Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Jewelry Design to the MAX !!!

A few months ago, I realized that to really be taken serious in the extremely competitive jewelry market, it would be a great idea to take a course to become a "Certified Jewelry Designer". I've been designing jewelry for several years, but it never hurts to learn new techniques and also look at your business from another perspective. What an adventure this has been so far! I'm almost finished. One of the last tasks required is to create an entire collection (about 18 pieces) of jewelry. This means each piece should have the same overall style, using similar design elements, etc. I created a "story board" to use as inspiration. This included some pictures I came across from Africa, and they were just beautiful.






My inspiration involved the colors found in Africa, and it included many of the techniques learned in the course.















One of the techniques from the course was to make a forged, heart-shaped connector. Combining the heart connectors with the colors of Africa, the name of my new collection is "Heart of the Serengeti". Here are a couple of photos of some of the first pieces in the collection:





I'm also having my logo completely redesigned by Marilee Jacobi Popovich of POPovichDESIGN, and it's going to be incredible!! I can't wait to get my new cards ordered.