up.

As more sponsors are gained, hopefully the prize pot will increase in value. It currently stands at £600 which includes a contribution kindly offered by Adam Hunter on behalf of Cooksons as a main sponsor.

That's the outline for the event, please get your thinking caps on in the meantime and start designing. You can design the piece in any metal, and present it in either digital or paper format. On the back of a serviette will still be accepted, but, in my experience, you only get out what you put in!

Thought, questions and opinions greatly appreciated.