Designing Jewellery

[EmmaC]

I've been quite surprised on my meanderings around the internet that a lot of discussion is given to the techniques of how to make jewellery, but I've seen very little about the actual design aspects of it, which I think is equally important. I had to grit my teeth somewhat when I saw a jewellery shopping channel suggest to viewers they use Google images to source stuff, print it out, cut around it, then charge a premium price for it.

Currently I use a sketchbook initially, but have recently started using Adobe Illustrator to make templates for pieces which I can then print out, glue on, and cut. I find it easier to do it on a computer since I can draw a sheep but not a decent smooth line so it seems! Even graph paper and various French curves don't give me the result I can get with using a vector program. My limit really is I'm not particularly great with illustrator, it's not an easy intuitive program for me, so the frustration level tends to be quite high given my liking for intricate pierced Gothic type designs.

I'm just using techniques I know from my background in art, so I'm really interested in the different way jewellers on here go through for the actual designing bit of the process. Do you sketch, draw it freehand, use a computer, or go straight onto the metal?

[CJ57]

I mostly go straight into metal, having been made at college to do drawings with side elevations and end elevations blah blah I rarely put anything on paper now. I did a few rough sketches before my last body of work and I'll maybe put a few lines on paper but it usually evolves as I work because apart from the spoons I make very little again and it's really just the bowl shape I have a blank for.
i have pictures of shapes and things that inspire me on the workshop wall but it mostly is somewhere in the recesses of my brain which is a bit worrying

[Patstone]

Oh no, have to draw just about everything on paper which I cut out and stick on to the silver sheet with Pritt stick.

[caroleallen]

I love to scribble.

[medusa]

I will sketch out first as a way of working out any technical stuff and then when I go to metal I usually discover the two imperative steps that I missed out in the sketch phase.

[ShinyLauren]

I always draw first, then scan in the drawing, darken the lines, print out on sticky labels and stick to the metal. I am useless at computer programs though - Illustrator makes my head hurt!

[Dennis]

I draw it in rough, but often quite large. Then I put it on a light box and trace it more formally. Finally I reduce it on my photocopier to the size required, print it and stick it on the metal with Pritt. This makes the lable easy to wash off later.

If the form is intricate, I then spray with art fixative to avoid blurring while piercing. Any straight lines are marked on the metal, by cutting right through with a fresh craft blade and a ruler. Sometimes I mark the centre of circles with a small round burr, to scribe later, when the paper has been removed. Dennis.

[LydiaNiz]

I have a zillion sketchbooks around the house, and 2b pencils (I bite people if they take them) and always have a posca paint marker so I can sketch ideas. it's 50/50 if I go from a drawing or straight to metal. Sometimes I just know the feel of what I want to do, and do it.

[Spectra]

I use sketchbooks for sketches (genius thinking there...),which are either new ideas or developments that I'm intentionally thinking of or have thought of before.

Most of my designs start off as random doodles that I have never grown out of doing!If I'm on the phone,being bored by my dad visiting,or just read a letter and started colouring letters in (!) I will end up with a page full of 'doodles' that can be quite arty or stylised animals,flowers etc etc then I just look at them an the interesting shapes and some eventually make it to my sketch book!

I always,always,always,colour/shade/scribble with metallic markers in silver,gold and copper (more like rose gold tbh) after final sketches though,to get an idea of how they'll look

[memattaylor]

This is an interesting one for me as I am always being told in classes that my design process needs to be more arty, so take an object - a shell for example, sketch the shell, take an aspect of the shell that inspires a suitable conversion to metal in some form, then get technical and deal with the 'how you are actually going to make it' stage.

But to be honest I really struggle with getting inspiration all the time from different objects or forms.

My ideas seem to come into my head based on a kind of 'I wonder if that would look nice or, I could make something like this' type of approach, then I go straight to technical sketches of size and cut lists etc.

I guess 25 years of working with technical drawings has knocked any informal creativity out of me and as a result sketching is difficult to me.

I am working on looking at objects or nature with a 'more seeing eye' in order to get inspired for more creative jewellery design, but I find it so hard. I end up thinking 'oh that feather is gorgeous, I should try making a feather!' as opposed to getting inspired to make something that is not a feather yet inspired by a feather! (If that makes sense????)

This is quite a waffley response, so apologies but I find it hard to explain that I'm not very creative I guess! I wished I could start to doodle, sketch some more and in half an hour have 3 new designs in my sketch book, as opposed to my sketch book being full of dimensions and cut lists.

Does this mean I'm left-brained, right-brained or just a half wit?