In the spirit of the New Years I would like to quickly look back at last year. Whilst at times it was very difficult, I have made some amazing achievements and I am really proud of what I have done. So much happened last year that I often need to remind myself of what I can achieve. From winning a Goldsmiths award, graduating with a first, and starting working for Weston Beamor; to then being selected as a Bright Young Gem at International Jewellery London. Looking back, I am so grateful for these opportunities, and for the support from the people who helped me to get there. Thank you!Interestingly one of the things I most enjoyed last year was being interviewed by Retail Jeweller. It was quite scary at first, because honestly I didn't know what to say or didn't want to say the wrong thing. I was worried about what other people might think, to the point where I almost thought about not doing it. But I am so glad that I did and that I was able to talk about my career and my journey into the jewellery industry. It felt like the perfect way to end 2016! As we begin the new year I am going to try to do more of things that make me happy, and take the risks I am often too scared to make. I want to take as many opportunities as I get and focus on making things I genuinely love to create. Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings.
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My progress for my final exhibition is well underway and I am just going into production stages. I have been working on a pendant design with stone setting details. I have previously been working on the idea of the necklace, which is made up of 6 pieces, having a small blue sapphire set in the corner of each piece. However I have had the opportunity to develop my design further and have designed the necklace with 2 sections having a grain set line of gemstones.
It already feels like this year has flow by and I am now starting preparation for our final degree show in June! For my final project I want to explore the concept of moveable jewellery. I want to create pieces of multi functional jewellery for women that can be taken from day to evening wear. As with every project I revisited my mood boards and started to sketch out some quick concepts and ideas that I could further develop on CAD. I had a lot of different ideas to work from initially and was finding it difficult to take the concepts forward without getting too bogged down on the function of the object rather than the aesthetic of the jewellery. So I worked on looking at imagery I like, patterns and structure to develop an aesthetic to work with. I began experimenting with Spirographs and developed my own Spirograph pattern on Rhino. So I promised to keep you guys updated on the HSBC commemorative medal project and any developments. Since my last post:
There was a very lengthy testing process to get the design made in silver. Because of the scale of the design (100mm by 100mm) it had to be trailed on a few different 3D printers before being moulded and cast. Below is a slide show of some of the tests that were undertaken on the Objet and EnvisionTec. The School of Jewellery were very fortunate to have been given 2 Autodesk Ember 3D Printers to aid the Design for Industry course and really push project development. In conjunction with this Autodesk hired 5 students (myself being one of them) to run the machines and blog about the process.
So, at the beginning of the school year we had 1 printer which was able to print in resin. This was great for model making and testing designs. Students were then able to mould this if they wanted or take their STL files to be printed and in a cast able material in our School Tech Hub so it could be cast in precious metal. It was great to be able to test students work to see what worked and what didn't to really push their design process insuring that they were able to design build able files that could be made a reality with 3D printing. At the beginning of 2016 we received our second Ember 3D printer. This was along with a cast able wax that could be printed. This was great because it meant that we could now test students work first in resin then go straight to wax. By having this all at the school and ran by students it meant that we were able to communicate with each other, help when peers were having problems and hopefully shorten the time that students could receive a wax model that they could take to casting. All of this was at no cost to the student, which helps so much in the early stages of design development. Sorry this has been a very wordy post, I wanted to make sure I explained everything to you to keep you up to date. I've been working on trying to collect some images to show you so you can see the sorts of projects that we undertake. I hope to follow this up soon with a link to our own Ember Tech Blog page and Instagram so keep an eye on my blog for updates! Thanks for reading! I am unbelievably honoured to have been awarded Bronze for my CAD Presentation. The ceremony was spectacular and getting to see the amazing Goldsmiths Hall again was wonderful. The atmosphere was amazing and everyone was so supportive. For those of you familiar with my website, you might remember my old logo was plain text running at the top of the page. I have since updated it in line with taking a module in business.
I've been meaning to make this post for a while now, but I think now is the best time to do so, as I am excited to tell you all that I have won an award for my entry into the Goldsmiths Craftsmanship and Design Awards! So backtracking a bit… for my first module on the Design For Industry course we were undertook a live brief for one of the categories in the Goldsmiths awards. The category was CAD Presentation. The brief was to design a movable object using computer aided design (CAD). The item created must utilise CAD to its fullest extent and showed the potential for manufacture in new technologies. When I first got this brief I looked at the things that inspire me most to influence my initial sketches, and then develop a design from there. I am really interested in nature but not in the traditional sense. I like looking at things which have structure, repeating patterns and symmetry. In the past I have looked at leaves and their intricate veins. This time however I wanted to look more at butterfly chrysalis's as I find them fascinating, and there are some very unusual tropical butterflies that have chrysalis's that look like gold! I really like drawing, so I did some studies from my mood board and my designs developed from there. I ended up looking at butterfly wings and developing a Chrysalis like form that opened and closed to reveal a beautiful Malachite gemstone. There is a multi functionality aspect to my design as it can be worn as a closed locket or an open necklace.
The worldwide banking corporation HSBC is moving its UK head office to Birmingham! This is a significant event for Birmingham and HSBC as the revival of the Midland Bank which was bought by HSBC in 1992. Their new headquarters will begin construction in June 2016 and will be ready for early 2018. To commemorate the event HSBC are burying a time capsule at the site where their new headquarters will be built. For this they have commissioned the School of Jewellery to create a medal to celebrate the event which will be placed inside the capsule. This was then put to the students of Design For Industry to come up with a design. When I first received this brief I was a little lost. So I started off by doing my research and looking into the history of it all. I found out about HSBC's values in supporting business's world wide and also their commitment to the community. So I started to think about a few of the things that could represent this visually on my coin. I decided that the best way to record Birmignham was to go out and take pictures myself! So I headed out to look at the old Midland Bank headquarters, to the town center and the beautiful town hall. Then on to the more recent iconic buildings of Birmingham such as the Library and then to finish off my tour back, to the Jewellery Quarter and the recognisable clock tower in the center. Below are some of the pictures I took. I am currently undertaking a project utlising laser technology to create a piece of jewellery. Before deciding upon which technology to use the School of Jewellery gave the students of Design For Industry a set of mini projects exploring 5 different uses of Laser technology. We looked into laser: cutting, scanning, sintering, engraving and welding. All of which I had no experience of previous to starting this course so it was a very insightful experience.
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May 2017
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