One of my blog “followers” asked about the design process at JH Breakell and suggested I write a little about it. Well, sometimes its truly inspired and sometimes its more pedestrian. What follows is fairly typical of our “process”.
About twice a year we work on new pieces, usually coinciding with the publication of new catalogs Which season we’re designing for i.e. Fall/Winter or Spring/Summer, and then start thinking about what we would like to offer our customers. Last spring we wanted something unequivocally “summer” so I started working on a sun image.
It started with a bunch of rough pencil sketches, they evolved into more detailed sketches and then that design was put to metal, either by cutting and fabricating or carving wax and casting. Finally the finished, original design is molded for production and our “run” of the design in either Sterling Silver or 14 karat gold, but very often both.
Last year’s “Sun Sign” pendant, earrings and pin are a good example of this process. It started with a vision of a slightly psychedelic version of a summer sun and evolved through a series of sketches to the design you see on our website. Sun Sign Pendant Eventually we made earrings, a charm and a pin using the same theme.
This is admittedly a very brief explanatioin, but it is typical of the steps we go through in creating new pieces of jewelry. We also draw a lot of inspiration from ideas our customers suggest. What would you like to see? We would love to hear from you. Leave us your idea in a comment.
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