January 3rd 2013

Today I would like to share with you a ring design that I created with a customer at the end of 2012. The design was finalised just before Christmas with not enough time left to be made before the holidays. It was booked in to be my first piece for 2013.

Dianne came to me with a design for her 8 carat Green/Blue Australian parti sapphire. The only trouble with the design was that it showed a 7ml round gemstone and her gem was nearly 12ml in diameter!

In a recent article on this website I wrote about the issues of scale in design so I will not go over it again here, however I would like to discuss different types of customers. Some customers can look at an image and get a very good idea of how the piece of jewellery will look. Others cannot and need to physically touch a ring to decide if they like it or not. Dianne certainly fell into the latter group.

The design process I use of digital images and silver drafts caters for both types of customers. That said the first time people come to me to create a piece of jewellery starting from an idea and/or images they are usually a little apprehensive.

During the design process I could tell Dianne was starting to worry a little. Dianne felt that every decision she made regarding the design was final and that is not the case. The process is evolutionary and we go as fast or as slow as we need. Decisions are made and we then see how they effect the design either using a graphic or silver draft. If it does not work out we reverse or modify the decision and try something else. Once Dianne was comfortable with this concept the design process went much smoother and faster and we were soon ready to make the ring.

The ring was made in 18ct yellow and white gold. The channel set princess diamonds come to a total diamond weight of 1.15 carats.