Shawn and Jessica brought their two adopted Korean boys to the Korean restaurant. It was important that they immerse their sons in Korean culture wherever they could. When they finished the meal, they told their two boys to say “Good-bye” to the hostess in Korean.
“Annyonghi kaysayo”
Good bye, the hostess replied.
And a little sparkle was added to their lives.
Each month, Laura and her co-workers would clean up their Adopt-A-Highway. The work was not hard. The camaraderie great. The task important. And each month she returned home with a great sense of self-satisfaction. And some sparkle was added to her life.
The two little Guatemalan girls were fascinated by the Spanish-English dictionary. They stood on the side of the road, giggling with eyes very wide open in amazement. With the Atitlan Volcano behind them and Lake Trinitaria in front of them, they marveled at seeing so many words in such a small book — so many more words than their teacher could ever write on their chalkboard. And some sparkle was added to their lives.
Like other things in life, jewelry adds a little sparkle to people’s lives. And the jewelry designer, in many ways, determines how.
Sarah had never been to a large fabric store before. So when she entered MOOD in New York City, she nearly collapsed with excitement. She was shaking. Where to begin? Where to begin? She ran here. She ran there. She ran her hands along yards and yards and yards and yards of material. She found fabric patterns to compliment the line of jewelry she made. And some sparkle was added to her life.
Sue and Allan had made reservations for the Chef’s table at Dandelion’s eleven months ago. And they were lucky to get the reservation even then, but someone had canceled just minutes before Sue called to make the reservation. This was their very special night. As they were ushered into the restaurant, past one dining room, then another, past patrons enjoying their meals, and then they entered the kitchen door and were seated at the very cozy table. The Chef greeted them. Sue lightly touched her necklace, in a reassuring manner. And their night was as special as they imagined. And, yes, some sparkle was added to their lives, as well.
Aldia was on vacation, and the store clerk asked where she was from. I live in The Villages near Orlando in Florida, she said. They have 45 golf courses in that community! Do you believe it? she continued. I love The Villages. Everyone says Hello! to you. Everyone will love the beads I bought here. And there was a sparkle that came to her eye.
And as in other situations in life, the jewelry designer not only creates sparkle, but also must be very sensitive to how this sparkle enters people’s lives.
Jewelry may help people feel attached to their surroundings, Be more aware of themselves. Their status. Their situation. Their power. Their sexuality. Jewelry may serve to open up a whole new world for someone. Jewelry may signify how people may safely interact, and not interact. It may start conversations. As well as end them.
The jewelry artist designs jewelry. She or he selects materials to use. An order or arrangement is decided upon. A hypothesis is formulated about how best to assemble the pieces. And the hypothesis is put to the test. And hopefully the finished piece is more than the sum of its parts. Because it has to add sparkle to people’s lives.
The crazy black-white-brown-black-white-brown-black-white-brown piece Lucinda wore to the Latin dance club.
The silken pearl necklace which adorned Gena at her wedding.
The long, multi-strand necklace, with strong navy blues, and very large beads with almost mirror-polished flat surfaces that Paula always wore on days of staff meetings.
The very tiny hoops with simple 3mm crystal dangles that Missy wore every day in her life, everywhere she went, every time she left her home.
Jewelry adds sparkle not only to the life of the person wearing it, but also to the person viewing it. So the jewelry designer, in actuality, has to be doubly-effective with his or her designs. The successful jewelry designer has to be able to come up with designs that create sparkled “squared” — a double dose.
Adding “sparkle” is not, however, only about bright, sparkly things. It doesn’t mean adding glitz. It is not about bling. It’s some more subtle thing. Sparkle is something that wells up within. It is completing, reassuring, reaffirming, self-actualizing, reconnecting. It is a momentary oneness with the air, a breathlessness, a feeling so good welling up within you. A smile.
So, we must have some insight, some clue, some fathoming of how the person — whether the wearer or the viewer — begins to sparkle from within. What are they seeing? What are they noticing? How are they interpreting? How are they understanding?
How is their eye and brain working, when it interacts with jewelry, on a perceptual level? What is the eye and brain really seeing? What is it really responding to?
How is their brain interpreting what it sees? How does the brain come to evaluate the degree to which any piece of jewelry meets a person’s needs, wants, desires, motivations? For sparkle.
How does all this translation of lines and points and shapes and colors and textures and patterns and lights and shadows and drapes and flows and movements and silhouettes result in a sparkling from within?
The search for these answers is very much a part of what it means to pursue a sense of design. Otherwise, you will never truly succeed, through your jewelry, at adding a little sparkle in people’s lives.
Except in a random sense.
And that’s not good enough.
The Jewelry Designer Is A Conductor … Of Sparkle
The elements in jewelry, and their arrangement, play a song. These can be one note. These can be many notes. Or chords. Harmonic. Orchestral. Symphonic. Jazz. Waltz. Hip Hop. Cacophony. The jewelry designer needs to be able to hear this song in their inner ear as they design. Because they are responsible for the arrangement. And tweaking or changing the arrangement.
The jewelry designer is a Conductor.
Of sparkle.
Avoiding discord.
Sparkle Requires No Non-Essential Elements
The best jewelry — the most attractive, the most powerful, the most functional, the most inner-sparkling — are pieces within which there are no extraneous elements. Adding (or subtracting) anything within the pieces no longer makes it a better piece.
Here’s where many prospective jewelry designers trip up. Most try to over-embellish their pieces. If one fringe works, 12 fringes will work better. If bead-bezeled cabochons worked, 6 more will be better. They think if one sparkle is enough, many sparkles will be better.
And others are afraid to add more pieces, for fear someone will think they are show’y. They are afraid of too much sparkle. They shy away from asserting power. They are uncertain. If someone says one piece is beautiful, they wonder if they could create it again. Successful jewelry scares them.
These kinds of jewelry designers substitute more sparkle (or less sparkle) as a way of avoiding making hard choices — choices to find that parsimonious array of sparkle and conclusion which works.
Little Ghindia (tapestry necklace) by Warren Feld, with overwritten text, source, FELD, 2019
“Jewelry is art, but only art as it is worn.”
That’s a powerful idea, — “as it is worn” — but, when making jewelry, we somewhat ignore it. We bury it somewhere in the back of our brains, so it doesn’t get in the way of what we are trying to do. We relegate it to a phrase on the last page of a book we have promised ourselves to read sometime, so it doesn’t put any road blocks in front of our process of creation.
We like to follow steps, and are thrilled when a lot of the thinking has been done for us. We like to make beautiful things. But, we do not want to have to make a lot of choices. We don’t want anything to disrupt our creative process.
We do not want to worry about and think about and agonize over jewelry “as it is to be worn.” Let’s not deal with those movement, architectural, engineering, context, interpersonal and behavioral stuff. We just want to make things.
To most artisans, making jewelry should never be work. It should always be fun.
Making jewelry should be putting a lot of things on a table in front of you, and going for it.
Making jewelry just is. It is not something we have to worry about managing.
It is easy to make, copy or mimic jewelry someone else has designed, either through kits or through imitation.
Making jewelry is doing. Not thinking.
Creating. Not managing.
We prefer to make jewelry distinct from any context in which it might be worn or sold. We don’t want someone looking over our shoulder, while we create. We don’t want to adjust any design choice we make because the client won’t like it, or, perhaps, it is out of fashion or color-shaded with colors not everyone likes. Perhaps our design choices at-the-moment do not fit with the necessities associated with how we need to market our wares to sell them. Our pieces might somehow be off-brand.
All too often, we avoid having to think about the difficult choices and trade-offs we need to make, when searching for balance. That is balance among aesthetics, functionality, context, materials and technique. And balance between our needs as designers and the wearer’s needs, as well. So, too, we shy aware from making any extra effort to please “others” or “them”. Even though this hardly makes sense if we want these “others” or “them” to wear our jewelry or buy our jewelry creations.
Everything comes down to a series of difficult choices. We are resistant to making many of them. So we ignore them. We pretend they are choices better left to other people, though never fully sure who those other people are. We yearn to be artists, but resign ourselves to be craft-persons. We dabble with art, but avoid design.
We hate to make trade-offs between art and function; that is, allow something to be a little less beautiful so that it won’t break or not drape and move well when worn. We hate to make things in colors or silhouettes we don’t like. We hate to make the same design over and over again, even though it might be popular or sell well.
But make these kinds of choices we must! Your jewelry is a reflection of the sum of these choices. It is a reflection of you. You as an artist. You as a creator. You as an architect and an engineer. You as a social scientist. You as a business person. You as a designer.
So, the more we can anticipate what kinds of choices we need to make, and the more experience we have to successfully manage and maneuver within these choices, the more enjoyable and successful our jewelry designs become … and the more satisfying for the people for whom we make them.
JEWELRY DESIGN IS A MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Designers who are able to re-interpret the steps they go through and see them in “process” terms, that is, with organization and purpose, have the advantage.
There are many different kinds of choices to be made, but they are interdependent and connected. Recognizing inter-dependency and connectedness makes it easier to learn about, visualize and execute these choices as part of an organized, deliberate and managed jewelry design process.
I am going to get on my soap box here. We tend to teach students to very mechanically follow a series of steps. We need, instead, to teach them “Process”. Strategy. Insight. Connectedness. Contingency. Dependency. Construction. Context. Problem-Solving. Consequences.
Good jewelry design must answer questions and teach practitioners about managing the processes of anticipating the audience, selecting materials, implementing techniques, and constructing the piece from one end to the other. Again, this is not a mechanical process. Often, it is not a linear step-by-step pathway. There is a lot of iteration — that is, the next choice made will limit some things and make more relevant other things which are to happen next.
A “process” is something to be managed, from beginning to end, as the designer’s knowledge, techniques and skills are put to the test. That test could be very small-scale and simple, such as creating a piece of jewelry to give to someone as a gift. Or creating a visual for a customer. Or when you need to know the costs. Or, that test could be very large-scale and more complex, such as convincing a sales agent to represent your jewelry in their showroom.
Better Jewelry Designers smartly manage their design processes at the boundary between jewelry and person. It is at this boundary where all the inter-dependencies of all the various types of choices we designers make are clearest and have the most consequence.
WELL-DESIGNED JEWELRY MUST BE MANAGED AT THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN JEWELRY AND PERSON
What exactly does it mean to “manage design at the boundary between jewelry and person?” What kinds of things happen at that boundary?
A person breathes. She moves. She sits at a desk, perhaps fidgeting with her jewelry. She might make sudden turns. She gracefully transitions from one space to another. She has shape, actually many shapes.
Her jewelry serves many purposes. It signifies her as someone or something. It expresses her feelings. Or status. Or future intentions. Or past history. It ties her to people and places, events and times. It suggests power, or lack thereof. It hides faults, and amplifies strengths. It implies whether she fits with the situation.
Jewelry attracts. It attracts seekers of the wearer’s attention. It wards off denigrators. It orients people to the world around them. It tells them a story with enough symbol, clue and information to allow people to decide whether to flee or approach, run away or walk toward, hide or shine.
Jewelry has a feel and sparkle to it. It reminds us that we are real. It empowers a sensuality and a sexuality. It elevates our esteem. Sometimes uncomfortable or scratchy. Sometimes not. Sometimes reflective of our moods. Othertimes not.
Jewelry is a shared experience. It helps similar people find one another. It signals what level of respect will be demanded. It entices. It repels. It offers themes both desirable and otherwise.
Jewelry has shape, form and mechanics. All the components must self-adjust to forces of movement, yet at the same time, not lose shape or form or maneuverability or appeal. If a piece is designed to visually display in a particular way, forces cannot be allowed to disrupt its presentation. Jewelry should take the shape of the body and move with the body. It should not make a mockery of the body, or resist the body as it wants to express itself.
Jewelry defines a silhouette. It draws a line on the body, often demarcating what to look at and what to look away from. What to touch, and what to avoid. What is important, and what is less so.
Managing here at the boundary between jewelry and person means understanding what wearing jewelry involves and is all about. There is an especially high level of clarity at this boundary because it is here where the implications of any choice matters.
The choice of stringing material anticipates durability, movement, drape. The choices of color and shape and silhouette anticipate aesthetics, tensions between light and shadow, context, the viewer’s needs or personality or preferences at the moment. The choice of technique anticipates how best to coordinate choices about materials with purpose and objective. The choice of price determines marketability, and where it’s out there, and whether it’s out there.
You choose Fireline cable thread and this choice means your piece will be stiffer, might hold a shape better, might resist the abrasion of beads, but also might mean less comfort or adaptability.
You choose cable wire and this choice means that your piece might not lay right or comfortably. A necklace will be more likely to turn around on the neck. It might make the wearer look clownish. At the same time, it might make the stringing process go more quickly. Efficiency translates into less money charged, and perhaps more sales.
You choose to mix opaque glass with gemstone beads, mixing media which do not necessarily interact with the eye and brain in the same way. This may make interacting with the piece seem more like work or annoying.
The ends of your wire-work will not keep from bending or unraveling, so you solder them. Visually this disrupts the dance you achieve with wire bending and cheapens it.
You choose gray-toned beads to intersperse among your brightly colored ones. The grays pick up the colors around them, adding vibrancy and resonance to your piece. The gaps of light between each bead more easily fade away as the brain is tricked into filling them in with color.
You mix metalized plastic beads in with your Austrian crystal beads. In a fortnight, the finish has chipped off all the plastic beads.
You construct a loom bracelet, flat, lacking depth or a sense of movement. Your piece may be seen as pretty, but out of step with contemporary ideas of fashion, style, and design.
If we pretend our management choices here do not matter, we fool ourselves into thinking we are greater artists and designers than we really are.
JEWELRY DESIGN MANAGEMENT: BUILDING A STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION FOR THINKING THROUGH DESIGN
Design management is multi-faceted. We intuitively know that proper preparation prevents piss poor performance. So let’s properly prepare. This means…
PROJECT Defining what I do as a “Project To Be Managed” — My Project is seen as a “system”, not merely a set of steps. The “system” encompasses everything it takes that enables creativity and leads it to success. These include things related to art, architecture, engineering, management, behavioral and context analysis, problem-solving, and innovation. For some designers, these also include things related to business, marketing, branding, selling and cost-accounting.
INSPIRATION Documenting, through image, writing or both, the kinds of things that are inspiring me and influencing my design
PURPOSE Elaborating on the purpose or mission of my Project — why am I doing this Project as it applies to me, and as it applies to others?
SITUATION Measuring the context and situation as these will/might/could impact my Project
STRATEGY Developing a strategy for designing my piece — outlining everything that needs to come together to successfully work through my Project from beginning to end
SKILLS Verifying, Learning or Re-Learning the necessary techniques and skills
SUPPLIES Securing my supply chain to get all our materials, tools and supplies needed when I need them
CONSTRUCTION Applying design principles of composition, form and structure. Paying careful attention to building in architectural pre-requisites, particularly those involved with support, jointedness and movement.
SHOWCASE Introducing my Jewelry Design to a wider audience. This might involve sharing, show-casing, or marketing and selling
REPLICATION Anticipating all that it will take to replicate the piece, if it is not a one-off, especially if I am developing kits or selling my pieces
REFLECTION Evaluating whether I could repeat this or a similar Project with any greater efficiency or effectiveness — The better jewelry artist is one who is more reflective and metacognitive.
DESIGN THINKING
Designing jewelry demands that we both do and think. Create and manage. Experience and reflect.
The better Jewelry Designer sees any Project as a system of things, activities and outcomes. These are interconnected and mutually dependent. Things are sometimes linear, but most often iterative — a lot of back and forth and readjustments.
The better Jewelry Designer is very reflective. She or he thinks about every detail, plays mental exercises of what-if analyses, monitors and evaluates all throughout the Project’s management. She or he thinks through the implications of each choice made. The Designer does not blindly follow a set of instructions without questioning them.
At the end of the day, your jewelry is the result of the decisions you made.
Something to think about.
HOW DO WE TEACH JEWELRY DESIGN THINKING AS A MANAGEMENT PROCESS
We should teach students to design jewelry, not craft it. Rather than have students merely follow a set of steps, we need to do what is called “Guided Thinking”.
For example, we might encourage students to construct and feel and touch similar pieces made with different materials, beads and techniques, and have them tell us what differences they perceive. We should guide them in thinking through the implications for these differences. When teaching a stitch, I typically have students make samples using two different beads — say a cylinder bead and a seed bead, and try two different stringing materials, say Fireline and Nymo threads.
We also should guide them in thinking through all the management and control issues they were experiencing. Very often beginning students have difficulty finding a comfortable way to hold their pieces while working them. I let them work a little on a project, stop them, and then ask them to explain what was difficult and what was not. I suggest some alternative solutions — but do not impose a one-best-way — and have them try these solutions. Then we discuss them, fine-tuning our thinking.
I link our developing discussions to some goals. We want good thread management for a bead woven piece. We want the beads to lay correctly within the piece. We want the piece to feel fluid. We return to Guided Thinking. I summarize all the choices we have made in order to begin the project: type of bead, size of bead, shape of bead, type of thread, strategy for holding the piece while working it, strategy for bringing the new bead to the work in progress. I ask the students what ideas are emerging in their minds about how to bring all they have done so far together.
At this point, I usually would interject a Mini-Lesson, where I demonstrate, given the discussions, the smarter way to begin the Project. In the Mini-Lesson, I “Think Aloud” so that my students can see and hear how I am approaching our Project.
And then I continue with Guided Thinking as we work through various sections of the Project towards completion. Whatever we do — select materials, select and apply techniques, set goals, anticipate how we want the Project to end up — is shown as resulting from a managed process of thinking through our design.
In “Guided Thinking”, I would prompt my students to try to explain what is/is not going on, what is/is not working as desired, where the student hopes to end up, what seems to be enhancing/impeding getting there.
With guidance, demonstration and repetition, it is my hope that such thinking becomes a series of Thinking Routines my students resort to when starting a new project. As students develop and internalize more Thinking Routines, they develop greater Fluency with design.
And that should be our primary goal as teachers: developing our students’ Fluency with design.
Abstract: Jewelry making is a constructive process of expression. The language of expression begins with the idea of Design Elements. Design Elements are the smallest, meaningful units of design. Design Elements function in a similar way as vowels and consonants in a language. They have form. They have meaning. They have expression. Some can stand alone, and others are dependent and must be clustered together. Better jewelry designers are aware of and can decode these expressive aspects of design elements and how they are included within any piece. This is one part of learning a disciplinary literacy in design. This literacy begins with a process of decoding and builds to an intuitive fluency in design. This article focuses on this process of decoding.
Jewelry Design Composition
Jewelry making is a constructive process of expression.
The language of expression begins with the idea of Design Elements. Design Elements are like building blocks and function a bit like the vowel and consonant letters of the alphabet. They have form. They have meaning. They can be assembled into different arrangements which extend their meaning and usefulness in expression.
There is an underlying logic to this process — a vocabulary and grammar, so to speak. Recognizing how this vocabulary and grammar is structured and applied enables the jewelry designer to learn how to be fluent in design. Such recognition is critical in developing a coherent, consistent disciplinary literacy in jewelry design. Such disciplinary literacy is at the heart of a professional identity for jewelry design artisans. This literacy structure in design has four main components to it:
1) Vocabulary: Design Elements As The Basis Of Composition
2) Grammar: Principles of Construction
3) Strategy: Project Management[1]
4) Context/Culture: Shared Understandings[2]
This article focuses on the first component — Design Elements.
It makes sense for the designer to begin with something like building blocks, which I call Design Elements. Design Elements, like building blocks, are tangible things. They can be visualized. They can be touched and moved around. They can be combined in different arrangements. They can be used to create many types of expressions. Design Elements include things like color, shape, movement, dimensionality, materials, use of space, and the like. Design Elements are the smallest, meaningful units of design.
Not every Design Element is alike. Color is different than Shape is different than Texture. Movement is different than Balance is different than Dimensionality. Learning about and understanding the differentiation among Design Elements becomes very important if the jewelry designer is to have sufficient power and insight over consistency, variation, coherence and unity in their designs. This power and insight is called decoding. Every jewelry designer needs to learn how to decode, if they are to be successful in design.
Some Design Elements are syllabic meaning they are independent and can stand alone. Others are non-syllabic, meaning they are dependent and cannot stand alone.
Design Elements have graphic representations. Graphic representations allow these elements to be recognized symbolically as a sort of short-hand.
Each Design Element also encompasses a range of acceptable meanings, which I call expressive variations. These expressive variations, while different among themselves, are still reflective of that Design Element. They have universal qualities in that people tend to share understandings about what these expressive variations mean and how they are to be used. Color Schemes, for example, are objective, agreed-upon combinations of colors seen as coherent and unifying. Thus, any color scheme is an expressive variation on the design element of Color.
The universal, expressive variations associated with each Design Element are, in effect, attributes of that Design Element. These attributes have an objective quality to them in that there is general agreement among designer, viewer, wearer, buyer and seller as to what they express and how they might be used. There is an expectation that whatever role a person plays relative to the piece of jewelry, the Design Elements and their attributes will be decoded in a similar way.
At this stage in the jewelry design process, the focus is on a simple vocabulary. The vocabulary is made up of Design Elements and their expressive attributes. The vocabulary encapsulates a generally shared understanding of its meaning and how it is to be used. It is at the point of grammar, thus manipulation and construction, that individual artists get to show their artistic hand in selecting and placing these elements into a finished piece of jewelry.
These Design Elements and their attributes can be arranged in different configurations I call clusters. Clusters may consist of independent Design Elements alone, dependent Design Elements alone, or a mix of both. For example, we may use an arrangement of glossy and matte Color beads to project Dimensionality. We may use different Colors of beads, rhythmically arranged, to project Movement.
Combinations of Design Elements into clusters can have different effects, from synergy, antagonism, blending, bounding, freeing and inflection.
Selecting Design Elements and clustering them does not occur in a vacuum. The designer selects and arranges Design Elements in anticipation of how these choices will be understood by others in a universal or objective sense.
This is a process which I call “Backwards Designing”.[3] The building blocks and their attributes are first selected in anticipation of these shared understandings. For instance, the designer might choose colors by anticipating how others will recognize the legitimacy and appeal of certain clusters of colors — color schemes.
If the viewer, wearer, buyer or seller of a piece of jewelry cannot understand and relate to its Design Elements and how they are clustered within the piece, they will not understand it. They will not appreciate it. They will not see it as a legitimate piece of artistic expression. It will not feel authentic. To others, if the piece lacks evidence of shared understandings, this will result in that jewelry (and by implication, the jewelry artisan) getting labeled, for example, as unsatisfying or boring or ugly or monotonous.
DESIGN ELEMENTS COMPRISE A VOCABULARY OF BASIC ARTISTIC EXPRESSION
Working with Design Elements is not much different than working with an alphabet.
An alphabet is made up of different letters. Each letter has different attributes — how it is written, how it sounds, how it is used. Configurations of letters result in more sounds and more meanings and more ways to be used.
A person working with an alphabet has to be able to decode the letters, sounds and meanings, as letters are used individually as well as in combination. As the speaker becomes better at decoding, she or he begins to build in understanding of implications for how any letter is used, again, individually or in combination.
This is exactly what the jewelry designer does with Design Elements. The designer has to decode, that is, make sense of a series of elements and their attributes in light of our shared understandings about which Design Elements are appropriate, and how they should be legitimately expressed.
Let’s examine a set of jewelry Design Elements in more detail and elaboration.
The Japanese Fragrance Garden Bracelet
“Japanese Fragrance Garden Bracelet”, by Warren Feld, March 2018, photography by Warren Feld
For example, this is the kind of building blocks thinking I did when designing my Japanese Fragrance Garden Bracelet.
This bracelet has a foundation base. The finishes of these beads in the base are either a luster finish or a dichroic finish. Off the base, I created flower stalks that were 4–6 seed beads tall, and topped with a slightly larger and more brightly colored seed bead. The colors of the beads in the stalks vary from dark (near the base) to light (near the flower tip). Between each bed of flowers is a “moon bridge” — the kind you might expect when meandering through a Japanese garden.
See how I clustered independent and dependent Design Elements to achieve a particular expression.
What I Wanted To Achieve Design Elements I Thought About
A. Movement B. Dimensionality C. Color Blending
A. Movement with flower stalks where they would retain their verticality (thus not flop over) after the piece was worn.
Technique: Fringing technique
Technology: Use of One-G beading thread which, unlike all other beading threads, has a springy quality to it. When the fringe is pulled out during wearing, the thread helps spring it back into place
Color: To mimic how moving colors will be perceived, I varied color in flower stalks from dark at the bottom to medium to light at the top, just under the flower, and then used bright colors for the flowers topping off each stalk
Point, Line: Easy for viewer to perceive and follow movement of points and lines, which are key elements in the piece
B. Dimensionality where the piece would not be seen as flat
Point, Line: Visually, the flower stalks lead the eye from the foundation base, up the stalks, and to the bright flower colors on top of the stalks.
Color: I use a reflective foundation base of two types of bead finishes, (a) luster, and (b) dichroic. Both have a mirroring effect, making it difficult for the eye to see the “bottom”, and at the same time reflecting the colors sitting above them.
C. Color Blending where as the eye moves up and down any flower stalk, or moves across the piece from end to end, everything feels coherent and unified
Color: I make a wide use of simultaneity effects, where the placement of one color affects the perception of the color next to it. This fools the brain into blending colors, which in reality, you cannot do easily with beads (as opposed to paints).
Shape/Points/Line/Pattern: There is a consistent repetition of shapes, points and lines, and pattern, leading the viewer to be able to predict what should happen next along the bracelet, and again, fooling the brain into doing some color blending perceptual tricks of its own.
How Do You Teach Designers A Vocabulary of Design?
Most designers most likely start theirjewelry making careers taking craft-oriented classes and following instructions in how-to books or online in how-to videos. They learn to repeat a set of steps and end up with something like what is pictured. The whole jewelry making approach assumes that jewelry making is a natural process. Surround the budding artist with patterns, books and videos, and they will somehow become great jewelry designers.
Yet, although the artisans follow a set of steps over and over again, they never learn how to make choices or evaluate implications or get any experience making judgement calls and tradeoffs when designing something that must look good and wear well at the same time. Jewelry making is not a natural skill that is learned automatically. Jewelry designers need to be taught to design.
Towards this end, I think it is much more useful to build an educational curriculum and program around the idea of disciplinary literacy. We need to teach designers to explicitly and systematically think design. Designers need to be able to recognize the elements that make up a piece, how they were used, and how this leads to more or less success in evoking an expression or an emotional response.
Disciplinary Literacy, means, in part, that the designer is aware of the “codes” which were selected for a piece of jewelry. The designer is able to segment the piece and identify its Design Elements. The designer is also able to put Design Elements together and blend them to achieve a desired expression. The better designer is very aware of all the codes, or Design Elements. The better designer is very aware of how the codes, or Design Elements, were selected, combined, blended and expressed. And the designer is very aware of how and why clusters of Design Elements may sometimes get bounded; that is, may be unfortunately stuck within some indeterminant meaning or expression.
Towards this end, this means first teaching designers how to decode. It means figuring out what universally accepted Design Elements should be used in a piece. It also means recognizing how these elements can vary, and how such variation can change the artistic or design expression of the piece. Designers need to learn how Design Elements get clustered and constructed to convey certain expressions, and which cannot.
At this stage, we are training the designer to have some comfort recognizing and applying objective, shared understandings about what certain Design Elements mean, and the variations in how they might get expressed within a piece.
As the designer’s education progresses, we would gradually reduce the student’s involvement with decoding, and increase the involvement with tasks involving fluency. This involves more in-depth learning about manipulation and construction. Here the designer is taught how to define a personal style and approach, and implement it. The designer is guided from creating the merely appealing, to the more resounding resonant. The designer is also taught to look for, anticipate and incorporate context clues. All this gets into the areas of grammar and process management, which I discuss in other articles.[1,2]
[2] I discuss a little about shared understandings in a yet unpublished article I wrote about Contemporary Design. From that article…
“Shared understandings should be enduring, transferable, big ideas at the heart of what we think of as contemporary jewelry. These shared understandings are things which spark meaningful connections between designer and materials, designer and techniques, and designer and client. We need, however, to recognize that the idea of understanding is very multidimensional and complicated.
Understanding is not one achievement, but more the result of several loosely organized choices. Understanding is revealed through performance and evidence. Jewelry designers must perform effectively with knowledge, insight, wisdom and skill to convince us — the world at large and the client in particular — that they really understand what design, and with our case here, contemporary design, is all about. This involves a big interpersonal component where the artist introduces their jewelry to a wider audience and subjects it to psychological, social, cultural, and economic assessment.
Understanding is more than knowledge. The designer may be able to articulate what needs to be done to achieve something labeled contemporary, but may not know how to apply it.
Understanding is more than interpretation. The designer may be able to explain how a piece was constructed and conformed to ideas about contemporary, but this does not necessarily account for the significance of the results.
Understanding is more than applying principles of construction. It is more than simply organizing a set of Design Elements into an arrangement. The designer must match knowledge and interpretation about contemporary to the context. Application is a context-dependent skill.
Understanding is more than perspective. The designer works within a myriad of expectations and points of view about contemporary jewelry. The designer must dispassionately anticipate these various perspectives about contemporary design, and, bring some constructed point of view and knowledge of implications to bear within the design and design process.
We do not design in a vacuum. The designer must have the ability to empathize with individuals and grasp their individual and group cultures. If selling their jewelry, the designer must have the ability to empathize with small and larger markets, as well. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathy is where we can feel what others feel, and see what others see.
Last, understanding is self-knowledge, as well. The designer should have the self-knowledge, wisdom and insights to know how their own patterns of thought may inform, as well as prejudice, their understandings of contemporary design.
How the jewelry designer begins the process of creating a contemporary piece of jewelry is very revealing about the potential for success. The designer should always begin the process by articulating the essential shared understandings against which their work will be evaluated and judged. For now, let’s refer to this as Backwards Design[4]. The designer starts with questions about assessment, and then allows this understanding to influence all other choices going forward.”
[3] Backwards Design. I had taken two graduate education courses in Literacy and one in Planning that were very influential in my approach to disciplinary literacy. One of the big take-aways from Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005, was the idea they introduced of “backwards design”. Their point is that you can better teach understanding if you anticipate the evidence others will use in their assessments of what you are trying to do. When coupled with ideas about teaching literacy and fluency (see Literacy:Helping Students Construct Meaning by J. David Cooper, M. Robinson, J.A. Slansky and N. Kiger, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning, 2015), you can begin to introduce ideas about managing the design process in a coherent and alignable way.
It is not happenstance that some pieces of jewelry draw your attention, and others do not. It is the result of an artist fluent in design. That fluency begins with selecting Design Elements, but it comes to full fruition with the application of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation. This is where the artist flourishes, shows a recognition of shared understandings about good design, and makes that cluster of jewelry design choices resulting in a piece that is seen as both finished and successful. These Principles represent different organizing schemes the artist might resort to. Jewelry artists translate these Principles a little differently than painters or sculptors, in that jewelry presents different demands and expectations on the artist. The better artist/designer achieves a level of disciplinary literacy — selecting Design Elements and applying Principles — where fluency becomes automatic, accurate, and rapidly applied.
Some pieces of jewelry draw your attention. Others do not.
This is not a matter of happenstance. It is the result of an artist fluent in design. That fluency begins with the selection of Design Elements — the smallest meaningful units of design. But it comes to full fulfillment with the application and manipulation of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation. These “organizing schemes” reflect what the individual artist wants to express, and how the individual artist anticipates how others will understand and respond to this expression.
Design Elements, which I have discussed in an earlier article [1], are like building blocks and function a bit like the vowel and consonant letters of the alphabet. They have form. They have meaning. They can be assembled into different arrangements which extend their meaning and usefulness in expression. Examples: color, shape, texture, point/line/plane, movement, dimensionality, and the like. Each Design Element has a set of expressive attributes. Color can be expressed as a color scheme, or as proportions, or as simultaneity effects. Shape can be geometric or dimensional or recognizable or symbolic. And so forth.
Design Elements function like a vocabulary. They represent universally accepted expressive content. Visualize the analogy between design elements and vocabulary. Picture a “t”, perhaps combined with an “h”, and then with an “e”. Or, picture the difficulty in trying to combine a “th” with a “z”. Or, still yet, picture how the “c” in “cat” is pronounced differently than the “c” in “sense”, yet still recognized as a “c”. In similar ways, the artist might decide to use the design elements of “color” and “line,” and combine them to yield another design element of “movement.” Literacy begins with the ability to decode, and this ability centers on the selection and use of Design Elements.
Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation function more like a grammar. Given the Design Elements selected by the artist, Principles represent organizing strategies to which the artist resorts when attempting to achieve a piece that will be seen as both “finished” and “successful”, both by the artist, as well as that artist’s audience. The artist might arrange several design elements and their expressive attributes to yield a higher level organizing principle. For example, the artist might combine:
color(intensity)+line(direction)+shape(geometry)+placement(symmetry)+balance+material” to yield a sense of “rhythm.”
To continue our analogy with vocabulary, grammar and literacy, picture our “t”, “h” and “e” put together to form a full word like ”thesaurus”, then expanded into an idea, like “teachers like to use a thesaurus”, and further expressed, in anticipation of a response, to something like “but students hate when the teacher asks them to use a thesaurus.”
Literacy goes beyond decoding; it includes a fluency in how the Design Elements are organized to evoke an emotional response. This involves an intuitive understanding of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation, and how to apply them. While Design Elements are selected primarily based on shared, more universal understandings of what they express, often, Principles are applied in ways more reflective of artist’s hand, and its subjective expression.
The successful jewelry designer has developed a fluency in the Disciplinary Literacy of jewelry design. Fluency is the ability of the designer to select and connect Design Elements smoothly, in visually and functionally and situationally appropriate ways with understanding. The idea of understanding is broadly defined, to include the artist’s personal goals for expression, as well as the expectations of all the audiences — the wearer, the viewer, the buyer, the seller, the student, the master. The better designer achieves a level of disciplinary literacy where fluency becomes automatic, accurate, and rapidly applied.
This Disciplinary Literacy in jewelry design has a structure all its own. There are four main components to it:
1) Vocabulary: Design Elements As The Basis Of Composition
2) Grammar: Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation
3) Strategy: Project Management[2]
4) Context/Culture: Shared Understandings[3]
This article focuses on the second component — Principles.
What Are Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation?
Jewelry Design is the strategic application of basic principles of organization and expression to achieve a piece which evokes emotion, resonates, and is appealing as it is worn. Traditionally the art and design worlds referred to these as “Principles of Composition.” Often artists and designers get tripped up on the word Principles, and jewelry designers get a bit confused or frustrated with the word Composition.
The use of the word “Principles” in art and design can be somewhat confusing. These Principles do not represent a set of universal, dependable and repeatable standards to strive for, which we might assume, at first.
A different meaning about “Principles” applies here. A Principle is an organizing scheme as a way to combine design elements into a more pleasing whole composition. The design elements include things which are visual effects; but, for jewelry designers, they also include things which functional, as well as things which are more social, psychological, cultural and situational. Principles inform artists in their expressive, authentic performances. Every artist is expected to apply these Principles, but only in ways the artist chooses. There might be better or worse ways to apply them, but no right or wrong ways.
Another aspect of confusion is the use of the word “Composition”. I’ve expanded the phrase, though somewhat awkwardly, to “Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation.” The traditional art and design idea of “composition” covers two very different types of jewelry design literacy skills under a single label, namely decoding (Design Elements) and fluency (Principles). The better jewelry designer needs to learn and apply both aspects of disciplinary literacy, but each involves different ways of thinking. As a teacher, both require different sets of strategies for training and educating jewelry designers.
Jewelry designers, by the nature of jewelry, have to deal equally with functional aspects of design, not just artistic composition. Traditional Principles of Composition need to be re-oriented for the jewelry artist to be more sensitive to the more architectural aspects of design. Design choices are also best understood at the boundary between the art of design and the body it adorns.
Limited to the idea of composition, jewelry might be judged successful as “art”, as if it was displayed on a mannequin or easel. But jewelry, in reality, can only be judged as a constructive, manipulated result situated at the boundary between art and body; that is, jewelry can only be judged as “art as it is worn.”
In this article, I focus on Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation. The Principles, as organizing schemes, are intertwined, and, the use of one will often depend on another. Movement might be achieved by the placement of lines, which might also establish a rhythm. Such placement of lines might be symmetrically balanced, with line thinness and thickness statistically distributed evenly through the piece.
These organizing and arranging schemes might include:
the Positioning and/or Ordering of things (white/black/white/black vs. black/black/black/white)
the Volume or Area the piece takes up (one row of beads vs. 3 rows of beads)
the Scale and Size of the pieces (6mm 6mm 6mm vs. 10mm 10mm 10mm)
the Colors, Textures and Patterns of individual pieces, and/or sets or groupings of pieces (matte/matte/shiny/matte/matte vs. shiny/shiny/matte/shiny/shiny)
the Forms (identifiable sets of pieces, highly integrated)
the Materials
the interplay of Light, Dark, Shadow, Reflection and Refraction (dark/dark/transparent/dark/dark vs. transparent/transparent/dark/transparent/transparent)
the clasp assembly and other supporting systems
Some of these design Principles are applied in similar ways to all art forms, such as painting and sculpture, no matter what the medium.
For other Principles, jewelry creates its own challenges, because all jewelry places some different demands and expectations on the artist than painting or sculpture does. Jewelry…
functions in a 3-dimensional space, particularly sensitive to position, volume and scale
must stand on its own as an object of art
but must also exist as an object of art which interacts with the body, movement, personality, and quirks of the wearer
serves many purposes, some aesthetic, some functional, some social, cultural or situational
has a much more integrated and inter-dependent relationship of the center piece, strap, fringe, edge, bail and surface embellishment — an arrangement that traditional Art theory rejects. Art sees the center piece as the “art”, and these other things as supporting, not artistic details, like a frame for a painting or a pedestal for a sculpture.
Good jewelry should exude an energy. It should resonate. This energy results from how the artist applies these Principles to compose with, construct and manipulate light and shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. The artist’s piece is judged on whether the resulting piece feels coherent, organized, controlled, and strategically designed, again, as the jewelry is worn. Successful application of these Principles results in a piece which feels finished and successful.
The Principles include,
Rhythm
Pointers
Linear and Planar Relationships
Interest
Statistical Distribution
Balance
Forms, Their Proportions, Distributions and Dimensionality
Temporal Extension: Time and Place
Physical Extension: Functionality
Parsimony (something similar to, but a little beyond harmony and unity)
TABLE OF PRINCIPLES
THE PRINCIPLES IN MORE DETAIL
1. Rhythm
Movement is the path our eyes follow when we look at a work of art, and it is generally very important to keep a viewer’s eyes engaged in the work. Without movement, artwork becomes stagnant. A few good strategies to evoke a sense of movement (among many others) are using diagonal lines, placing shapes so that the extend beyond the boundaries of the picture plane, and using changing values.
Rhythm is one Principle used to shape the viewer’s experience with the piece. Rhythm is how the piece leads the viewer through sequences of steps. It is a measure of the degree the piece engages the viewer’s eye.
There is a continuance, a flow or a feeling of movement from one place of the piece to another.
Repetition and pattern are key here. The artist might achieve a rhythm by varying or repeating colors, textures, sizes, forms. The rhythm might be slow, fast, predictable, random, staccato, measured, safe, edgy, and so forth. The intervals between repetitions and patterns can create a sense of rhythm in the viewer and a sense of movement. Repetitions and patterns can be random, regular, alternating, flowing, progressive — there are many directions the artist can go in establishing a rhythm.
When a piece has multiple and coordinated rhythms, we call this Symphonic Rhythm. For example, in a piece, there might be a clear rhythm set by the use of colors throughout the piece, as well as the positioning of definable forms, such as a series of beaded leaves or other shapes.
The Rhythm should assist the viewer in cognitively making a complete circle around the piece. You don’t want the viewer to lose interest, get bored, or fall flat, before the eye and brain can make that complete circle.
The better designer can empower the design, if using Rhythm in the right way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2. Pointers
Pointers are places of emphasis, dominance or focus. Certain elements assume more importance than others within the same composition.
Pointers guide the viewer to a specific place, or focal point. Cognitively, you want to create the place for the eye/brain to come to rest.
Examples:
Something can be centered
The color can be varied, say from dark to light, to serve as an “arrow” or “Pointer” to a section of the necklace
The positioning of the clasp might serve as a pointer
A dangling pendant might serve as a pointer
The size of the beads can be varied, such as smallest to largest, to serve as an “arrow” or “Pointer”
Coordinating the placement of Focal Point on jewelry with the pattern in the clothing upon which the piece will rest
Something can be strategically off-centered.
The better designer is able to capture the viewer’s attention to more important parts of the piece.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3. Linear and Planar Relationships
This is the degree the piece is not disorienting to the viewer, or particularly confusing in terms of what is up and what is down.
People always need to orient themselves to their surroundings, so that they know what is up and what is down. They usually do this by recognizing the horizontal planes of the floor and the ceiling of a room (ground and sky outside), and the vertical planes of the walls of a room (buildings, trees and the like outside).
Jewelry must assist, or at least not get in the way, of this natural orienting process. It accomplishes this in how its “lines” are arranged and organized. If a piece is very 3-dimensional, then how its “planes” are arranged and organized becomes important, as well.
Design elements we might use to achieve a satisfactory planar relationship within our piece:
– a strategic use of lines and planes
— shapes
— boundaries
– -silhouettes
— contours
– symmetry
– or, more difficult to achieve, a satisfying asymmetry
– a planar pattern in how each section of the piece relates to the other sections
– how sections of the piece interlock
– how we “draw and interrelate” parallel lines/planes, perpendicular lines/planes and curved lines/planes within the piece
Example:
How can a person truly pull off wearing only one earring? After all, visually, it pulls the person off to one side, thus violating the basic orienting planar relationships. What about the composition of the earring, allows this to work; what about the composition doesn’t?
Example:
Wearing a necklace, where the clasp is worn on the side, instead of the back. Again, what about the composition of the necklace, allows this to work; what about the composition doesn’t?
“Interest” means the degree to which the artist makes the ordinary…noteworthy.
Here the artist demonstrates how to balance off and control “variety” with “unity” and “harmony”. Without unity and harmony, the piece becomes chaotic. Without variety, the piece becomes boring, monotonous and uninteresting.
Arranging and organizing Design Elements might involve: – selection of materials and mix of materials
– selection of color combinations
– varying the sizes of things
– pushing the envelop on interrelating planar relationships among the sections of the jewelry
– playing with the rhythm
– clever use of a focal point
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. Statistical Distribution
The artist is always concerned with the number or size or scale or measurement of things. This principle focuses on these statistics. With this principle, we are not concerned with the placement or balance of things — just the numbers and measurements.
We ask: How pleasing and satisfying are the selection of the numbers, sizes, proportions, volumes/weights, and color/textures of objects the artist wants to use in the piece. The artist might, at this point, anticipate creating a pattern, or not.
Balance has to do with placement. How pleasing or satisfying is the placement of objects (and their attributes) within a piece?
Usually, the designer is trying to achieve a feeling of equality in weight, attention or attraction of the various visual design elements. The design attributes would include such things as the positioning or relative positioning of the materials used, the colors, textures and patterns, the sizes and scales.
The artist might play with placement in terms of proximity, alignment or repetition.
There are different types of balance.
(1) symmetry: the use of identical compositional units on either side of a vertical axis
(2) approximate symmetry: the use of similarly balanced compositional units on either side of a vertical axis
(3) radial symmetry: an even, radiating out from a central point to all four quadrants (directions) of the shape’s plane (surface)
(4) asymmetry: even though the compositional units are not identical on either side of a vertical axis, there is a “felt” equilibrium of the total piece. Often, with jewelry, this equilibrium depends on what clothes or other jewelry the person is wearing, or something about that person’s body/body shape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7. Forms, Their Proportions, Distributions and Dimensionality
Jewelry often can be structured in terms of segments, components or forms. How are pieces interconnected or amassed? Is this achieved through optical effects or reality?
The designer is concerned with managing these structures in terms of proportions, distributions and/or dimensionality. The artist makes choices about how each part relates to the whole in terms of scale or relevance.
The artist might play with things like: Layering
Surface embellishment
Fringing
Curvature
Overlapping planes
Balance
The better designer creates pieces where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Example:
Flat loomed bracelet and a button clasp, that sits so high on the bracelet, that it detracts from the 2-dimensional reason-for-being of the piece.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
8. Temporal Extension: Time and Place
Any piece of jewelry must be acceptable within a certain historical, social, cultural or situational context.
For example, is a piece appropriate for a wedding also appropriate for office wear? Is a great University of Tennessee Orange Necklace as successful when worn to a Vanderbilt football game?
Temporal Extension may narrowly refer to one specific wearer in particular, or more broadly to group, situational, social or societal expectations.
Other examples:
white pearls are associated with bridal jewelry
using metalized plastic beads, where the plating chips off in a short period of time, should not be used in an heirloom bracelet
making a matching set of earrings and necklace for jewelry that typically should be worn as a matching set
gifting a carved jade pendant with an message-word carving inappropriate for the religion of the person receiving it
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9. Physical Extension: Functionality
Any piece of jewelry must be functional when worn.
Functionality has to do with such things as movement, drape, comfort, flow and durability. The piece of jewelry needs to feel comfortable when worn, always look good on the wearer no matter what the wearer is doing, and be durable. This involves a lot of building in understandings of physical mechanics and architectural principles of construction.
When there is (or should be) movement in a piece, there should be clear evidence that the designer anticipated where the parts came from, and where they are going to. Jewelry is worn by people who move, so the design should be a natural physical extension to such movements, and the stress they put on the piece.
For example, in a necklace, the clasp should remain on the neck, even as the beadwork moves with the person, without the necklace turning around on the neck, or breaking.
Example: The dangle earring which has the dangle stuck in a 90 degree angle.
Example: The crimped bracelet which breaks at the crimp.
Example: The bracelet too tight when the design is turned into a circle placed around the wrist
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10. Parsimony (something similar to, but a little bit beyond harmony and unity)
At the point where the piece is judged to be finished and successful, there should be no nonessential elements. When the piece is finished and successful, it should evoke emotions and resonate.
The designer should achieve the maximal effect with the least effort or excess.
There is a tendency of beaders and jewelry makers to over-do:
– over-embellish the surface
– add too much fringe
– repeat themes and design elements too often
– use too many colors
Parsimony vs. Unity
In art, the traditional measure of completion and success was a feeling or sense of “Unity.” Unity signified how everything felt all right. All the Design Elements used, and how they were coordinated and placed, were very coherent, clear, harmonious and satisfying.
I think the idea of unity begins to get at the place we want to end up. But this concept is not concrete enough for me. You can have unity, but the piece still seen as boring when there is no variety. This condition is unacceptable as a principled outcome of jewelry construction. Finished and successful jewelry should evoke emotions and resonate. You can have unity, but the assessments rely too much on universal, objective perceptions of design elements and their attributes. The artist, the wearer, and the situation are too easily left out of the equation.
Jewelry creation usually demands a series of judgment calls and tradeoffs between aesthetics and functionality, artist goals and audience understandings and expectations, a full palette of colors, shapes and textures and a very limited one. A measure of completeness and success needs to result from the forced choice decisions of the artist. It needs to account for the significance of the results, not just the organization of them. It needs to explain the Why, not just the What.
For me, the more appropriate concept here is “Parsimony.” Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as “Economy”, but the idea of economy is reserved for the visual effects. For jewelry designers, we want that economy or parsimony to apply to functional and situational effects, as well. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.
Parsimony…
– forces explanation; its forced-choice nature is most revealing about the artist’s understandings and intentions
– relies on evidence moreso than assumptions to get at criticality
– focuses examination of the few elements that make a difference
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THINKING ROUTINE[4]: LOOK — SCORE — EXPLAIN
___________________________________
FOOTNOTES [1] Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design Composition: Playing with Building Blocks Called Design Elements,” 3/17/2018
[3]Shared Understandings. In another graduate education class, the major text reviewed the differences between understanding and knowledge. The question was how to teach understanding. Worth the read to gain many insights about how to structure teaching to get sufficient understanding to enrich learning. Understanding by Designby Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.
[4] Thinking Routines. I teach jewelry design. I find it useful to engage students with various ways of thinking out loud. They need to hear me think out loud about what choices I am making and what things I am considering when making those choices. They need to hear themselves think out loud so that they can develop strategies for getting more organized and strategic in dealing with information and making decisions. My inspiration here was based on the work done by Visible Thinking by Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education .
“Vestment”, Warren Feld, 2004, Miyuki cubes, seed beads and delicas, Austrian crystals, with 14KT, gold filled, sterling silver, and antiqued copper chain, clasps and other findings, lampwork bead by Lori Greenberg
Abstract:
Jewelry Designers want to be successful. But things can get a little muddled when thinking about how to get there. Our teachers, our friends, our colleagues often disagree on this point, and tell us to look for conflicting measures of success. We can often lose sight of what we want to end up with. The Goal-Oriented Jewelry Designer has but one guiding star: To achieve Resonance. Everything else is secondary. We achieve Resonance by gaining a comfort in communicating about design. This comfort, or disciplinary fluency, translates into all our composing, constructing and manipulating choices. This is empowering. Our pieces resonate. We achieve success.
THE GOAL-ORIENTED DESIGNER: The Path To Resonance
Jewelry Designers want to be successful.
But things can get a little muddled when thinking about how to get there. Where should they start? What should they learn first? What materials should they accumulate? What techniques should they start with? Should they focus on the process of designing jewelry? Or moreso on making jewelry? Or still yet, on achieving certain target measures, such as numbers of pieces made, or numbers of sales, or numbers of venues in which their jewelry is sold? Are there qualitative things which are important to accumulate, such as self-satisfaction or customer-satisfaction? Or style? Or recognition? Acceptance? Understanding?
Our teachers, our friends, our colleagues often disagree on how to get there, and tell us to look for, what turn out to be in effect, conflicting measures of success. We can often lose sight of what we want to end up with. We get a lot of contradictory advice. How should we organize our creative work and our time? How should we select materials and techniques? How do we know when our piece is finished? How should we anticipate our client’s desires? How should we showcase our jewelry? How should we be judged and evaluated? We need to perform, we want to perform authentically, but how — how should we perform as a jewelry designer? The search for answers can be very frustrating, confusing, even demoralizing.
But it shouldn’t be. Every jewelry designer should have but one guiding star — Resonance. If our jewelry does not have some degree of resonance, we keep working on it. If the process of creative exploration and design does not lead us in the direction of resonance, we change it. If the results we achieve — numbers of pieces made and numbers of pieces sold — is not synced tightly with resonance, we cannot call ourselves designers.
The Goal-Oriented Jewelry Designer specifies those goals about performance which will lead to one primary outcome: To achieve Resonance. Everything else is secondary. Design elements are selected and applied with that idea of Resonance in mind. Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation are applied with that idea of Resonance in mind, with extra special attention paid to the Principle of Parsimony — knowing when enough is enough.
People may approach the performance tasks in varied ways. For some this means getting very detailed on pathways, activities, and objectives. For others, they let the process of design emerge and see where it takes them. Whatever approach they take in their creative process, for all designers, a focus on one outcome — Resonance — frees them up to think through design without encumbrance.
This singular focus becomes a framework within which to question everything and try to make sense of everything. Make sense of what the materials and techniques can allow them to do, and what they cannot. Make sense of what understandings other people — clients, sellers, buyers, students, colleagues, teachers — will bring to the situation, when exploring and evaluating their work. Make sense of why some things inspire you, and other things do not. Make sense of why you are a jewelry designer designing jewelry. Make sense of the fluency of your artistic expression, what works, how it works, why it works.
We achieve Resonance by gaining a comfort and ease in communicating about design. This comfort and ease, or disciplinary fluency, has to do with how we translate our inspirations and aspirations into all our compositional, constructive and manipulative choices. It is empowering. Our pieces resonate. We achieve success.
Resonance, communication, success, fluency — these are all words that stand in place for an intimacy between the designer and the materials, the designer and the techniques, the designer and inspiration. They reflect the designer’s aspirations. They reflect the shared understandings of everyone the designer’s jewelry is expected to touch. They reflect the designer’s managerial prowess in bringing all these things together.
Resonance and disciplinary fluency result from a well-managed jewelry design process [3]. This process of creativity involves artist, audience and context. It is very interactional. Transactional. Integrative. Contingent.
For the artist, this process functions on several, coordinated levels, including…
Contemplation
Inspiration
Aspiration
Anticipation
Specification
Application
Fluency and Empowerment
CONTEMPLATION: An Intimacy with Materials and Techniques
Contemplation is a mystical theology.
Beads have a mystique to them. You stare at a bead, and, ask what it is. You put some thread on a needle, then the bead on the needle, and ask what to do. You stitch a few beads together, and wonder what will become of this. You create a necklace, and, ask how it will be worn. And you stare at each bead again, and, think where do all these feelings welling up within you come from — curiosity, beauty, peace and calm, reflection, satisfaction, magic, appeal, a sensuousness and sexuality. Your brain and eye enter into this fantastic dance, a fugue of focusing, refocusing, gauging and re-gauging light, color, shadow, a shadow’s shadow, harmony, and discord.
You don’t just bead and make jewelry. There’s a lot involved here.
You have to buy (or fabricate) beads and findings and stringing materials, organize them, buy some extra parts, think about them, create with them, live with some failed creations, and go from there. If there wasn’t something special about how our materials translate light into color, shade and shadow, then jewelry making would simply be work. But it’s not.
You have to put one piece next to another…and then another. And when you put two beads next to each other, or one on top of the other, you’re doing God’s work. There’s nothing as spectacular as painting and sculpting with light.
This bead before you — why is it so enticing? Why do you beg it to let you be addicted? An object with a hole. How ridiculous its power. Some curving, some faceting, some coloration, some crevicing or texturing, some shadow, some bending of light. That’s all it is. Yet you’re drawn to it in a slap-silly sort of way.
When you arrange many beads, the excitement explodes geometrically within your being. Two beads together are so much more than one. Four beads so much more than two. A hundred beads so much more than twenty-five times four. The pleasure is uncontainable. You feel so powerful. Creative. You can make more of what you have than with what you started.
You need to select a method or strategy for arranging your beads. There are so many choices. Your organization should be appealing. It must enhance the power the bead has for you, then transcend as a power the bead has for others. It must be architecturally correct because this architecture determines the wear, drape and flow where the jewelry meets the person at the boundary between bead and body.
And this assembling — another gift. String through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align. So meditative. Calming. How could beads be so stress-relieving, other-worldly-visiting, and creative-exciting at the same time?
Contemplation. To contemplate the bead is to enter the deep reaches of your mind where emotion is one with geometry, and geometry is one with art, and art is one with physics, and beads are one with self.
Designing jewelry is an authentic performance task. This involves a profound intimacy with the materials (and techniques) the artist relies on. This intimacy means understanding how to select them, how to leverage their strengths and minimize their weaknesses, and how to manage their ability to enhance or impede resonance.
INSPIRATION: Becoming One with What Inspires You
Inspirations are sacred revelations you want to share through art and design.
The word inspiration comes from the Latin roots meaning “to breathe into.” But before you can breathe your inspiration into your jewelry, you need to become one with it.
There are these wonderfully exciting, sensually terrific, incredibly fulfilling things that you find as you try to imagine the jewelry you will create. They come from many sources: ideas, nature, images, people, behaviors. They might be realistic or abstract. They may be the particular color or pattern or texture or the way the light hits it and casts a shadow. They may be a need for order over chaos. They may be points of view. They may flow from some inner imagination.
For some reason, these inspirations take on a divine, sacred revelation for you — so meaningful that you want to incorporate them somehow into what you do. A fire in your soul. You want to translate these inspirations into colors, shapes, lines, patterns and textures. You want to impose an organization on them. You want to recapture their energy and power they have had over you. You feel compelled to bring these feelings into ideas.
There are many challenges to inspiration. That which we call “inspiring” can often be somewhat fuzzy. It might be a feeling. It might be a piece of an idea, or a small spot on an image. You might feel inspired, but, cannot put the What or the Why into words or images. On the surface, it may seem important to you, but unimportant to others. You the artist may not feel in control of the inspiration in that it seems like it is something that is evoked, not necessarily directed, by you.
When inspired, artists perceive new possibilities that transcend that which is ordinary around them. Too often, the artist feels passive in this process. This transcendence does not feel like a willfully generated idea. However, it needs to be. The successful artist — one who eventually can achieve a level of resonance — is one who is not only inspired by, but also inspired to. This all requires a great deal of metacognitive self-awareness. The artist must be able to perceive the intrinsic value of the inspiring object, and how to extend this value in design, where the piece of jewelry becomes its expression.
Inspiration is motivating. Inspiration is not the source of creativity; creativity does not come from it. Inspiration, instead, should be viewed as a motivational response to creativity. It motivates the artist, through jewelry and its design, to connect this inspiration with others. It serves as a mediator between the self and the anticipated shared understandings of others. The jewelry encapsulates the artist’s ability to make this connection. When the connection is well-made, resonance follows.
But finding inspirations is not only personal, but more importantly, it is an effort to influence others. It is an act of translating the emotions which resonate in you into some object of art which, in turn, will inspire and resonate with others. How does the inspiration occur to you, and how do you anticipate how this inspiration might occur to others?
Too often we lose sight of the importance of inspiration to the authentic performance task of creating jewelry. We operate with the belief that anyone can be inspired by anything. There’s nothing more to it. Moreover, inspiration gets downplayed when put next to the discussion of the effort of making jewelry itself. But it should not. Inspiration is not less important than perspiration. It plays an equal role in the creative process. The artist’s clarity about why something is inspiring, and why this inspiration motivates the artist to respond, will be critical for achieving success, that is resonance.
ASPIRATION: Translating Creativity into A Technical Product Design
Aspiration motivates the artist to actualize inspiration.
Aspiration is where the artist translates inspiration into a completed product design. The artist begins to control and regulate what happens next. This involves selecting Design Elements[1] and clustering them to formulate meaningful expressions. The artist then applies Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation[2] for organizing and arranging things into a more complete whole with more elaborated expressions. The greater value the artist places on resonance, the stronger the aspiration will be to achieve it.
Aspiration is future-oriented. It requires a stick-to-it-ness. The artist must be sufficiently motivated to invest the time, energy and money into designing and making the jewelry that will not necessarily be finished, displayed or sold right away. It may require some additional learning and skills-development time. The artist may need to find a level of creativity within, and discover the kinds of skills, techniques and insights necessary for bringing this creativity to the aspired task at hand.
Aspiration requires the calculus: Is it worth it? It adds a level of risk to the project. It forces the artist to pay attention to the world around her or him. This world presents dynamic clues — what I discuss below as shared understandings — about opportunities, constraints, risks, contingencies, consequences, strategies and goals, and likely successes.
For some artists, motivation primarily is seen as instinctual. Think of seat-of-the-pants. Emergent, not controlled. A search for harmony, balance, rhythm, unity as something that feels right and looks right and seems right with the universe. Expressive, yes. Imaginative, yes. But not necessarily resonant.
Achieving resonance, however, is, for the most part, more than instinctual. It has some deliberate quality to it. It is communicative. It requires a purposeful act on the part of the artist. It is a different type of motivation — intentional. The artist might want to convey a specific emotion. Or advocate for some change. Or illustrate a point of view. The artist may want to entertain or teach. Heal. Attract mates. Propagandize. Where a jewelry’s design is not reflective of an artist’s intent, there can be no resonance.
ANTICIPATION: Shared Understandings[4]
Shared understandings dictate opportunities, contingencies and constraints.
The question of whether the audience correctly infers the presence of the artist’s inspiration, and the sense of how the artist’s hand comes into play within the design, remains. The answer revolves around a dynamic interaction between artist and audience, dancing around an object each calls jewelry, as they anticipate understandings they share, and ones they do not.
Shared understandings should be enduring, transferable, big ideas at the heart of what we think of as goodjewelry design. These shared understandings are things which spark meaningful connections between designer and materials, designer and techniques, and designer and client. We need, however, to recognize that the idea of understanding is very multidimensional and complicated.
Understanding is not one achievement, but more the result of several loosely organized choices. Understanding is revealed through performance and evidence. Jewelry designers must perform effectively with knowledge, insight, wisdom and skill to convince us — the world at large and the client in particular — that they really understand what design is all about. This involves a big interpersonal component where the artist introduces their jewelry to a wider audience and subjects it to psychological, social, cultural, and economic assessment.
Understanding is more than knowledge. The designer may be able to articulate what needs to be done to achieve something labeled good jewelry design, but, may not know how to apply it.
Understanding is more than interpretation. The designer may be able to explain how a piece was constructed and conformed to ideas about good jewelry design, but this does not necessarily account for the significance of the results.
Understanding is more than applying principles of construction. It is more than simply organizing a set of design elements into an arrangement. The designer must match knowledge and interpretation about good jewelry design to the context. Application is a context-dependent skill.
Understanding is more than perspective. The designer works within a myriad of expectations and points of view about good jewelry design. The designer must dispassionately anticipate these various perspectives about design, and, bring some constructed point of view and knowledge of implications to bear within the design and design process.
We do not design in a vacuum. The designer must have the ability to empathize with individuals and grasp their individual and group cultures. If selling their jewelry, the designer must have the ability to empathize with small and larger markets, as well. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathy is where we can feel what others feel, and see what others see.
Last, understanding is self-knowledge, as well. The designer should have the self-knowledge, wisdom and insights to know how their own patterns of thought may inform, as well as prejudice, their understandings of good jewelry design.
How the jewelry designer begins the process of creating a piece of jewelry is very revealing about the potential for success, and ultimately achieving a level of resonance. The designer should always begin the process by articulating the essential shared understandings against which their work will be evaluated and judged. For now, let’s refer to this as Backwards Design[5]. The designer starts with questions about assessment, and then allows this understanding to influence all other choices going forward.
Some essential shared understandings for good jewelry design, I would posit, might include the following:
Every designer has some creative ability, but may need to learn concepts and techniques and ways to apply them
Some understandings are universal and objective, particularly in reference to the selection, clustering and application of various Design Elements, such as color, shape, movement and dimension.
Other understandings are both objective and subjective. There is universal acceptance of what various organization and arrangement schemes — Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation — might be applied by the artist. However, how they are actually applied, and how satisfying that is to various audiences, is very personal and subjective.
The strengths and limitations of various materials or techniques should be respected, maximizing the strengths and minimizing the limitations
Jewelry should communicate and reflect the artist’s intent
Jewelry should affirm the wearer’s purpose and identity in context
Jewelry can only be considered as art, as it is worn
We know the jewelry is finished and successful when the choices made and the tradeoffs among appeal, function, and context are implemented to the point we see parsimony and resonance.
SPECIFICATION: Goal-Orientation
It’s not just what you do…it’s how you get there.
Jewelry designers are too quick to focus on the outcome, and too lax to focus on the process. It’s always things like getting it done. Getting it to the client on deadline. Ending up with something concrete to show someone. Too much concentration on outcome can lead to taking shortcuts. Shortsightedness. Inflexibility. A misunderstanding, perhaps illusion about, whether the piece is finished and successful.
Artists more appropriately should focus on goals. Artists who are focused on goals tend to embrace process. It’s about all the smart choices regarding composition, construction and manipulation you made at each increment along the way. By specifying goals, the artist is encouraged to find connections, and be connected to and aware of shared understandings and their impact on perceived success. When problems arise, a goal-oriented focus allows the artist to be flexible and problem solve. The artist is present from contemplation to inspiration and through to aspiration, anticipation, specification and application. The goal-orientation prevents the artist from becoming lost or paralyzed with inaction.
The jewelry artist pursues several goals at once. The jewelry should be both appealing and functional. It should evoke emotion, elicit response, and resonate. The piece should show both unity and variety. The piece should create opinions, validate status, and reconfirm a cultural and social identify. The piece should be reflective and communicative. It should be pleasurable to the maker, the wearer and the viewer alike.
When specifying goals, it is important to remember that not all goals are alike. The goals I am discussing here are the essential elements related to effective performance. That effective performance results in a finished and successful piece of jewelry reflective of the artist’s hand and which resonates among a varied set of audiences.
The artist needs to set goals which clarify what results need to be accomplished by the time any piece of jewelry is finished and showcased. Goals provide perspective. They are there to prevent the artist from achieving anything less than resonance. These goals relate to generating deep understandings and competence at performance. They are not results-specific per se; they are overarching. They serve as sign-posts to point to and highlight what jewelry designers need to engage with when thinking through and implementing design.
The jewelry designer specifies goals as standards of professional performance, such as…
Leveraging the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of desired materials and techniques
Discussing and reflecting upon inspirations and motivations toward the expression of the creative self
Defining aspirational intent, point of view, and what it means to connect to various audiences
Delineating shared understandings among self, wearer, viewer, student, master, buyer and seller, in relationship to how the jewelry will be observed and assessed and worn within a context
Elaborating on all artistic and architectural elements and principles which should come into play, and why
Reflecting on personal learning throughout the process, particularly as it relates to developing and expanding on skills related to fluency in design
Determining how skills, insights and lessons learned from the current project might be transferred to your next one
Within each generalized performance goal, the designer can further identify particular tasks, knowledges and skills required in order to accomplish them. Often, with too many choices about what to do, what to include, and how to proceed, priorities and timeframes will need to be set, as well.
Resonance is more easily achieved when the designer approaches design as a process, an understanding of the myriad sets and levels of choices as made within a coherent system of creative thinking and activity, and with clear performance goals to guide the way.
APPLICATION: Unity, Emotions, Resonance
Think like an assessor[6]…find evidence related to desired results.
What is the evidence we need to know for determining when a piece is finished and successful? What clear and appropriate criteria specify what we should look at?
There are different opinions in craft, art and design about what are the most revealing and important aspects of the work, and which every authentic jewelry design performance must meet.
The traditional criteria used in the art world are that the designer should achieve unity, variety and evoke emotions. These, I feel, may work well when applied to paintings or sculpture, but they are insufficient measures of success when applied to jewelry. Jewelry involves the creation of objects where both artistic appeal as well as practical considerations of use are essential. The artistry of jewelry cannot be distinguished from that jewelry as it is worn, and the context within which it is worn. So, when referencing any jewelry’s design, I prefer to use criteria of parsimony and resonance, instead. We know when a piece is finished and successful when the choices of the artist are deemed parsimonious, and the various audiences perceive the piece to resonate.
Parsimony vs. Unity/Variety
In art, the traditional measure of completion and success is a feeling or sense of “Unity.” Unity signifies how everything feels all right. All the Design Elements used, and how they were coordinated and placed, are very coherent, clear, balanced, harmonious and satisfying. I think the idea of unity begins to get at the place we want to end up. But this concept is not concrete enough for me.
What bothers me the most is that you can have unity, but the piece still be seen as boring when there is no variety. Criteria provided from the art perspective recognizes this. But somehow tempering unity with variety starts to add some ambiguity to our measurements of finish and success. This ambiguity is unacceptable as a principled outcome of jewelry construction.
Another concern I have, is that you can have unity with variety, but, from the art perspective, these assessments rely too much on universal, objective perceptions of design elements and their attributes (for example, the use of color schemes). Resonance is not about picking the correct color scheme. It is more about how that color scheme is used, manipulated, leveraged or violated within the piece. We must not leave the artist, the wearer, and the situation out of the equation. We must not minimize the artist’s hand — the artist’s intent, thinking, strategizing, arranging, pushing the boundaries, even violating the universal, objective rules.
Jewelry creation usually demands a series of judgment calls and tradeoffs. Tradeoffs between aesthetics and functionality. Tradeoffs between artist goals and audience understandings and expectations. Tradeoffs between a full palette of colors-shapes-textures and a very limited one. Any measure of completeness and success needs to result from the forced choice decisions of the artist. It needs to account for the significance of the results, not just the organization of them. It needs to explain the Why, not just the What.
For me, the more appropriate concept here is Parsimony. Parsimony is when you know enough is enough. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.
Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as Economy, but the idea of economy is reserved for the visual effects. The designer needs to be able to decide when enough is enough. For jewelry designers, we want that economy or parsimony to apply to functional and situational effects, as well.
Resonance vs. Evoking Emotions
Finished and successful jewelry should not only evoke emotions, but, should resonate.
Resonance is something more than emotion. It is some kind of additional energy we see, feel and otherwise experience. Emotion is very reactive. Resonance is intuitive, involving, identifying. Resonance is an empathetic response where artist and audience realize a shared (or contradictory) understanding without losing sight of whose views and feelings belong to whom. Emotion can be seen in the reaction, “That’s beautiful.” Resonance can be seen in the reactions, “I want to wear that, “ or “I want to buy that.”
Resonance results from how the artist controls light, shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. Resonance results from how the artist leverages the strengths of materials and techniques and minimizes their weaknesses. Resonance results from social, cultural and situational cues. Resonance results from how the artist takes us to the edge of universal, objective understandings, and pushes us every so slightly, but not too, too far, beyond that edge.
FLUENCY[7] AND EMPOWERMENT: Managing Choices In Expression
Empowerment is about successfully making choices. These are choices about expressing one’s intent through art and design.
These choices could be as simple as whether to follow through on some inspiration. They might involve selection of elements of design, or principled arrangements of beads, forms and components. The designer will make choices about how to draw someone’s attention to the piece, or, present the piece to a larger audience. The designer will make choices between aesthetics and functionality. She or he may decide to submit the piece to a magazine or contest. She or he may want to sell the piece and market it. The designer will make choices about how a piece might be worn, or who might wear it, or when it might be worn, in what context.
The fluent designer will be adept at making these choices. The better designer is able to bring a high level of coherence and consistency to the process of managing all this — intent, shared understandings, knowledge and skills, evaluative review, and reflection and adjustment. This is called “fluency in design”.
Fluency is the ability of the designer to select and connect Design Elements smoothly, in visually and functionally and situationally appropriate ways with understanding. The idea of understanding is broadly defined, to include the artist’s personal goals for expression, as well as the expectations of all the audiences — the wearer, the viewer, the buyer, the seller, the student, the master. The better designer achieves a level of disciplinary literacy where fluency becomes automatic, accurate, and rapidly applied.
The better, more fluent jewelry designer is able to anticipate how others will come to understand these mechanisms and the implications for applying them in one way or another. For example, the better and more fluent designer would be able to select and combine design elements to appropriately differentiate jewelry that would best be worn at work, and jewelry that would best be worn, say, when someone was going to a night club for dancing and socializing.
Lastly, fluency means that the designer has also been taught to look for, anticipate and incorporate context clues. Design does not occur in a vacuum. It has implications which become realized in a context. That context might be historical, cultural or situational.
RUBRIC[8] AS THINKING ROUTINE
Designers need a simple map to all these ideas about literacy and fluency — something they can easily review and determine where their strengths and weaknesses are as they gain proficiency and fluency in design. One type of map is a rubric.
A rubric is a table of criteria used to rate and rank understanding and performance. A rubric answers the question by what criteria performance should be judged. The rubric provides insightful clues for the kinds of evidence we need to make such assessments. The rubric helps us distinguish degrees of performance, from the sophisticated to the naïve. The rubric encapsulates what an authentic jewelry design performance would look like.
Such a rubric is presented below for the artist to use as a thinkingroutine.[9] Here I have used one rubric to represent both (1) understanding and (2) performance, but, I could have easily created two separate rubrics toward this end. In this rubric table below, the rows represent contemplation, inspiration, aspiration, anticipation, application, and fluency and empowerment. The columns represent the degrees of understanding and performance along a continuum, from proficient on one end to not there yet on the other. By way of example, I use the rubric to assess my performance with a piece I created called Vestment (Feld, 2004).
RUBRIC: How Proficient Am I In Achieving Resonance?
The Rubric…
RUBRIC: How Proficient Am I In Achieving Resonance?
[4]Shared Understandings. In another graduate education class, the major text reviewed the differences between understanding and knowledge. The question was how to teach understanding. Worth the read to gain many insights about how to structure teaching to get sufficient understanding to enrich learning. Understanding by Designby Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. [5] Backwards Design. One of the big take-aways from Understanding by Design(see footnote 3) was the idea they introduced of “backwards design”. Their point is that you can better teach understanding if you anticipate the evidence others will use in their assessments of what you are trying to do. When coupled with ideas about teaching literacy and fluency (see footnote 2), you can begin to introduce ideas about managing the design process in a coherent and alignable way. [6] Understanding by Designby Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2nd Edition, p. 146, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. [7]Fluency. I took two graduate education courses in Literacy. The primary text we used was Literacy: Helping Students Construct Meaning by J. David Cooper, M. Robinson, J.A. Slansky and N. Kiger, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning, 2015. Even though the text was not about jewelry designing per se, it provides an excellent framework for understanding what fluency is all about, and how fluency with language develops over a period of years. I have relied on many of the ideas in the text to develop my own ideas about a disciplinary literacy for jewelry design.
[8]Rubrics. Understanding by Designby Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2nd Edition, p. 146, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. [9] Thinking Routines. I teach jewelry design. I find it useful to engage students with various ways of thinking out loud. They need to hear me think out loud about what choices I am making and what things I am considering when making those choices. They need to hear themselves think out loud so that they can develop strategies for getting more organized and strategic in dealing with information and making decisions. My inspiration here was based on the work done by Visible Thinking by Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education .
Not Just One Type Of Person Wants To Become A Jewelry Designer
There is not just one type of person who becomes a jewelry designer. There are many, many types of people who find jewelry design a common passion. They may have different ambitions. They may prefer to use different techniques and materials. They may have different levels of financial success. They may have different compulsions for creating jewelry.
We can differentiate people who become jewelry designers by their aspirations (1 Neuendorf, 2016) — why they became jewelry designers. Some jewelry designers fit one type of aspiration; others, more than one. Which one are you?
Social Interactants
Creatives often seek out other creatives and form a social network. They may be makers. They may be sellers or exhibiters or collectors. But they look for ways to interact and meet and share close-knot social ties. Part of the reason is to learn new ideas. Another part is to get feedback and critique. The social group and network will offer support, advice, career and business opportunities and direction. These are people you can lean on when times get tough. There might even be some shared glamour and celebrity, depending on the artists and their group.
Social Interactants typically seek recognition for their efforts and their works. The success of any piece of jewelry depends on the judgements of the various audiences which interact with it. Social interactants allocate a good deal of their time anticipating how others will understand and react to any piece of jewelry. They spend time seeking out opportunities to display their works publicly.
Compulsive Creators
There is this innate, compulsive, don’t-fight-it desire that some jewelry designers have for creating jewelry. Composing, constructing and manipulating design elements is intrinsically rewarding. There is a strong, profound commitment to jewelry design, and this directed energy is often associated with productivity and success.
Compulsive Creators love what they do. It allows them to think creatively. They allocate a lot of their time towards achieving a high level of quality and sophistication.
Lifestyle of Freedom Seekers
These designers like to set their own pace, establish their own routines, work when the spirit moves them. A regular 9 to 5 job is not for them. They like to make their own rules and be self-directive. Any financial insecurity and uncertainty that comes with this is worth the price to pay for a lifestyle of freedom.
These designers believe that this freedom allows them to experience the world around them in a greater depth and to a greater degree. In turn, they have more understandings for how to find and then turn inspirations into finished jewelry designs.
Financial Success Achievers
Successful jewelry designers can do quite well for themselves, but it takes a lot of drive, organization and business and marketing sense. Jewelry design can be a lucrative career with such determination, gaining visibility, and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time.
But many designers primarily look for money to supplement their income or retirement. Some look to make enough money to pay for their supplies.
Sometimes, designers make jewelry to seek wealth, rather than income. They accumulate many pieces of jewelry and many unusual supplies and components to achieve wealth as success.
Financial Success Achievers typically try to create a business around their jewelry.
Happenstance and Chance
Not everyone who becomes a jewelry designer aspired to be one. Sometimes people fall into it. They need a piece of jewelry to match an outfit and decide to make something themselves, then get hooked. They watch someone make jewelry, then get intrigued. They try to repair a broken piece of jewelry by themselves. They accompany a friend to a jewelry making class, then want to try it out.
Many Ambition Types
Aspirations and ambitions vary. There is no best way or right way. It becomes a matter of the designer finding that balance of design, self, and other-life which works for them, and drives their passion.
Jewelry designers were motivated to become designers for many different reasons. But motivations are only a start. These make up only a small part of what it truly takes to be a successful designer. Designers need to develop skills and techniques, creative thinking, design process management, and disciplinary literacy, to continue on their pathway to success.
There are many ways to learn beading and jewelry making.
Rote Memory
Analogously
Contradictions
Assimilation
Constructing Meanings
Most people learn by Rote Memory. They follow a set of steps, and they end up with something. They memorize all the steps. In this approach, all the choices have been made for them. So they never get a chance to learn the implications of their choices. Why one bead over another? Why one stringing material over another? How would you use the same technique in a different situation? You pick up a lot of techniques, but not necessarily many skills.
Other people learn Analogously. They have experiences with other crafts, such as sewing or knitting or other craft, and they draw analogies. Such and Such is similar to Whatnot, so I do Whatnot the same way I do Such and Such. This can work to a point. However, beading and jewelry making can often be much more involved, requiring making many more types of choices, than in other crafts. And there are still the issues of understanding the quality of the pieces you use, and what happens to them, both when jewelry is worn, as well as when jewelry is worn over time.
Yet another way people learn is through Contradictions. They see cheap jewelry and expensive jewelry, and analyze the differences. They see jewelry people are happy with, and jewelry people are not happy with, and analyze the differences. They see fashion jewelry looked down upon by artists, and art jewelry looked down upon by fashionistas, and they analyze the differences.
Assimilation is a learning approach that combines Analogous Learning and Learning Through Contradictions. People pursue more than one craft, keeping one foot in one arena, and another foot in the other. They teach themselves by analogy and contradiction. This assumes that multiple media mix, and mix easily. Often, however, this is not true. Usually one medium has to predominate for any one project to be successful. So assimilative learning can lead to confusion and poor products, trying to meet the special concerns and structures of each craft simultaneously. It is challenging to mix media. Often the fundamentals of each particular craft need to be learned and understood in and of themselves.
The last approach to learning a craft is called Constructing Meanings. In this approach, you learn groups of things, and how to apply an active or thematic label to that grouping. For example, you might learn about beading threads, such as Nymo, C-Lon and FireLine, and, at the same time, learn to evaluate each one’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of Managing Thread Tension or allowing movement, drape and flow. You might learn about crystal beads, Czech glass beads, and lampwork beads, and then, again concurrently and in comparison, learn the pros and cons of each, in terms of achieving good color blending strategies. You might learn peyote stitch and ndebele stitch, and how to combine them within the same project.
The Reality
In reality, you learn a little in each of these different learning styles. The Constructing Meanings approach, what is often referred to as the Art & Design Tradition, usually is associated with more successful and satisfying learning. This approach provides you with the tools for making sense of a whole lot of information — all the information you need to bring to bear to make a successful piece of jewelry, one that is both aesthetically pleasing and optimally functioning.
There are no perfect jewelry making materials for every project. Selecting materials is about making smart, strategic choices. This means relating your materials choices to your design and marketing goals. It also frequently means having to make tradeoffs and judgment calls between aesthetics and functionality. Materials differ in quality and value. They differ in their sensorial effects on people. They differ in how people perceive them. They differ in the associational and emotional connections which they evoke. They differ in their functional efficiency and effectiveness to lend pieces an ability to retain a shape, while at the same time, an ability to move, drape and flow. They differ in cost and durability. Last, materials may have different relationships with the designer, wearer or viewer depending on how they are intended to be used, and the situational or cultural contexts.
JEWELRY MAKING MATERIALS: Knowing What To Know
The materials I use are alive
The world of jewelry design and the materials used can be complex, especially for jewelry designers just starting out in their careers. The novice, but also the more experienced designer, as well, often run up against some terms and properties of materials they have not dealt with before. Materials affect the appeal of the piece. They affect its structural integrity. They affect the cost. They affect how people view, sense, desire and understand the piece.
You Would Be Very Aware Of…
If you want to gain an understanding of materials, you would be very aware of where they come from, how they are described, sold and marketed. You would be very aware of the beads and jewelry findings and stringing materials and tools, their qualities, when they are useful and when they are not, and what happens to them when they age. You would be very aware of what country the material is made or found in, how the material is manufactured, synthesized or gotten at, if it is modified or changed in any way, and how it comes to market. You would be very aware if the product is sold at different levels of quality, even if this is not differentiated on the product’s label. It is also important to be very aware how any of these aspects of the material have changed over time, or might change over time in the future.
You would be very aware that there is no such thing as the perfect material. There are only better materials, given your situation and goals. There is no perfect bead for every situation. No perfect clasp. No perfect stringing material. Every choice you make as a jewelry designer will require some tradeoffs and judgment calls. The more you understand the quality of the materials in the pieces you are working with are made of, and the clearer you are about your design goals, and if you are selling things, your marketing goals, as well, the more prepared you will be to make these kinds of choices.
You would be very aware that materials have different values and life spans, and this must relate to your project goals. You would not want to use metalized plastic beads, for example, in a piece you call an heirloom bracelet. Metalized plastic beads are a metal shell around a milky white plastic bead. The shell will chip easily. On the other hand, when doing fashion jewelry, these very inexpensive beads, and which have a short life-span, would be perfect. Not only are they cheap, but because they are cheap, there are lots and lots of designs and shapes and textures.
If your goal is to create more investment quality pieces, then you would not want to buy lampwork beads which have not been appropriately annealed (that is, if not cooled down correctly, they will fracture and break easily). You would buy appropriately annealed ones, but which are considerably more expensive. This may affect the look of your pieces. For an inexpensive, fashion oriented piece, your necklace made up entirely of lampwork beads which have not been appropriately annealed might be very affordable. It would have that great handmade, artisan look. It might sell for only $60.00. With more investment quality lampwork beads, however, you might just use one, or perhaps three lampwork beads, and have a lot of cord showing, or a lot of filler beads, to keep the piece affordable. This would be a very different design look and style. If the necklace was made up of all quality lampwork beads, — to have the same look and style as its inexpensive cousin — it might have to retail for $600–800.00.
Again, for an investment quality piece, you would want to use crystal beads manufactured in Austria or the Czech Republic, and not ones manufactured elsewhere. And you would not let yourself be fooled when the front of the package says “Austrian Crystal” when the back says “Made In China”. Crystal beads made in China are not as bright, there are more production issues and flaws in the beads, and the holes are often drilled off-center when compared to their “Made In Austria” counterparts. But crystal beads more appropriate for that investment quality piece might be overkill for a fashion piece where you want to add a pop of brightness without a lot of additional cost.
You would want to be very aware of the treatments of beads and metals. Some things are radiated, heated, reconstituted, partly synthesized, lacquered or dyed. Sometimes this is a good thing and these treatments enhance the quality of materials in appearance and durability. Othertimes this is a bad thing, negatively affecting the quality of materials.
You would be very aware that many of the materials you use are described in ways that do not provide you with sufficient information to make a choice. Take the material gold-filled. The definition of gold-filled is that the material is a measurable layer of real gold fused to brass, sometimes copper. But the legal definition does not tell you how thick the gold has to be over the brass for the material to be called gold-filled. So in the market, some gold-filled has very little gold and will lose its gold very quickly, and other gold-filled has a thicker layer and will keep its gold, its shine and its shape for decades.
Or sterling silver. Sterling silver is supposed to be 92.5% silver (marked .925). The alloy, that is the remaining 7.5%, is supposed to contain, by law, a lot of copper. However, many manufacturers substitute some nickel for the copper to keep the cost down. This makes the sterling silver less expensive, yes, but it also makes it more brittle. It is the difference between being able to open and close the loop on an ear wire, off of which to hang the dangle, many, many times or only two or three times before the wire loop breaks.
Lots of sterling silver items get marked .925. And in jewelry making, many of the pieces we use are so small, there is no .925 stamp on them. Besides a change of what is in the alloy affecting the usefulness and value, many other things happen in the marketplace, as well. Many sterling silver items have been cast. What frequently happens is that some of the silver is lost in the casting process, so it is no longer at 92.5%. Manufacturers are supposed to make note of this, but many just stamp .925 on these items. Some shops label items as sterling silver, but in reality, are selling you pieces that are nickel. And some places will sell you something silver plated, and put sterling silver .925 tag which is marked .925 on it off the clasp. The tag is sterling; the jewelry is not. I’ve seen some major craft stores and some major jewelry stores sell metalized plastic jewelry and jewelry components and label it .925.
Flexible, nylon coated cable wires are one of the primary types of stringing materials. The measure of cable wire strength is called tensile strength. This has to do with what the wires are made of, what the nylon sheathing is made of, and how thick that nylon sheathing is. What makes the wire strong is the nylon sheathing’s ability to maintain the twist in the wire. As soon as the integrity of the nylon sheathing is violated, the wire untwists and immediately breaks. You will not see tensile strength referenced on the labels of these products. The information that is referenced (number of strands, wire thickness) gives you some information needed to make a choice, but insufficient to make an actual choice. Even when they list the number of strands, this doesn’t give you enough factual information to depend on. One brand’s high-end, 7-strand is stronger and more supple than that same brand’s 49-strand middle range product. This same brand’s middle range 49-strand product is stronger and more supple than another brand’s high end 49-strand product.
You would also be very aware that you cannot assume that there is consistency and uniformity for any given product. There are many production issues that arise in the manufacture of glass beads, for example. Some beads are perfect. Some have flaws. These flaws might include some flat surfaces when everything should be rounded. The color not going all the way through. Holes drilled off-centered. Bead sizes and hole sizes inconsistent from bead to bead. Some bead holes that are especially sharp. Some beads which have coated coloration which is poorly applied and chips off quickly. In clothing, these beads with flaws would be labeled irregulars, but they are not so labeled in beads. Some companies specialize in selling you perfect manufactured glass beads; other companies specialize in selling you the irregulars. They don’t advertise that fact. Either quality looks the same when you buy it; they just don’t hold up the same in close examination or from wear.
You would be aware that fabricated and stamped metal pieces are more durable than cast metal pieces, but a lot more expensive, and with a smaller palette of designs for the artist. You would be aware that the measure of pound strength on any label is the weakest piece of information to grab onto. The law only defines how pound strength should be measured. Since most products are manufactured abroad, little care is taken to guarantee the validity of this information.
You would be aware that there are a lot of things to know about the materials used in jewelry design.
It Is All About Choices
Materials play a significant role in jewelry design. You need to relate and justify the choices you make about selecting and using materials to your design goals (and your marketing goals, as well). Sometimes your choices are preformulated and planned; othertimes, these choices are spontaneous and emerge within your process of design. But these are all choices to be made, with inevitable impacts and consequences.
It is through the characteristics and qualities of the materials that the designer comes to keenly and fully appreciate values, intents, desires, and understandings associated with any design.
It is also through the most effective presentation specific to the materials that the designer experiences the piece to its best advantage and potential. The effectiveness results from the designer’s ability to maximize the strengths of each material, while minimizing its weaknesses. This is called leveraging.
It is a useful exercise, as well, to attempt to simplify the materials and reflect upon whether the piece feels more satisfying and successful, or less so. One key goal of any designer is to reach a point of parsimony where enough is enough.
Appreciation of materials, their selection, use and arrangement lead the designer to see, feel, think and listen to the visual poetry laid out before them. Jewelry is more than functional adornment. It resonates. Materials contribute to this. This appreciation allows the artist to share inspiration and intent with other audiences, the wearer and viewer included. The materials influence the artist in discovery, expression, invention, re-invention, and originality. They become part of the human experience in jewelry design.
For example, you might be in a situation having decide whether to purchase an $80.00 strand of 6mm round garnet beads, or a $28.00 strand of these same beads.
In that $80.00 strand, all the beads actually measure 6mm. They are all perfectly round. The holes are drilled well, and drilled through the center. There are no chips at the hole. There is good coloration, and the coloration from bead to bead is very consistent.
In that $28.00 strand, none of the beads measure 6mm. They are a bit smaller, perhaps 5.5mm. The beads from bead to bead on the strand are not consistent. Sizes are approximate, not exact. Several beads on the strand are not perfectly round. Some have flat surfaces on them. There are many chips at the hole, suggesting that they are not drilled well. Some are drilled off-center. The coloration is good from afar, but a close exam reveals that some beads are less desirable than others.
This situation doesn’t present an easy choice, however. If you are making fashion jewelry, the less expensive strand might be the best choice. Fashion jewelry is not worn for a long time. It is not an investment. It is a look. These beads are less expensive. In this context, the flaws, in this case, may not be so much as a flaw, as more a variation. The variations might enhance the fashion piece, adding a sense of fun, surprise and funkiness. The poorly drilled holes might mean that these beads will crack and break from wear, but given that fashion jewelry is not worn for a long time, this is a non-issue.
If you are making a more investment quality piece, the more expensive garnet beads might be the better choice. They have more value, resulting from the higher quality. The consistency in quality results in a more classic, timeless look. These beads will last a long time. Here, the inconsistencies in the less expensive strand of beads definitely would be viewed as flaws, not variations.
Types of Materials
One of the most fundamental and practical aspects of jewelry design is the importance of the materials. The choices jewelry designers make when selecting materials influence the form, content and movement of their pieces. Every material brings something special to the creative process and the finished jewelry pieces. The material influences, not only the designer, but the wearer and viewer themselves, how they perceive it, the values they place on it, and the extent they desire it.
The types of materials jewelry designers might choose are only limited by the imagination of the designer, and that designer’s budget. I have compiled a short listing of the more prevalent materials used in jewelry design. I distinguish those materials called
– Stringing Materials –
which are used to form the canvas of our jewelry,
from those materials called
– Aesthetic Materials –
which form the primary visual vocabulary and expressiveness of the piece, but also may contribute some functionality,
from those materials called
– Functional Materials –
which solely or primarily have practical value, but only sometimes, most likely inadvertently, add to the aesthetic expression of the piece.
STRINGING MATERIALS (The Canvas)
The canvas is the part of the piece of jewelry onto which things are placed. The canvas is usually some kind of stringing material, and the things placed on it typically are beads and charms. The canvas supports the piece, its shaping and its silhouette. It may or may not be visible in the piece. But the canvas can be anything, including fabric and ribbon, wire mesh, chains, and the like. It can be like a string, or it can be like a flat sheet.
The designer selects the canvas or stringing material based on a vision of the structure of the piece, including both its supportive requirements as well as its appearance-related qualities. The particular selection will also impact the durability of the structure. Sometimes the selection of canvas takes on a symbolic meaning, such as using hemp in friendship bracelets or antiwar jewelry, or using leather in biker jewelry.
(1)Beading thread: Typically shaped like a typewriter ribbon, made from bonded nylon. It is something we wax before using it. Materials are strung onto thread using a beading needle. The thread is attached to the clasp assembly by tying knots. Glue should never be applied to these knots. If the beading thread is twisted, rather than bonded, it will break very easily.
Structure: Piece is very supple and moves, drapes and flows very easily. Provides little resistance to the weight of materials placed on it
Durability: Very durable when waxed, unless the holes of beads are very sharp
(2) Cable thread: This is a material where threads are braided together and encased in a nylon sheathing. Used similarly as beading thread. You use a needle. Waxing is optional, but strongly suggested. You tie knots to the clasp assembly. Glue should never be applied to these knots. Cable thread sold in bead stores is non-biodegradable. That sold in fishing stores or fishing departments is biodegradable.
Structure: Piece is very supple and moves, drapes and flows easily, but not as easily as with beading thread.
Durability: Very durable, but the nylon sheathing can be compromised easily from body oils, perfume oils, and cosmetics. Waxing will protect the nylon sheathing.
(3) Bead cord, hemp, knotting cord: This is a material where threads or fibers are braided or twisted together so that they look pretty. This cord is used when you want the stringing material to show, such as putting knots between beads, or where you have a cluster of beads, then the cord showing, another cluster of beads, the cord showing, and so forth. You use this material to macramé, knot, braid, knit, and crochet. You do not wax this material. That would make it look ugly. The primary purpose is to make your piece look attractive when the stringing material is to show. Bead cord may be nylon or silk. You use silk with real pearls, but, I suggest using the nylon with other materials. You will need a needle, usually a collapsible eye or big eye needle. You tie knots to secure the cord to a clasp assembly. You minimize the use of glue applied to knots, but you usually need to apply glue to the final knot.
Structure: Piece is a little stiffer than with bead thread or cable thread, but still feels supple. Will drape well, but respond imperfectly to the movement of the body.
Durability: Silk naturally deteriorates in 3–5 years; nylon does not. Bead cord made from other natural materials will also deteriorate over a relatively short period of time.
(4) Cable Wires: This flexible stringing material consists of wires braided together and encased in nylon. The strength comes from the ability of the nylon sheathing to keep the twist in the wires. If the nylon sheathing is compromised in any way, the wires will immediately untwist and the cable will break at that point. The wire is stiff enough to be its own needle. You use crimp beads to secure the cable wire to a clasp assembly because it is more difficult to tie a secure knot with the cable wire. A crushed crimp adds a more pleasing appearance than tying a knot, but it adds risk. A crushed crimp is like razor blade, always trying to saw right through the cable when the jewelry is worn.
Structure: Piece will be stiff, and never take the shape of the body. Piece will typically rotate in the opposite direction from the movement of the body or arm it rests on.
Durability: Very durable. The nylon sheathing can be compromised easily from body oils, perfume oils, and cosmetics. Usually crimp beads are used to secure the clasp, and these increase the risk the cable will break at the crimp, when compared to the durability of tying a knot.
(5) Stretchy Cords, like elastic string, gossamer floss, elastic cord: These materials are not particularly durable and lose their elasticity over time. People like these because they hate clasps, and you don’t use clasps with these. You secure these by tying knots, and putting glue (any glue except superglue) on the knots. Be sure to coat the bottom of the knot, as well as the top of the knot. Elastic cord is fabric covered around an elastic thong or floss.
Structure: Piece will stretch and return back to its original shape and size.
Durability: Material deteriorates and loses both its integrity as well as its memory over time, especially if left exposed to the air, or worn frequently. The round elastic string is the most durable among the stretchy cords. The floss is the least durable.
(6) Thicker cords like leather, waxed cotton, ultra suede lace, rubber thong, and rat tail (satin cord): These cords are stiff enough to be their own needle. You usually need special jewelry findings, such as crimp ends, end caps, or cones with larger interior openings, to prepare the ends of the thicker cord, so that you can attach a clasp assembly. Some are glued on; some crimped.
Structure: Similar to bead cord, but little stiffer.
Durability: Some cords, like leather, dry out over time and crack. Other cords, like waxed cotton and ultra suede, last a very long time. The rat tail tends to shred.
(7) Hard Wire: Hard wire is not a stringing wire, per se. You can use it to make a chain or bead-chain. You can use it to make shapes, like clasps and ear wires. You can bundle it so that it might be stiff enough to retain the shape of a bracelet or cuff. You can weave it or knit it to create patterns and textures. You create loops and rings to attach hard wire to a clasp assembly.
Structure: Wire stiffness comes as dead soft, half hard and hard. You determine, given how much manipulation of the wire you plan on doing, how stiff you want the wire to be when you begin your project, so that it will hold and retain its shape. Each time you manipulate the wire, it becomes stiffer and stiffer and stiffer, until it becomes brittle and breaks.
Durability: Very durable. Wire 18 gauge or thicker has little risk of losing its shape, distorting, breaking, opening up or pulling apart. As you get thinner, the risk increases dramatically. Dead soft wire requires a lot more manipulation until it can hold its shape, than half hard or hard hard wire.
(8) Chain:Wire is bent into links of various shapes and sizes, and these are interlinked together into a chain. Sometimes the links are soldered closed. Usually they are not. You can string things onto the chain. You can use the chain as part of the clasp assembly, often to make the size adjustable. You can use the chain as a design element throughout your piece.
Structure: Thinner chains will be less able to keep their shape.
Durability: Chains can be very durable, particularly ones that have soldered links, wider links, and/or links created from thicker gauge wires.
(9) Ribbon, fabric:These wider cords are sometimes used as a stringing material. They are secured at each end with ribbon or bar clamps, which then form either side of your clasp assembly.
Structure: Usually, these don’t by themselves support a shape.
Durability: More aesthetic than functional
(10) Lacy’s Stiff Stuff, Stiff Felt, Ultra suede sheet, Paper, Card Board, Poster Board, Rolled Out Polymer or Metal Clay, Brass Cuff Blank:The canvas or stringing material does not have to be a narrow cord. It can be a wide, flat surface, off of which to bead, glue, stitch, embroider, carve, or sculpt. This type of canvas needs to have some amount of stiffness to hold a shape, but not too much that the jewelry made with it feels uncomfortable, or does not move naturally with the person.
Structure: If you were creating a pendant, you might want your canvas o be a little stiffer than if you were creating a bracelet.
Durability: Average durability
(11) Fused Glass:Sometimes the flat canvas is a piece of glass. Other pieces of glass are fused onto this, using a kiln, in order to create a pattern or image.
Structure: Rigid shape.
Durability: Same as any other piece of glass.
(12) Metal Sheet and Wire:Sometimes we fabricate a piece of jewelry, either using soldering, stamping, molding, casting, 3-D printing, or cold connections. Part of the sheet and/or wire becomes our canvas or stringing material.
Structure: These are very reliable materials for creating and maintaining shapes.
Durability: Soldered and stamped pieces are much more durable than molded or cast ones. 3-D printed materials would be used with casting. Cold connections could be used with any technique.
AESTHETIC MATERIALS
The canvas either passes through various aesthetic materials, or these are applied to the canvas or attached off the canvas in some way. These aesthetic materials are used for the yoke, the clasp assembly, the frame, the focal point, the center piece, the strap, and the bail.
Aesthetic Materials are expressive. They are part of the visual vocabulary and grammar of the jewelry. While some play functional roles, as well, they are usually selected for their expressive powers. Some materials evoke sensory or symbolic responses, as well. A touch, a feel, a color sense, sometimes a smell, which extends beyond its factual elements.
Any type of material can be selected to use as an aesthetic material. It can be something very specific, or a found object, or some kind of combobulation of things.
Aesthetic Materials we see often include,
Glass, Fused glass, lampwork glass, blown glass
Metals and Plated Metals
Fibers
Natural (gemstones, wood, bone, horn)
Synthetic (plastic)
Polymer and Precious Metal Clay
Ceramic, Porcelain, Clay, Raku
Paper, lacquered paper
Oxidizers, Patinas, Paints, Fabric Dyes and Paints, Stains, Metal Paints and Rouges
Platings, Coatings
Enameling
These aesthetic materials can be selected for their qualities of
(a) Appeal
(b) Functionality
c) Sensations or symbolism extending beyond the physical and decorative bases underlying these materials
Aesthetic Materials: Appeal
The idea of appeal is a broad concept. It is sometimes universal. But often subjective.
There are many variables underlying the ideas of appeal and beauty. These include things like,
Some materials function better than others in certain situations. For example, sterling silver is very malleable, nickel is more brittle. Bending, shaping, coiling, weaving sterling silver requires much less effort, and with this, can lead to more artistic and design success, than using nickel or other wire material that is stiffer and harder than sterling.
Another example: Using needle and thread as your stringing material is very time consuming. It is awkward using needle and thread. You have to wax it. You want to pass through each bead a minimum of three times. Using a cable wire, instead, lets you go much faster. The cable wire is a self needle. You don’t wax it. You only have to go through each bead once. If you are selling your pieces, it is virtually impossible to get your labor out of a needle and thread project. You almost have to use a cable wire, if you don’t want to commit yourself to a life of slave labor.
Aesthetic Materials: Sensations and Symbolism
Materials have sensory and symbolic powers which extend beyond the materials themselves. Obviously, this can be very subjective. It might have psychological roots, sociological roots and/or cultural roots.
Things may feel warm, cold, soft, rough, oily, weighty. Things may represent romance, power, membership, religiosity, status.
Vanderbilt University’s colors are gold and black, so using those colors in the Nashville, TN area might evoke a different emotional response than when used elsewhere. And here’s that very-difficult-to-design-with University of Tennessee orange, again, in the Nashville area will evoke a very different response than elsewhere.
Materials like amber and bone and crystal are things people like to touch, not just look at. The sensation extends beyond the visual grammar.
FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
These materials are used in practical terms. They help things hold together. They help pieces stay in place. They help make pieces adjustable in size. They help polish, finish things off, assist materials through stages in their processing and development. They may be used to prevent or retard a change in color, such as a lacquer finish or rhodium plating over sterling to prevent tarnishing. They help capture a form or shape. They are not a part of the visual and expressive vocabulary and grammar of the piece. Nor are they any kind of canvas.
Functional Materials which are more prominent include,
·Adhesives
·Solders
·Pickling, Flux
·Molding compounds
·Bead release
·Fixatives (like Krylon, lacquering, special platings, waxes, other things which create a protective barrier over something else).
It is especially important to know a lot about adhesives. Many people reach for a tube of Superglue for everything. Superglue has few uses in jewelry design. This glue dries like glass, so the bond is like a piece of glass. When the jewelry moves, the bond shatters like glass, and the bond looks like a broken piece of glass. All jewelry moves when worn, so not a good choice.
Another glue many people reach for is hot glue. This glue melts at body temperature, so not a wise choice for necklaces, bracelets and pendants.
The best glue to use is jeweler’s glue. Two brands are E6000 and Beacon 527. Basically the same glue, but the former is thick and the latter is runny. These glues take 10 minutes to set, so you can move things around for 10 minutes. At about 20 minutes, the consistency is like rubber cement and you can use your finger or a tweezers to take off any excess glue. Both glues take 24 hours to dry hard. They dry clear and remain clear over time. The bond does not expand.
If using fabric, particularly silk (ribbon, bead cord, thread), you want to use a cement, rather than a glue. Glues work by forming a collar around an object, then tighten up as the water or other solvent evaporates. Cements work by adhering to each individual fiber. Glue on fabric, as opposed to cement, will lose its grip, so to speak. With silk, I suggest either G-S Hypo Fabric Cement, or any fabric glue.
Before using a glue, you want to know the characteristics of the bond, once dried. These include things like,
– hardness
– whether dries clear, or yellows
– whether yellows with age
– whether it expands or not when it dries
– what materials it is most useful for
– whether you have to prepare the material’s surface before using
– how long it takes to fully set
– how easy it is to wipe away and remove any excess glue
– whether where-ever you purchase the particular brand of glue, such as at a craft store or discount store or bead store, that this brand of glue is the same quality product
– how long the glue will last in its container before hardening or drying out
Mechanical properties describe how a material reacts to an applied force. These include,
Strength: It’s ability not to break under stress or strain
Hardness: How easily it can be scratched, faceted, carved, sculpted, cut, sand blasted
Elasticity: The ability to regain its shape after a stress has been applied to it
Plasticity and Malleability: How much force it takes to make a material permanently deform without breaking
Stiffness and Brittleness: At some point, these materials will be so brittle, they will not bend, and will just break in response to force. Wire materials, for example, get stiffer and more brittle, the more they are worked, such as from twisting, pulling, hammering, coiling and the like. Crystal is much more brittle than glass, so it more likely to break from movement or other force.
Fatigue: When the material fails, after repeated wear and use
Impact Strength: how much a material can withstand an impact
Abrasion Resistance: When two materials rub against each other, what is the resistance before one or both break
Creep: the slow movement of a material over time
Physical Properties
Physical properties describe the inherent nature of the material. Some more important ones related to materials used in jewelry include:
Density: mass and volume
Porosity: the quality of being full of tiny holes; these might hold in something, like a perfume oil, or that something might easily leach out through washing or sweating, like a dye or lead
Water: absorption, permeability and solubility
Softening and Compression: how material holds up under different conditions
Resistance to Heat and Fire
Resistance to Cold
Resistance to a number of cycles of sharp temperature variations without failing
Changing form from solid to liquid to gas
Chemical Properties
Chemical properties refer to how well the material holds up when exposed to chemicals. These chemicals may be in the air. They may be present in cosmetics, perfumes or hair sprays. They may be present in a person’s sweat. These include,
-Corrosion
· Melting, Dissolving, Removing
·Etching
·Colorizing, Oxidizing, Patinas
· Platings
· Bonding, Adherring
· Biodegrading
We have looked at types of materials and their properties. Now we need to understand how materials help establish the viability, finish and success of jewelry. Here, our materials selection process begins to incorporate some value judgments.
Materials Help Establish the Viability, Finish and Success of The Jewelry
Jewelry has character and personality. People intuitively or consciously recognize when it is finished, that is, when the addition or subtraction of any one design element would make the piece seem less satisfying or desirable. Jewelry is judged as successful, to the extent it can maintain its shape while concurrently feeling comfortable, and moving, draping and flowing with the person, as the person wears the jewelry and moves with it on.
Every piece of jewelry has its artistic and individual character due to the many facets from which it is constructed. Stringing, Aesthetic and Functional Materials are three of these facets. Mechanical, Physical and Chemical Properties add some additional facets. These among other additional material choices determine both what can be made, as well as the character of what is made.
Material selection in jewelry design is not only about choosing the most attractive, or most obvious, or most affordable, or most durable materials available. Designers also choose materials for their sensual sensations, like warmth, their formal appearance, like classical, their functional practicality, like a clamp, or their geo-locality, like using materials found locally.
The material selection process is complex. It is influenced by many preconditions, choices made, and considerations to accommodate. Too often, however, designers focus mainly on the visual aspects of the materials, and not enough on other factors. In order to make well-considered and smart choices about materials, jewelry designers need a lot more information. They need information about the entirety of the material, as created or constructed, as visually impactful, as functionally helpful, as perceptually and cognitively understood and as symbolically relevant for designer, wearer and viewer.
Stringing, Aesthetic, and sometimes, Functional Materials, coupled with their various Mechanical, Physical and Chemical properties, help to:
(1)Establish a relationship between visual quality and structural stability (physical properties, shape, silhouette)
(2)Establish a relationship between visual quality and support or jointedness (movement, drape and flow)
(3)Influence the selection of the appropriate technique
(4)Provide character and visual appeal
(5)Reflect the time, era, and socio-cultural context and historical value of the piece
(6)Mix aesthetic elements with functional ones
(7)Highlight a theme or concept expressed in the design
(8)Link the piece to a particular geography or location
(9)Link the piece to its appropriate placement on the body
(10) Determine the budget for the piece
(11) Establish the relationship between quantity and quality, that is, how many similar pieces can be made
(12) Best combine the materialistic qualities with the non-materialistic qualities of the project
(1) Establish a relationship between visual quality and structural stability (physical properties, shape, silhouette)
Jewelry making materials signify structural significance. This may relate to the physical properties of the materials, such as hardness, brittleness, softness, pliability, porousness, and this list can go on and on. This may relate to the shapes of the materials, and the placement and interaction of the shapes within the piece, or the final silhouette. The same may be said for size, weight and volume. This may relate to the stability of the material or its color or finish over time.
The choices and arrangement of materials within a piece of jewelry determines its structure. Structure means shape and material integrity. Shape in jewelry may refer to the silhouette of the piece as a whole, or to individual shapes which occupy one or more sections of our finished piece of jewelry. It may refer to the positioning of positive and negatives areas within the piece. When we refer to structure and shape and material, we imply structural integrity, and the degree we are able to maintain any shape, color or finish while the jewelry is worn over some period of time.
Example 1: We may create a bracelet using Austrian crystal beads strung on a beading thread. We achieve a high visual quality, at least initially. But these beads will cut through the threads when the bracelet is worn, thus ending with a very low structural stability.
Example 2: Sometimes a clam-shell bead tip is used to finish off each end of bead cord, when that is the stringing material. The bead cord, at its end, is tied into a knot, which sits inside the clam-shell, the cord coming out a hole in the bottom of the clam shell. We do not want the knot to work itself loose and slip through the hole. So we glue it. If we use a jeweler’s glue, like E6000 or Beacon 527, these glues dry like rubber. With these glues, the knot can actually contort and work itself through the hole. If we use a glue like Superglue or G-S Hypo Cement, the knot will remain stiff and not be able to slip through the hole. However, the stiff knot reduces what is called support. It reduces the piece’s jointedness, or ability to respond to stress and strain, thus an ability to best move, drape and flow. An alternative to glue is to thread an 11/0 seed bead, passing through the bead twice, before bringing the cord through the hole. This is secure. No glue is used as all. Full support is preserved.
Example 3: How long a metal plated finish lasts depends partly on the metal underneath it, and if it bonds to that metal. Metal plating bonds well to brass, so it lasts a long time before it fades away. Metal plating does not bond at all to aluminum, so it quickly chips off.
(2)Establish a relationship between visual quality and support or jointedness (movement, drape and flow)
Jewelry making materials enhance or impede support or jointedness. The selection and placement of materials, their density, weight, shape, and the like may enable the jewelry to take the shape of the body and move with the body, or not.
Things strung on beading thread will always take the shape of the body and move with the body; things strung on cable wire will not. But the designer has at their disposal several jewelry design tricks in construction which will make the cable wire function closer to needle and thread.
Example 1: A bracelet made up of very large beads, that when encircling the wrist, create a very stiff circle, with much strain and stress on each bead, on the stringing material and on the clasp assembly. If the designer reworks the piece, to include small round spacer beads between each very large bead, the designer, in effect, has added what is called a rotator support system. Each very large bead can freely respond to stresses and strain which result from adjusting to the body and its movement by rotating and pivoting around the spacer bead.
Example 2: People usually pick a clasp after they have designed their piece. They look for something that will make do, perhaps easier to get on and off, and hopefully have some match to the piece. A clasp, however, should be understood as more than a clasp. It should be understood as a clasp assembly, which is a type of support system. S-clasps are very attractive and a S-clasp design can always be found that feels an organic extension of the jewelry. An S-clasp needs a soldered ring off of each arm, and, if stringing on cable wire, a loop in the wire where it connects to the soldered ring. The crimp is never pushed all the way up to the clasp or ring. Each ring or loop is a support system, so our S-clasp needs 4 support systems in this case, to function correctly. With 4 supports on the S-clasp in a necklace, the clasp will always remain on the back of the neck, no matter how the person moves. Without 4 supports, it will not, and the necklace will keep turning around.
(3)Influence the selection of the appropriate technique
The designer must coordinate the selection of Stringing, Aesthetic and Functional Materials, and their inherent Mechanical, Physical and Chemical properties, so that they work in harmony with a particular technique used to assemble, weave, or otherwise secure them together in a finished piece of jewelry.
Conversely, the technique might dictate which materials will work best, and which will not. Bead weaving works with thread or cable thread, but not as easily with elastic string or cable wire.
There was a time when the materials used in any one piece were restricted to a few. Today any material can be used, as well as any combination of materials, without losing any appeal or value or desire.
Examples: A Czech glass bead with a hole size of .8mm would not slip a leather cord with a diameter of 1.5mm. It would be very difficult to create a loomed piece with beads of widely varying sizes. If mixing metals (say, silver, gold and brass) in a fabricated and soldered bracelet, care must be taken in the soldering strategy because each metal melts at a different temperature. You could not begin a wire weaving project using hard hard-wire. We may select cable wire for our canvas. This would not be a suitable stringing material if the technique we wanted to apply was bead weaving.
(4)Provide character and visual appeal
The surface of a material has many characteristics which the jewelry designer leverages within the finished piece. Light might reflect off this surface, such as with opaque glass or shiny metal. Light might be brought into and below the surface before reflected back, such as with many gemstones and opalescent glass. Light might refract through the piece at different angles, even creating a prism effect.
The surface might be a solid color. It might be a mix of colors. It might be matte. It may have inclusions or markings. It may have fired on coloration effects. There may be tonal differences. There may be pattern or textural differences. It may have movement. It may have depth.
Example: It is often difficult to mix gemstone beads with glass beads. However, if you use glass beads which have a translucent quality to them, this glass mimics the relationship of light reflecting back to the eye with that of the gemstones. The finished piece will feel harmonious.
(5)Reflect the time, era, and socio-cultural context and historical value of the piece
Jewelry and its design and materials used can be iconic.
Jewelry can relate the symbolic value of the piece to certain historical themes and ideas, or to specific functions.
Jewelry can be used to preserve, conserve or restore certain cultural or historical values. The material(s) selected may glorify these. Their availability may be closely tied to the time and place. Their use within a piece may be socially subscribed.
Our understanding of how jewelry relates to these contexts can be used to document how jewelry and its design has evolved and spread.
Name an historical period, and you can visualize many of the materials used and design sense. Roman. Victorian. Prehistoric. Modern.
Name a socio-cultural context. Religious. Wedding. Military. American Southwest. Any rite of passage.
Example 1: Pearl knotted jewelry is very strongly associated with silk bead cord, pearl clasps, and bead tips. It is also very associated with Victorian jewelry. It would be difficult to substitute other materials and pieces, such as a different kind of clasp, or not knotting between beads, without the piece losing its appeal.
Example 2: A rosary is made as a bead chain, with a certain number of beads, often a certain size and material of bead, with a Y-shaped connector at its center. The rosary assists the wearer in prayer and religiosity. It’s specific design and use of materials differentiates Catholicism from other religions.
(6)Mix aesthetic elements with functional ones
Jewelry is art only as it is worn. Its aesthetic elements must tightly coordinate with its functional ones, if the piece is to maintain its shape and silhouette, and move with the person, without distorting, feeling uncomfortable or breaking. Thus, its quality and durability are dependent upon how the designer successfully maneuvers the tradeoffs required between function and appeal. A good part of this success stems from how materials are selected, combined and arranged.
Jewelry and its design preserve the aesthetic qualities, without disrupting and losing focus of the practical ones.
Example: The clasp assembly on a piece of jewelry can be very organic, feeling an integral part of the piece. Or it can be very disruptive and annoying, as if it were a last choice and consideration, and the designer found a clasp that would make do. For an S-clasp to function appropriately, it needs at least one soldered ring off of the arm on each side of the clasp. This will force the clasp assembly to take up more space and volume in the piece. This too might end up detracting from the overall appeal of the piece.
(7)Highlight a theme or concept expressed in the design
Materials may be selected, combined and arranged into forms and themes so that they represent larger meanings and concepts. Often this comes down to color, shape, placement, and arrangement. The materials bring out the theme or concept in the design.
Example: You create a piece of jewelry with a blue color scheme, using 4 shades of blue. If the piece is to be worn, say, going clubbing in the evening, you might select 4 shades of blue (metallic blue iris, montana blue, blue quartz, cornflower) which vary in intensity. That means, varying how bright or dull they are by selecting tones with more or less underlying black, gray or white. If the piece is to be worn, say, at work during the day, you might select 4 shades of blue (cobalt, sapphire, light sapphire, ultralight sapphire) which vary in value. That means, varying how light or dark they are by selecting tones that are basically the same, but some are lighter or darker than others.
(8)Link the piece to a particular geography or location
Materials may be strongly associated with a particular geography or location. Lapis is strongly associated with Afghanistan. Paint Rock with Tennessee.
Example: A necklace by a Tennessee designer made entirely with lampwork beads made by Tennessee artisans.
(9)Link the piece to its appropriate placement on the body
Jewelry can only be judged successful at the boundary between jewelry and the body. It must be able to conform to the body’s shape. It must be able to comfortably move, drape and flow as the person moves and shifts positions.
Materials selection might begin with what materials would be most appropriate for a given type of jewelry. Or it might begin with what materials would be most appropriate for a certain body shape or size or placement.
Example: Very heavy beads used in earrings can make them uncomfortable. Creating a 4” earring dangle on a 4” head pin is not quite as a good a strategy as making a 4” earring dangle chain using eye pins. Think about what happens to the former vs. the latter when the wearer bends her head, then returns to the upright position.
(10) Determine the budget for the piece
The total expenditure incurred while designing a piece of jewelry might be, to a large extent, determined by the materials used. A designer often selects the material type based on a budget for the project. [Techniques can also have a big impact on the cost, particularly when accounting for the time it takes to design and construct a piece of jewelry.]
Example: A necklace made entirely of lapis lazuli beads might retail for $150.00. A similar necklace made entirely of lapis color glass beads might retail for $25.00. Both would look similar and take the same time to make.
(11) Establish the relationship between quantity and quality, that is, how many similar pieces can be made
The choice of materials affects the quality of the elements. Within a given project budget, and within a particular design goal, the quality of the materials may limit the number of similar pieces to be made, or the complexity or elaborateness of the design of any one piece.
Example: A stretchy bracelet made with lava beads might retail for $15.00. The materials — elastic string, lava beads, glue — are readily available and inexpensive. The designer could easily make 50 of these to sell, and stay within a reasonable budget. Change the materials to cable wire, crimp bead, horseshoe wire protector, crimp cover, black onyx beads, toggle clasp, and the investment in parts is considerably more. We have more materials and more expensive materials. This bracelet might have to retail for $45.00. Staying within the same budget framework, the designer would only be able to make 16 of these.
(12)Best combine the materialistic qualities with the non-materialistic qualities of the project
Every material has two over-arching qualities. The obvious is its physical properties and physicality. Let’s call this materialistic. It is something that is measurable. In the realm of the mystic, it is ordinary or profane.
But the material also has qualities that extend beyond this. They can be sensory. They can be symbolic. They can be psychological. They can be contextual. Let’s call this non-materialistic. It is something that is non-measurable. In the realm of the mystic, it is extraordinary and sacred.
Both properties must be considered when designing a piece of jewelry. They have equal importance, when selecting, placing and arranging materials and design elements within a piece.
Example: Take a Chakra bracelet strung on cable wire with a clasp. The beads used are gemstones. Each gemstone has spiritual and healing properties. Each gemstone has a coloration, and each different coloration, too, is associated with certain spiritual and healing properties. Moreover, every individual has their own unique needs for which set of gemstones and which assortment of colorations are best and most appropriate. This can get even more complicated in that each situation and context may have its own requirements. The person may end up needing several Chakra bracelets for different occasions. The designer could have used glass or acrylic beads, instead, which have less non-materialistic value, and might be less durable over time. The designer could have strung the beads on elastic string without using a clasp, again, less non-materialistic value and durability.
LESSONS LEARNED
Selecting materials involves a complicated set of choices, some tangible, some intangible, some personal, some in anticipation of the perceptions of others.
Some lessons learned…
1.You can use any material you want when designing jewelry
2.Material selection is a complicated decision making process
3.No material is perfect for every project
4.Don’t assume you know what you know
5.Be skeptical
6.Always ask questions
7.Select materials on both their aesthetic as well as functional properties
8.Don’t sacrifice functionality for aesthetics
9.Anticipate what might happen to your materials over time as the jewelry is worn
10.Anticipate how your various audiences will respond to your selections of materials
11.Work within a budget
12.Match the quality of material to your design (and marketing) goals
_______________________________
FOOTNOTES
(1) WASTIELS, Lisa and WOUTERS, Ine. Material Considerations in Architectural Design: A Study of the Aspects Identified by Architects for Selecting Materials. July, 2008.
Kathleen was one of our bead-weaving instructors at the shop. Her primary sources of inspiration came from nature. I wrote this marketing intro for her jewelry making business she did on the side:
Intuitive. Inspired by Nature and the world around me. Translating feelings and senses and vague images into beautiful jewelry, wonderful beadwork, exciting wearable pieces of art. Beyond following step by step. We’re on the edge and we’re high strung about it.
Kathleen wrote:
Nature inspires all great art, including bead weaving.
Flowers, leaves, vines, and butterflies, (to name a few), are fairly common examples of attempts by bead weavers to transform nature into beadwork. Some are spectacular, like Diane Fitzgerald’s “Ginkgo Leaves.”
Along with other design elements, the color of your beads and the size of your beads and the materials of your beads play major roles in how successful your piece turns out. I have told my students that a solid foundation in the stitches, like we teach at our Stitch of the Month at The Center For Beadwork and Jewelry Arts / Be Dazzled Beads, will allow them the freedom to choose the best stitch for the project. This is particularly true when designing your own piece.
The following is an example of how I was inspired by nature and the resulting Poke Berry Lariat piece.
During a walk one day, I saw some poke weeds. I had so much fun playing with these when I was a child — I love making ink out of the berries! So I went over for a closer look.
Beading is always on my mind, as I examined the stem and berries. It could be done! At least, I could try and re-create this glorious work of nature using beads. I broke off the stem (a bright magenta) and the berries (both purple and green). I took the stem and berries to the bead shop to match up the colors.
The berriesThe stem of the poke plant
The shape of the berries resembled some freshwater pearls. Again I used the actual berries (purple and bright green) to match up the colors with the pearls.
I already had certain stitches in mind. I decided to make this a lariat necklace. Bead crochet was my obvious stitch of choice for the vine-like rope. I decided to use size 8/0 seed beads for the crochet rope to provide strength and a balance to the berry clusters that I would add on to the rope.
For the berry clusters, Ndebele would have strength, provide movement and mimic the way the real clusters are attached to the vine. Using the same magenta color as the crocheted rope, I switched to size 11/0 Japanese seed beads.
The tubular Ndebele stitch was easy to begin right off the crochet rope — both from the ends and a berry cluster about 4 inches from one end. From this Ndebele base, the last stitch, fringe, was used to attach the pearls.
To represent the ripening of the berries, I used a combination of green and purple pearls on 2 of the berry clusters. I decided not to add any leaves. My “Poke Berry” necklace was ready to be worn.
A BEAD is anything that has a hole in it. And you can do a lot of things with things that have holes.
You can put these things on string.
You can sew these things onto fabric.
You can weave these things together with threads.
You can knot or braid or knit or crochet these things together.
You can combine and wrap and en-cage these things with metal wires and metal sheets.
You can work these things into projects with clay, polymer clay and metal clay.
You can embellish whatever you can think of — dolls, tapestries, clothes, shoes, scrapbooks, pillows, containers, and vases.
You can incorporate these things into basket weaving, wood work, and kumihimo.
You can use these as money or for trade.
You can use these things in scientific experiments.
You can fuse these things together.
You can incorporate these things into projects involving stained glass, mosaics, or multi-media art.
You can use these to make yourself look prettier through adornment.
You can decorate your house and your household things with these things.
You can texture surfaces with these things, using glues, cements or resins.
You can use them as game pieces.
You can use these as ornamental or decorative objects.
You can sort them and organize them and stack them and arrange them and assemble them once or twice or over and over again.
Beads can become an armature to support the structure of something else.
You can use these symbolically by colors, shapes or sizes to signify emotions, spiritual connections, and life’s rights of passage.
You can construct models with these, such as architectural or biological or chemical.
Beads can be used to communicate emotions, beliefs, status and power, and social acceptability.
You can establish fashions and styles with these, or use these to measure the level of someone’s taste.
You can buy these pre-made, or make your own.
You can do a lot of things with beads. Most people begin by Stringing beads, and graduate to things like Weaving beads, Embellishing with beads on Fiber, Knotting and Braiding with beads, and Wire Working with beads. A few people learn to hand-make Lampwork glass beads, or learn to sculpt with Polymer Clay or Precious Metal Clay, or learn to solder using Silver-Smithing techniques.
And you can feel self-satisfied and secure in the knowledge that, should everything else in the world around you go to pot, we will all be back to bartering with beads.
Everyone has a Getting-Started story. Some people were always crafty, and beading was a natural extension to what they were doing. Others were driven by the allure of beads and jewelry. They saw fabulous earrings and necklaces and bracelets in magazines, department stores and boutiques at prices out of reach, and they said to themselves: I can do this — and for less. Some didn’t want to pay to have jewelry repaired by a jeweler. And still others were drawn by the beads themselves — beautiful objects to be adorned. And played with. And fondled.
Vanessa told me how she got started. She had bought a strand of beads. She possessed them. They possessed her. She kept them with her at all times. In her pocket. In her purse. Between her hands. Inside a zip-lock bag. Then outside the zip-lock bag. And back into the zip-lock bag. After weeks of taking them out, putting them away, and then taking them out again, she sat herself down at her kitchen table. She lay the strand of beads on the table, ever-so-gently. She reached for the sharpened scissors. And cut the strand.
The beads rolled all over the table. Vanessa’s eyes got wide. She told me she couldn’t stop looking at them and touching them and playing with them. The look on her face was sinful, almost pornographic.
Vanessa returned to the local bead store. And bought some more beads.
Terry had been crafty her whole life, ever since she was a little girl. She didn’t remember when she first started making jewelry. But she did remember when she was lucky enough to get paid for it. She made more jewelry. She sold more jewelry. And made more. And sold more.
Hessie loved to watch the jewelry home shopping network. She imagined herself modeling the jewelry on TV, and telling her audience how wonderful the beads and the colors and the stones and the designers all were. She began watching the craft shows on cable, and studying the instructors and every little thing they said and did. She started bead stringing jewelry and learning some wirework.
If you had walked into Renee’s bedroom, you would have seen boxes and boxes of jewelry — all in need of repair. She kept meaning to fix each piece, but the cost and inconvenience were too high. Finally, she convinced herself, “I can do this myself.”
Darita was a fiber artist. She had become frustrated, a bit, because she wanted more life in her projects. By a happy accident — a shattered car window and shards of glass sticking into several fiber projects on the front seat of her car — she discovered she could add beads. These beads added light and interplays on light. Darita was very happy with the results.
I always find myself asking our customers and students how they got started. Here’s how some of them finished the sentence, “When I started beading…”
“… I needed jewelry for my prom.”
“… My neighbor made me do it.”
“… A friend wanted a pair of earrings.”
“… I visited my first bead shop.”
“… I needed someone to repair a necklace, and couldn’t find anyone to do it.”
“… I needed to make some extra money.”
“… I was thinking about what to do after I retired.”
“… I ordered a kit on-line.”
“… I dreamed about beads and designed in my sleep.”
“… My dad brought me a beaded Indian doll, and I had to learn how to make something so similar.”
“… I was recuperating in the hospital from some surgery, and the volunteer brought me some beadwork to keep me busy.”
“… I begged a friend of mine to make me a bracelet like hers, but she never did. So I made one for myself.”
“… I decorated a scrapbook with some beads, and suddenly found myself switching craft careers.”
“… I needed an escape, something relaxing, something meditative.”
“… I was a baby in diapers learning to walk by following my mother holding some big beads dangling from a string.”
When I started beading in the late 1980’s, there were no major bead magazines — like Bead & Button or Beadwork. There were very few stringing material options, and in fact, many people used dental floss or sewing thread or fishing line. There were few choices of clasps and other findings — especially for stringing on thicker cords like leather or waxed cotton. I had to go to hardware stores and sewing notion stores and antique stores and flea markets to find things, and make them work. I cannibalized a lot of old jewelry for their parts.
I was in Nashville, Tennessee, at the time. There wasn’t much of a beading culture here. It was difficult to find advice and direction. This was pre-Internet. I mostly strung beads, and got hooked early on. Probably because I sold so much of what I made. Selling your stuff gets you addicted very fast.
Very fast.
But initially, that’s all beading and jewelry meant to me. Money.
(Begin Top Left) Bead Stringing, Bead Weaving, Wire Working, Metalsmithing
Abstract: Jewelry Making Techniques bring materials together within a composition. Techniques construct the interrelationship among parts so that they preserve a shape, yet still allow the piece of jewelry to move with the person as the jewelry is worn. And Techniques manipulate the essence of the whole of the piece so as to convey the artist’s intent and match it to the desires of wearer, viewer, buyer, seller, exhibitor, collector, student and teacher. Technique is more than mechanics. It is a philosophy. Thoughts transformed into choices. Part of this philosophy is understanding the role of technique to interrelate Space and Mass. Space and Mass are the raw materials of jewelry forms. Technique reduces the contrast between them in a controlled way and with significance for designer and client. Techniques have special relationships to light, texture and ornamentation. Technology enables us to expand our technical prowess with new materials, processes, styles and forms
TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES: Knowing What To Do Technique is Knowledge, Value, Creation
Jewelry Making Techniques are more than mechanics.
Techniques are ways to implement ideas. To transform thoughts and feelings into choices.
Techniques are knowledge, value and creation.
Jewelry Making Techniques bring materials together within a composition. Techniques construct the interrelationship among parts so that they preserve a shape, yet still allow the piece of jewelry to move with the person as the jewelry is worn. And Techniques manipulate the essence of the whole of the piece so as to convey the artist’s intent and match it to the desires of wearer, viewer, buyer, seller, exhibitor, collector, student and teacher.
There are many different kinds of jewelry making techniques, as well as strategies and variations for implementing them. In fact, the jewelry designer has no proscriptions, no prescriptions, no expectations, no limits on how she or he decides to compose, construct and manipulate materials and structures and supports. It can be a technique that is learned. It can be one approximated. It can be totally new, emergent and spontaneous. It can be socially acceptable or not. The designer can pull, tug, press, cut, carve, sculpt, emboss, embellish, embroider, sew, knit, weave, coil, bend, fold, twist, heat, cool, assemble, combine, dissolve, destruct, cast, wrap, solder, glue, wind, blow, or hammer.
In reality, it is impossible to discuss meaningfully the technique apart from the ideas, abilities and experiences of each jewelry designer, particularly in reference to knowing when a piece should be considered finished and successful. There will be some variations in how any designer applies a technique. This is called skill. One might pull harder or hammer harder than another. One might allow some more ease or looseness than another. One might use easy solder where another might choose hard solder. One might prefer a thinner thickness or gauge of stringing material, and another a thicker one. One might leverage the structural properties of one material, while another might choose other materials with different properties towards the same end. One might apply the technique, following Step XYZ before Step ABC, and another, apply the technique in reverse, altering the steps to be XYA and ABZ.
But our primary focus here is on technique apart from skill. This lets us see why some designers are masterful at technique, while others are not.
While there are a lot of different methods and applications designers can choose from, all too often, however, when selecting techniques, jewelry designers fail themselves (and their clients). They disappoint. They do not understand how to select techniques. They do not fully understand the basic mechanics. They do not fully understand the expressive powers of techniques.
Because of this, they are unaware of the responsibilities, as artist and designer, which come with them. In turn, they make inadequate choices. They might choose the simple, the handy, the already learned. They might choose what they see other designers using. They might choose what they see in magazines and books and videos which get spelled out in Step1-Step2-Step3 fashion.
But often they are naïve in their choices. They lack an understanding of technique and its philosophy. They do not understand that there are lot of things more to any technique beyond its simple mechanics. Techniques are not step-by-step. They are a collection of knowledge, skill, understanding, choices, decisions, tradeoffs, intents with implication and consequence. Techniques anticipate shared understandings between artist and audience about finish and success.
Moreover, jewelry designers often do not recognize that each and every technique can and should be varied, experimented and played with. They do not understand that techniques do not work or accommodate every situation. That is, jewelry designing is not a “Have-Technique-Will-Travel” type of professional endeavor. Techniques need to be selected and adapted to the problems or contexts at hand.
They do not understand that there is more to techniques than securing an arrangement of elements. They do not understand that techniques must find some balance or tradeoffs between maintaining shape(s) and managing support(s), that is movement, drape and flow.
They do not understand how their choice of technique, and the decisions they make about how to apply it, influence the response of others to jewelry materials and forms they create. Technique, compounded by skill, can be very determinative of outcome.
SPACE AND MASS AND A PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNIQUE
Space and Mass are the raw materials of jewelry form. Space is void. Mass is something. Some jewelry depends more on the expression of Space; others more on the expression of Mass. Whatever the designer’s goals and intents, Technique permits a reduction of the contrast between space and mass. Towards this end, Technique communicates the significance of a mass within a space by controlling it. Publicly demonstrating this control communicates intent, meaning and expressiveness.
The jewelry artist begins by confronting a void. There is space, but there is nothing in it. Space.
Into this space or void, the artist introduces mass. This may begin with a point or a line or a plane or a specific shape or color or texture or pattern. More mass is added. Mass.
The designer sets boundaries, places and distributes things, brings things together, determines the scale, signifies directions and dimensions. The designer begins to co-relate the mass to the space around, within, or through it. Mass on Space.
The designer regulates the relationship and relative importance of the surface of the mass to the entirety of the mass itself. Sometimes the mass (or its surface) is expected to be static. Sometimes it is expected to move. Occasionally ornamentation is added. In the context of jewelry, some of this mass should be able to hold a shape; other of this mass should be able to move, drape and flow when worn. Mass on Mass.
Technique makes something out of nothingness. It is designed. It is constructed. The act of implementing a technique — that is, revealing a pattern of choice behaviors — is communicative. It has intent. Mass, Space, Intent.
Eventually, the designer applies Technique to this mass, and in so doing, creates composition. Things are assembled. They are pulled together. The mass suddenly has order. It has organization. It is communicative. It interacts with the desires others place on it. It evokes an emotional response. It references a context or situation in which it is to be worn. Mass, Space, Intent, Content.
Thus, things placed within the space are pulled together, juxtaposed, connected, inter-related in some way. We call this composition. Composition might mean how the jewelry designer
– Treats the surface
– Emphasizes dimension
– Joins units
– Impresses into things, onto things or through things
– Pulls or Stretches or Twists things
– Covers, embellishes, frames or exposes things
– Asserts or changes the scale
– Determines sizes, shapes and volumes
– Arranges, Places, Distributes things
– Relates positive to negative space
– Creates a rhythm, form or theme
– Expects things to move or be static
– Anticipates who might wear it, how it might be worn, and where it might be worn
A piece of jewelry becomes a wholly finite environment within what otherwise would have been nothingness. But filling this space with form is not enough. It is not the end of the designer’s role and responsibility.
With order, organization and communication come significance, meaning, implication, connectedness and consequence for everyone around it. Expression occurs. An explanation or story emerges.
The designer must give this mass-in-space a quality other than emptiness. It must have content, meaning, purpose. The designer must allow this mass-in-space to be enjoyed. Again, expressed. Much of this comes down to materials and techniques.
That means the designer must impose upon this space some personal Philosophy of Technique — hopefully employing artistic and design knowledge, skill and understanding. This philosophy is how this designer thinks-like-a-designer. It becomes a key part of the designer’s fluency, adaptability, and originality as a professional. It is how the designer touches things and brings things together. This is a philosophy of selection, implementation and management of mass-in-space which
– Balances, equalizes, meditates
– Restricts
– Releases
– Senses and newly senses
– Becomes a standpoint, a flashpoint, or a jumping off point
– Sees new possibilities, forecasts, anticipates or expects
– Creates and re-creates feelings
– Plays with tolerances, stresses and strains
– Makes things parsimonious where enough is enough
– Results in things which are finished, successful and resonant
The mass has form and arrangement within space. It begins to convey sensation and feelings and content and meaning. But the designer still has not completed the job. Jewelry cannot be fully experienced in anticipation. It must be worn. It must be inhabited. It must communicate, interact, connect. Any philosophy of technique must account for all of this. Mass, Space, Intent, Content, Dialectic.
The elemental parts and their pleasing arrangement into a whole must allow it to be enjoyed by others. Be influenced by it. Persuaded. A desire to touch it. See it. Wear it. Buy it. Display it. Show it to others. Others, on some level, must accept the designer’s Philosophy of Technique, that is, the designer’s definition with intent for manipulating mass within space, in order to
– Recognize how to look at it and react to it
– Understand how to wear it
– Be inspired as the artist was inspired
– Feel the balance, harmony, variety, cacophony, continuity, interdependence among spaces and masses
– Anticipate the effects of movement, drape and flow
– Get a sense of psycho-socio-cultural release
– Get a sense of psycho-socio-cultural restriction
– Know when the piece is finished and successful
– Judge the piece in terms of value and worth
– Assess the risk within some context of wearing or purchasing it
– Assess the risk within some context of sharing it with others
Designers over time gain fluency in their philosophies of several techniques. Such fluency is recognized and comes to the fore when Techniques serve the desires, understandings and values of both designer and client. Techniques and the philosophies (ways of thinking) which underly them must fully communicate the particular intent, concepts and experiences expressed by the jewelry designer. They must anticipate, as well, the particular shared understandings others have about whether the piece will be judged finished and successful.
Designer and client have a special relationship which comes to light within the composed, constructed and manipulated piece of jewelry as it is introduced and expressed publicly.
Through Technique. Through Skill. And a Philosophy.
TECHNIQUES INVOLVE RELATIONSHIPS
Techniques, and the relative skill in applying them, are used to resolve the relational tensions underlying the craftmanship, artistry and design of any piece of jewelry. How these relationships are implemented and managed affect how the finished jewelry will be perceived sensorially, sensually, and symbolically. These will affect how the wearer/viewer recognizes the artist’s intent. These will affect how the wearer/viewer sees their desires reflected within the piece, thus the value and worth of the piece to them.
In design terms, this is called Expression. Expression in design is the communication of quality and meaning. The designer expresses quality and meaning through the selection, implementation and application of technique. We sometimes refer to this as skill. A technique will have a function. It will have a set of mechanics and processes. It will have purpose. There will be variations in how the mechanics and processes will be put into effect. Sometimes it will require a stiffening up; othertimes a loosening up. A pressing or pulling harder or softer. A curving or straightening. A transformation from 2 dimensions to 3 dimensions. Repositioning. Altering texture.
The technique, its function and application will further get interpreted and transformed, that is, expressed, into wearable art. Similar to how sounds are made into music. And how words are made into literature. There is an underlying vocabulary and grammar to jewelry design, from decoding to comprehension to fluency.
Some aspects of expression are universal, but perhaps most are very subjective, reflective of the interpretations and intents (philosophies) of the artist, the wearer/viewer, and the general culture. Because of this, each and every expression of design through technique will have to resolve some underlying tensions. Of special concern are these tensions and relationships:
Aesthetic (beauty) vs. Architectural (function)
Should Parts Be Considered Center Stage or Supplemental
Special Relationship to Light and Shadow
Special Relationship to Texture
Special Relationship to Color and Ornamentation
Aesthetic vs.Architectural
Jewelry Design all too often is viewed apart from the human body, as if we were creating sculptures, rather than wearable art. Yet its successful creation and implementation is not independent of the body, but moreso dependent upon it. It must feel good, move with the body, minimize the stresses and strains on the components and materials. And look good at the same time.
This sets up a tension in the relationship between the Aesthetic and the Architectural. The problems of jewelry design extend beyond the organizing of space and mass(es) within it. The designer must plan for and create a harmonious and expressive relationship between object and body and between object and person as the object is worn. This often means compromising. Trading off some of the aesthetics for more functionality.
Before you choose and implement any technique…
STOP ASK YOURSELF: What about this technique and the steps involved in implementing this technique will help my piece maintain its shape (structure)?
Before you choose and implement any technique…
STOP ASK YOURSELF: What about this technique and the steps involved in implementing this technique will help my piece move, drape and low (support)?
2. Should Parts Be Considered Center Stage or Supplemental
The question becomes how the various parts or segments of the jewelry should relate to one another. We might have strap, a yoke, a centerpiece or focal point, a bail, and a clasp assembly. The tension here becomes whether the jewelry as a whole should be judged critically as an expression of art and design, or only the centerpiece or focal point should be so judged.
With the latter, the non-center/focus parts of the jewelry are seen merely as supplemental. This is similar to how a frame functions for painting or a pedestal for a sculpture.
With the former, each segment or component part cannot exist or be expressive apart from any other. The piece must be judged as a whole. The whole must be more resonant or evocative than the sum of its parts.
Here we begin to question what exactly technique is. Is it only that set of mechanics and processes applied to only a section of the whole piece of jewelry? Or is it how the designer makes choices about construction and manipulation from getting from one end of the piece of jewelry to the other?
3. Special Relationship To Light And Shadow
Light and shadow are both critical design elements to be manipulated as a part of the jewelry designer’s active decision making process. Yet, light and shadow affect the experience of any piece of jewelry in ways which are outside that designer’s scope and control, as well.
Light and shadow are necessary for the expression of the artist’s intent and inspiration in jewelry. Because light and shadow move, change character, and come and go with their source, light and shadow have the power to give that mass of component parts a living quality. This effect is compounded (or foiled) as the wearer moves, changes position, travels from room to room or inside to outside.
The designer cannot control all this, but should be able to predict a lot of this behavior, and make appropriate design choices accordingly.
The designer can channel light through the selection of materials and their reflective, absorptive and refractive properties. The designer can play with color, pattern and texture. The designer can be strategic about the placement of positive and negative spaces. The designer can arrange or embellish surfaces in anticipation of all this. The designer can diffuse light or transform or distort colors. The designer can add movement or dimensionality to enliven their forms. The designer can even use light or shadow to hide things which might negatively affect the overall aesthetic.
The points, lines, planes and shapes incorporated into any piece of jewelry become receptacles of light and shadow which can change in character or form as time progresses, people move and contexts change. An important part in the success of jewelry designs is played by the quality and intensity of light (and shadow) within context.
4. Special RelationshipTo Texture
Jewelry is experienced both tactilely and visually.
Sometimes these complement each other; othertimes, they compete or conflict. Texture plays a major role here. On the one hand, it expresses something about the quality of the materials used. On the other, it gives a particular quality to light and shadow, and their interplay with the piece as worn.
Designers often select materials partly based on their tactile textures. They might also alter these textures to expand on the variety of expressive qualities that might be offered. The stone might be used as is. It might be smoothed and polished. It might be roughed up, carved or chiseled. The material might end up expressing something about the natural state or about refinement and sophistication.
Visually, the designer makes many choices about how to employ the materials. They may emphasize verticality over horizontality. Projecting over recession. Slow or fast rhythm. Opacity may be altered. The designer produces differing visual expressions based on patterns and how lighting of the surface conveys the sensory experience of these patterns.
A single texture, whether the goal is tactile or visual, is rarely employed alone in jewelry design. The actual variety of materials and treatments produces a complex of textures that must be composed and harmonized and resonant into the jewelry’s expressive and consistent whole.
5. Special Relationship To Color and Ornament
Color is a characteristic of all jewelry making materials. It is a constant feature of any piece of jewelry. Materials might be selected for their color and visual appeal. Techniques might be selected for their ability to enhance or play with color and its visual appeal.
Yet, on the other hand, other jewelry making materials and techniques might be selected primarily for their structural properties — that is, their ability to be used to create, maintain, and retain shape or silhouette. They might be used as mere armature or to create that armature. The colors of these materials or the effects resulting from how techniques manipulated them may not be suited to the expressive goals of the designer. Because of the nature of jewelry making techniques and components, there also may be an unintended or unwanted absence of color, such as gaps of light between beads.
Thus, because of these kinds of things, materials with more suitable expressive colors, either as is or as manipulated, are added to the surface as embellishment and ornamentation. Sometimes these materials are dyes or coatings or fired-on chemicals. Sometimes these materials are more substantive materials like glass, gemstone, wood or shell.
These ornamental materials may cover parts of the surface or hide the entire surface of the piece. They may disguise it. They may be used to alter how color is perceived and experienced. They may completely change the experience. But without technique, and a philosophy of technique, these ornamental options may make it impossible to achieve the sensory, visual or structural powers the ornamentation is meant to provide.
The tension arises when the designer makes choices whether the ornamentation is to be used to enhance the expressiveness of the piece as originally designed (applied ornamentation), or, whether the ornamentation is to be used to create a completely different meaning, decorative motif, or symbolic expression, regardless of appropriateness to that original design (mimetic ornamentation).
Applied ornamentation enhances the designer’s power and control to assert intent and inspiration within the jewelry. Often applied ornamentation makes some reference to the underlying structures behind it. But the designer needs to be careful that this doesn’t turn into merely applied decoration. As ornament, whatever is done is integral to the piece. As decoration, it is not.
Mimetic ornamentation is often used to make a piece more familiar, more accepting, more reassuring to various audiences. It might be used to disguise something. It might have symbolic value. Here, too, the designer needs to be careful that this doesn’t turn into merely applied decoration.
A third consideration is whether the ornamentation is critical to the jewelry’s functioning or materials (inherent ornamentation). It is important that it be organic to the piece. That is, it should derive directly from and be a function of the nature of the jewelry and the materials used. It may allow size adjustment. Its placement may reinforce to overcome vulnerabilities. It may redistribute stresses and strains. It may aid in movement. It may assist in maintaining a shape. It may rationalize color, texture and/or pattern within and throughout the piece.
SURVEY OF JEWELRY MAKING TECHNIQUES
There are many, many different types of techniques used in jewelry making. Each encompasses basic mechanics. Each is implemented within a procedure or process. Each is a form of expression.
These techniques or forms of expression differ from each other in terms of the choices the designer makes about how mass should get related to space for creating composition. They differ in how structure (shape) is created and preserved, and in how support (movement, drape and flow) is built in, achieved and maintained. They differ in how pattern and texture is created or added. These techniques differ, apart from the materials used, in how people interact with them, aesthetically, functionally, sensorially and sensually.
These techniques are not mutually exclusive, and are often combined. It is up to the designer to select the technique or techniques to be used, maximizing the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of each. Usually, the designer, when combining techniques, will want one technique to predominate. The designer does not want the underlying philosophies of two or more techniques to conflict, compete, or not coordinate.
Stringing, Bead Weaving
Beads and other components are assembled together into a composition and silhouette. The stringing materials range from the very narrow, like beading thread, cable thread and cable wire, to thicker, like bead cord, leather, waxed cotton, ribbon, satin cord, and braided leather. The stringing materials are often hidden, and typically play a supplemental role to the beads and other components within any composition.
Philosophy of Technique: Objects are placed and assembled together within a space in relationship to the direction and linearity of some type of stringing material or canvas. There is great attention to the use of points and lines, usually within a singular plane. Shapes are basic, often only in reference to a silhouette. Minimal attention is paid to dimensionality.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the stringing material or canvas. The stringing material or canvas is able to withstand tension and compression.
Often, designers place too much reliance on the clasp assembly to provide support (movement, drape and flow), instead of embedding support elements (rings, loops, unglued-knots, hinges, springs, coils, rivets, rotators) throughout the piece. In a similar way, often designers place too much reliance on the placement of objects on the canvas (that is, stringing material) for maintaining structure (shape), instead of other elements that could be used to maintain shape, while mitigating against stress and strain.
Each stringing and bead weaving technique and its procedures and processes for implementation rely on part of the implementation to maintain a shape, and on part of the implementation to allow for movement, drape and flow. The particular technique used to assemble the beads (and related components) sets the tone in pattern, shape, form and texture. Some stringing and bead weaving techniques are great at maintaining shapes. Other techniques are good at allowing for movement. The better techniques are good at accommodating both structure and support.
Knotting, Braiding, Knitting, Crocheting
The stringing materials take center stage, either in combination with other elements, or alone. The composition may or may not include beads and other components. Occasionally glue is used, but its use should be minimized.
Philosophy of Technique: Within a space, the artist places and intertwines various types of stringing materials. The artist varies tightness and looseness, placement and distribution of sizes, volumes and mass to achieve the dual goals of structure and support.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the intertwining (knotting, chaining, braiding) of the stringing material or canvas. The intertwined stringing material or canvas is able to withstand tension and compression.
Each strategy for knotting or braiding attempts to simultaneously achieve structure and support. The technique might vary the placement of fixed points with the use of chaining to create lines, forms and planes within the composition. Considerable attention is paid to the positioning of positive and negative spaces.
There is a lot of attention to the use of line. These techniques allow for incorporation of various strategies for achieving a sense of dimensionality. The shapes may be allowed to stretch or contract, allowing easy response to issues resulting from stress or strain. Texture is a major emphasis.
Embroidery, Embellishment, Fringing
Elements are attached to the surface of the canvas. This surface is often referred to as the foundation or base. These elements may be glued or sewn or woven on. The canvas typically plays a diminished or supplemental role, though this is not a requirement.
Philosophy of Technique: The space available has been defined by a particular canvas. This might be a string. This might be a flat surface. Elements are placed on and secured to this surface; the mechanics here relate to structural goals. The pliability, manipulability, and/or maneuverability of the canvas relate to support goals.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the stringing material or canvas. The stringing material or canvas is able to withstand tension and compression.
The embellishment may be used to create a particular image, or pattern, or texture. Often it is used to add a sense of dimensionality and/or movement to a piece. It invites people to want to touch the composition because it adds a very sensual quality to a piece beyond the characteristics of the materials or colors used.
Stamping, Engraving, Etching
Elements are embedded on or worked into the surface of the canvas. The canvas may be comprised of any material.
Philosophy of Technique: The space available has been defined by a particular canvas. This is typically a flat surface of some kind, but not limited to any one material. Structural, as well as support, goals depend on the physical, functional and chemical properties of the canvas. Sometimes these properties are altered through the application of the techniques. Texture and pattern are major focuses.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity and material strength of the canvas coupled with that canvas’s ability to maintain its integrity after it has been physically or chemically altered. The resulting canvas is able to with stand tension and compression.
Wire Working, Wire Wrapping, Wire Weaving
Hard Wire is manipulated into forms which hold their shape, serve as structural supports, or create pleasing patterns and textures.
Philosophy of Technique: The designer places wires into a space. The wires may be bent to form lines, planes, shapes and forms. The wires may be interwoven, bundled together, coiled, or otherwise anchored or tied together to create a canvas and form the basic foundation of a piece of jewelry.
During the process of applying a wire technique and creating a piece of jewelry, the physical properties of the wire must be changed. The designer takes wire, applies a technique to it, and continues to apply the technique until the wire is stiff enough to hold a shape. Each time you manipulate wire, it gets harder and harder and harder. If you manipulate it too much, it will become brittle and break. The wire can be pulled, coiled, bent, twisted, or hammered.
A piece is made stable by the stiffness or hardness of the canvas and its material strength, where it is stiff enough to hold a shape, but not so stiff as to become brittle and break. The resulting canvas is able towithstand tension and compression.
Considerable attention must be paid to strategies of support, that is, how things get joined and jointed. That is, whatever the piece of jewelry, it must be able to move freely, and withstand all sources of stress or strain.
For example, hard wire would not be used as a stringing material. If you put beads on the hard wire to create a bracelet or necklace, the wire would distort in shape when the piece is worn, but not return to its original shape. In this case, you would have to create several segments or components using the wire, and then make some kind of chain to create that jointedness and support. Picture a rosary which is a bead chain made of wire.
Metalsmithing, Fabrication, Cold Connections
Here metal is shaped and formed into a broad, layered canvas or a series of canvases we call components. Layers of sheet, wire and granules, or a series of components may be combined in some way, either to create a more complex composition, increase a sense of dimensionality or movement, or allow for jointedness, connectivity and support. The designer might use heat and solder — fabrication. Or the designer might use rivets, hinges, loops, rings, rotators — cold connections. The layers or the series of components may be textured or not.
Philosophy of Technique: Into a space, the designer places pieces of metal. These pieces of metal may sit side-by-side, on top of each other, overlap, sit perpendicular or at an angle. The components are attached together, using heat and solder, glue, or cold connections. Each layered canvas or component is a composition unto itself.
Canvases and components are rigid shapes and are constructed to withstand stress and strain. When constructing a piece of jewelry, typically the designer interconnects various components in a way which allows movement, drape and flow.
Interconnected components may be thematic or tell a story.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity and material strength of the canvas after it has been successfully altered through shaping, heat, soldered connection, glue or cold connection. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression, up until the point it bends or dents. Usually, if that happens, the piece can be unbent or undented. Considerable attention must be paid to strategies of support, that is, how things get joined and jointed.
Casting, Modeling, Molding, Carving, Shaping
Here a material is reconfigured and altered into some kind of shape or form. The material may be rigid, like wood or stone. It may be malleable like clay or casting material. The material, once altered, may or may not be subject to additional actions to change its physical, functional or chemical properties, such as the application of heat or cold or a chemical bath.
Philosophy of Technique: The material is positioned within a space. As it is manipulated, it most likely will alter its relationship to that space. It will be able to play many roles from point to line to plane, and from shape to form to theme. The designer must be critically aware of how the technique will alter this relationship between space and mass, and light and shadow, and how these in turn, will affect form and composition.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the canvas after it has been shaped. Cast pieces have difficulty responding to strong forces. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression only to that point before it crumbles and breaks.
Structure and support considerations can either be built into the resulting component, or components may be treated in similar ways as in metalsmithing.
Lampworking, Wound Glass, Encasing
Rods and stringers of glass are heated by a torch and wound around a steel rod called a mandrel. Sometimes shards of glass, sometimes with abstract patterns, sometimes representative of realistic images, are laid on the hot glass, and covered (encased) by a transparent glass wound over them. The result is a bead or pendant or a small sculpture.
Philosophy of Technique: The material slowly enters and occupies a defined space. The artist plays with different types of glass, glass colors and transparencies, rods of glass, pieces of glass, ground up glass, and metallic foils. Things are placed and layered and spiraled. Surfaces can be altered by tools. Once begun, the artist must take the technique to completion. Thus, the artist’s ideas, focus, and intent are very concentrated and intense. Glass as a material requires the manipulation of the interpenetration of mass with space.
A piece is made stable by the properties of the glass. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression to the extent the properties of the glass will allow.
Glass Blowing
Air is forced through a steel straw. At the end of this straw is a blob of molten glass. The air forces it to hollow out. As this happens, the artist rolls it, hammers it, textures it, domes it, otherwise shapes it until it is a finished piece. The artist may roll the glass over other pieces of glass, to melt them into the piece. As the glass cools, the result might be a bead or a pendant or a small sculpture.
Philosophy of Technique: The material expands within a space. This space may be very narrow and defined, or very expansive, perhaps ill-defined. The resulting object has surface and interior and exterior spaces. The qualities of the surface create a play between mass and space, and their interpenetration.
A piece is made stable by the properties of the glass. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression to the extent the properties of the glass walls will allow.
Computer Aided Design (CAD), 3-D Printing
Here the artist uses computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. The output is typically in the form of electronic files or technical drawings for 3-D printing, machining or other manufacturing operation. 3-D printing takes a CAD model and builds it, material layer by layer in an additive manufacturing fashion. Frequently, the 3-D printed object is a casting mold, rather than the finished piece.
Philosophy of Technique: CAD can place points, lines and curves within a 2-dimensional space, or curves, surfaces and solids within a 3-dimensional space. CAD can simulate motion and its impact on any object. It can take into account other parameters and constraints. The final technical output must convey more than information about shape. It must convey information about the extents to which various materials may be used in the design, their dimensions and tolerances. It must convey information about the pros and cons of processes the artist might use in the design.
One pay-off for the artist is that the computer can detail many more ways, and many more unexpected ways, to relate mass to space than typically thought of without it.
HOW TO LEARN TECHNIQUE
A good design, poorly executed, is not worth all that much.
So, how do we learn techniques is ways which help us develop ourselves as designers and be fluent in how we select, implement and apply them?
We need to be very aware of what influences us in our
o Selection of Technique
o Implementation of Technique
o Application of Technique
Selection: Anticipating What Will Happen If And When
We begin to develop our fluency in technique at the point of selection. To select a technique is to anticipate what will happen to the piece of jewelry after it is designed, constructed and worn. This involves all our senses from thought to touch to sight.
When we touch a piece constructed using a particular technique, how will it feel? Will it curve or bend? Will it curve or bend in the direction we need it to? Will it drape nicely on the body? Move easily with the body? Feel comfortable when worn? Will it hold its shape?
When we see a piece constructed using a particular technique, what will be the resulting pattern and texture? What will be the interplay of light and shadow? Will it look good from all sides when sitting on an easel? Will it look good from all sides when someone is wearing it? When that person is moving? Will all color issues be resolved?
We play a What-If game. What-If we used a variation on the technique? What-If we used another technique? What-If we combined techniques or sequenced them or staggered them? What-if we settled for a little less beauty to achieve better movement, drape and flow?
We might do some research. Has the technique been used by another artist or in another project you were attracted to? Was it used successfully? Did it work well in terms of structure and support? Did it contribute to (or at least not detract from) the visual appearance of the piece?
We might do some pre-testing. Will the technique hold up to our expectations? Will it still work with some variation? Will it work under differing circumstances?
We are honest with ourselves about our biases. Will we pick something only because we have done it before? Or we are very familiar with it? Or it is the easiest or path of least resistance?
Implementation: Basic Mechanics and Processes
We want to learn the basic mechanics of each technique in a way which highlights their philosophies — that is, how we think them through. We think about managing:
– Structure and Support
– How To Hold The Piece To Work It
– How To Distribute Stresses and Points of Vulnerability
– How To Create A Clasp Assembly
– How To Finish Off The Piece
Structure and Support. To begin, we know that each and every technique has as part of its mechanics and processes some aspects which help us create and maintain structures (shape). And each and everytechnique has some aspects which help us create and maintain support (movement, drape and flow). We want to be able to break down any technique so that we can recognize what results in what.
Holding The Piece To Work It. Next, the basic mechanics also includes strategies for how to hold the piece while you work it.
Picture yourself as an artist. An artist has an easel and something to use as a clamp to hold things in place.
A bead weaver would use their forefinger on one hand as an easel, pressing the developing bead work project against it, and then take their thumb on that same hand, and clamp down over the work to keep it in place.
A silversmith might use a steel bench block as an easel, and a vice as a clamp.
Someone doing braiding or knotting might use a clipboard as an easel and a bulldog clip as a clamp.
Your challenge is to hold the piece in such a way that you maximize your ability to implement a technique all the while maximizing the strengths of that technique and minimizing its weaknesses. This is called leveraging. You use whatever it is that is equivalent to the artist’s easel and clamp in such a way that you can successfully leverage the technique for your purposes.
Holding your piece correctly also sends signals to your hands telling you when each individual step is completed, and when you are finished.
Distribute Stresses and Points of Vulnerability.
In any piece of jewelry, it can be expected that the stress-bearing and strain-bearing strengths and weaknesses of each component will be unevenly distributed throughout the pieces. That is, there will be some areas or points in the piece of jewelry which will be vulnerable to stresses and strains. This may cause the piece to break or lose its shape or otherwise disrupt its integrity.
The jewelry designer needs to be able to easily look at a piece or its sketch or design plan and identify all the points of vulnerability. After identifying these, the designer will need to figure out ways to compensate for these weaknesses in design.
Usually points of vulnerability occur in these places or situations:
Where the clasp assembly is attached to the piece
At the beginning and the end of the piece
Along the edges
Corners and inside corners
Where components have very sharp holes or edges
When using materials which degrade, deteriorate, bleed, rub off, distort, are too soft
Where there is not an exact fit between two pieces or elements
Where there is insufficient support or jointedness
These points of vulnerability may need reinforcement. More support or structural elements may need to be added. Things may need to be re-located or positioned within the design. They may need to be eliminated from the design.
Most often, places of vulnerability occur where the structures or supports in place take on the shapes of either H, L, T, or U. Think of these shapes as hazards. These shapes tend to split when confronted with external or internal forces. They tend to split because each leg is often confronted with different levels or directions of force. The legs are not braced. These hazardous shapes cry out for additional reinforcements or support or structural systems.
The Clasp Assembly. The “CLASP ASSEMBLY” usually consists of several parts. It includes everything it takes to attach the clasp to your beadwork. Besides the Clasp itself, there are probably jump rings and connectors, crimp beads, clamps, cones, end caps or other jewelry findings.
Visually, the Clasp Assembly is part of the vernacular of the piece. Ideally, it should seem organically related to the piece or at least a logical inclusion.
Structurally, the Clasp Assembly should hold the piece together as the piece is worn. It may have some impact on maintaining the shape of the silhouette.
Most importantly, the Clasp Assembly should be put together as a support system. It is the most important support system in any piece of jewelry. Support systems used in a necklace or bracelet are similar tothe joints in your body. They aid in movement. They prevent any one piece from being adversely affected by the forces this movement brings to the piece. They keep the piece from being stiff. They make the piece look and feel better, when worn.
The Clasp Assembly of any piece of jewelry should be designed first before the rest of the piece is designed, or designed currently with the rest of the piece. Too often, jewelry designers select the clasp after they have finished the rest of the piece. They do not seem to understand how the clasp assembly is an integral part of the implementation of any technique. In this case, not only does the clasp assembly look like it was the last choice, but it usually falls short of meeting its visual, structural and support roles.
Finishing Off The Piece. We always need to step back and reflect whether the piece as designed and implemented will be judged as finished and successful by each of the myriad audiences we hope to please. Will their judgments confirm or reject our philosophy of the particular technique(s) we used?
It is the challenge for the designer not to make the piece under-done or over-done. Each and every material and component part should be integral to the piece as a whole.
Application: Achieving Expressiveness
Expressiveness refers to the power of the piece of jewelry to fit with both the designer’s as well as all other’s expectations about desire, connectedness, power, value and worth. This is one and the same thing as measuring the extent to which both materials and techniques can be seen to have been leveraged, to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
A technique has been applied in the most expressive way at that point where the design elements and the materials selected have been composed, manipulated and constructed in the most optimum way. We can judge the degree of expressiveness by honing in on two concepts: Parsimony and Resonance.
Parsimony (maximum applied impact):Parsimony is when you know enough is enough. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.
Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as Economy, but the idea of economy is reserved for the visual effects. For jewelry designers, we want that economy or parsimony to apply to functional and situational effects, as well. The designer needs to be able to decide when enough is enough.
Parsimony… – forces explanation; its forced-choice nature is most revealing about the artist’s understandings and intentions
– relies on evidence moreso than assumptions to get at criticality
– focuses examination of the few elements that make a difference
Resonance (coherency of applied impact):Resonance is some level of felt energy that is a little more than an emotional response. The difference between saying that piece of jewelry is “beautiful” vs. saying that piece of jewelry “makes me want to wear it”. Or that “I want to touch it”. Or “My friends need to see this.”
Resonance is something more than emotion. It is some kind of additional energy we see, feel and otherwise experience. Emotion is very reactive. Resonance is intuitive, involving, identifying. Resonance is an empathetic response where artist and audience realize a shared (or contradictory) understanding without losing sight of whose views and feelings belong to whom.
Resonance results from how the artist applies technique to control light, shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. Resonance results from how the artist leverages the strengths of materials and techniques and minimizes their weaknesses. Resonance results from social, cultural and situational cues. Resonance results from how the artist takes us to the edge of universal, objective understandings, and pushes us every so slightly, but not too, too far, beyond that edge.
Jewelry which resonates…– is communicative and authentic
– shows the artist’s hand as intention, not instinct
– evokes both an emotional as well as energetic response from wearer and viewer
– shows both degrees of control, as well as moments of the unexpected
– makes something noteworthy from something ordinary
– finds the whole greater than the sum of the parts
– lets the materials and techniques speak
– anticipates shared understandings of many different audiences about design elements and principles, and some obvious inclusion, exclusion or intentional violation of them
– results from a design process that appears to have been more systemic (e.g., ingrained within an integrated process) than systematic (e.g., a step-by-step approach)
– both appeals and functions at the boundary where jewelry meets person
TECHNOLOGY AND JEWELRY DESIGN
The potential of technology merged with craft is infinite.
Technology includes things like,
– New methods, processes and materials
– New ways to implement ideas
– Ability to generate new styles
– Opportunity to create meaningful forms
– Unseen contributions to aesthetic structure and composition
– Less costly and/or more production-friendly methods for creating pieces, especially for projects which might not otherwise get implemented
New materials and composites are created and enter the marketplace every year.
New ways of extracting, shaping, finishing, stabilizing materials come on line each year.
Computer Aided Design (CAD) and 3-D printing provide the tools to jewelry designers to create things beyond their imaginations.
Electroforming enables the creation of lightweight pieces from various metals.
Lasers are used to weld, cut and decorate.
Laser-Sintering melts powdered metal, layer by layer, into a finished piece.
Jewelry makers and beaders frequently come up with new techniques, mechanics and processes for creating jewelry. Technology provides creatives with original ways of expression.
“Smart” elements are getting introduced into some designs, transforming your jewelry into a smart device. These might measure health and fitness; might change color and appearance to suit different environments or clothing; might warm or cool the body.
TO WHAT EXTENT SHOULD JEWELRY DESIGNERS RESPOND TO TECHNOLOGY?
Technology is a very powerful tool. Combined with craftmanship, it can create a new language of shape, object, and sensation. We have to be careful, however, that we use technology to support jewelry which is hand-made, and not supplant it.
The use of technology allows the designer to create new forms and materials that otherwise would not exist. Technology often translates into convenience and more rapid production. In today’s globalized world, this might offer a competitive edge. Technology also enables more customization, and faster customization. Again, in a globalized world, this would offer a competitive advantage. Technology encourages us to look forward, rather than back, for our inspirations and insights.
Again, it is important to emphasize that we do not want all this technological efficiency to diminish the act of “creativity”. We don’t want to standardize everything and reduce everything into a set of how-to instructions. We want to expand our creative abilities. We want to increase the power of the designer to produce pieces reflective of the artist’s hand. We want our jewelry to be as expressive as possible of the needs, wants and desires of our various clientele.
The impact of jewelry on our professional practice. Whether we use new technologies in our professional practice, or not, we cannot escape them. We must be up-to-date and aware of technological impacts on what we do and how we do it.
The impact of technology on work and jobs was the focus of an opinion piece in the New York Times by David H. Autor and David Dorn.
As jewelry designers, we are living through and with all the positives and negatives that arise through this technological change.
How has technology affected what we do as designers?
How has it affected what we do to survive and thrive as designers?
Have we mechanized and computerized the jewelry design business into obsolescence?
How have you had to organize your jewelry designer lives differently? given the rise of
-The internet, -Ebay, Etsy and Amazon.com -Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram -New technologies and materials like precious metal clay, polymer clay, crystal clay, 3-D printing
What has happened to your local bead stores? Jewelry stores? Boutiques?
What has happened to bead and jewelry making magazines?
If you teach classes for pay, or sell kits and instructions, how do you compete against the literally millions of online tutorials, classes, instructions and kits offered for free? How does this affect what you teach or design to sell as kits?
If you sell jewelry, how do you compete against the 60,000,000 other people who sell jewelry online? How does this affect your marketing, your pricing, your designs?
If you make part of your living doing the arts and crafts show circuit, will there still be a need for this in the future?
_________________________________________
FOOTNOTES
Autor, David H. and Dorn, David. “How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class”, New York Times, August 24, 2013.
(Begin Top Left) Bead Stringing, Bead Weaving, Wire Working, Metalsmithing
Abstract: Jewelry Making Techniques bring materials together within a composition. Techniques construct the interrelationship among parts so that they preserve a shape, yet still allow the piece of jewelry to move with the person as the jewelry is worn. And Techniques manipulate the essence of the whole of the piece so as to convey the artist’s intent and match it to the desires of wearer, viewer, buyer, seller, exhibitor, collector, student and teacher. Technique is more than mechanics. It is a philosophy. Thoughts transformed into choices. Part of this philosophy is understanding the role of technique to interrelate Space and Mass. Space and Mass are the raw materials of jewelry forms. Technique reduces the contrast between them in a controlled way and with significance for designer and client. Techniques have special relationships to light, texture and ornamentation. Technology enables us to expand our technical prowess with new materials, processes, styles and forms
TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES: Knowing What To Do
Technique is Knowledge, Value, Creation
Jewelry Making Techniques are more than mechanics.
Techniques are ways to implement ideas. To transform thoughts and feelings into choices.
Techniques are knowledge, value and creation.
Jewelry Making Techniques bring materials together within a composition. Techniques construct the interrelationship among parts so that they preserve a shape, yet still allow the piece of jewelry to move with the person as the jewelry is worn. And Techniques manipulate the essence of the whole of the piece so as to convey the artist’s intent and match it to the desires of wearer, viewer, buyer, seller, exhibitor, collector, student and teacher.
There are many different kinds of jewelry making techniques, as well as strategies and variations for implementing them. In fact, the jewelry designer has no proscriptions, no prescriptions, no expectations, no limits on how she or he decides to compose, construct and manipulate materials and structures and supports. It can be a technique that is learned. It can be one approximated. It can be totally new, emergent and spontaneous. It can be socially acceptable or not. The designer can pull, tug, press, cut, carve, sculpt, emboss, embellish, embroider, sew, knit, weave, coil, bend, fold, twist, heat, cool, assemble, combine, dissolve, destruct, cast, wrap, solder, glue, wind, blow, or hammer.
In reality, it is impossible to discuss meaningfully the technique apart from the ideas, abilities and experiences of each jewelry designer, particularly in reference to knowing when a piece should be considered finished and successful. There will be some variations in how any designer applies a technique. This is called skill. One might pull harder or hammer harder than another. One might allow some more ease or looseness than another. One might use easy solder where another might choose hard solder. One might prefer a thinner thickness or gauge of stringing material, and another a thicker one. One might leverage the structural properties of one material, while another might choose other materials with different properties towards the same end. One might apply the technique, following Step XYZ before Step ABC, and another, apply the technique in reverse, altering the steps to be XYA and ABZ.
But our primary focus here is on technique apart from skill. This lets us see why some designers are masterful at technique, while others are not.
While there are a lot of different methods and applications designers can choose from, all too often, however, when selecting techniques, jewelry designers fail themselves (and their clients). They disappoint. They do not understand how to select techniques. They do not fully understand the basic mechanics. They do not fully understand the expressive powers of techniques.
Because of this, they are unaware of the responsibilities, as artist and designer, which come with them. In turn, they make inadequate choices. They might choose the simple, the handy, the already learned. They might choose what they see other designers using. They might choose what they see in magazines and books and videos which get spelled out in Step1-Step2-Step3 fashion.
But often they are naïve in their choices. They lack an understanding of technique and its philosophy. They do not understand that there are lot of things more to any technique beyond its simple mechanics. Techniques are not step-by-step. They are a collection of knowledge, skill, understanding, choices, decisions, tradeoffs, intents with implication and consequence. Techniques anticipate shared understandings between artist and audience about finish and success.
Moreover, jewelry designers often do not recognize that each and every technique can and should be varied, experimented and played with. They do not understand that techniques do not work or accommodate every situation. That is, jewelry designing is not a “Have-Technique-Will-Travel” type of professional endeavor. Techniques need to be selected and adapted to the problems or contexts at hand.
They do not understand that there is more to techniques than securing an arrangement of elements. They do not understand that techniques must find some balance or tradeoffs between maintaining shape(s) and managing support(s), that is movement, drape and flow.
They do not understand how their choice of technique, and the decisions they make about how to apply it, influence the response of others to jewelry materials and forms they create. Technique, compounded by skill, can be very determinative of outcome.
SPACE AND MASS AND A PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNIQUE
Space and Mass are the raw materials of jewelry form. Space is void. Mass is something. Some jewelry depends more on the expression of Space; others more on the expression of Mass. Whatever the designer’s goals and intents, Technique permits a reduction of the contrast between space and mass. Towards this end, Technique communicates the significance of a mass within a space by controlling it. Publicly demonstrating this control communicates intent, meaning and expressiveness.
The jewelry artist begins by confronting a void. There is space, but there is nothing in it. Space.
Into this space or void, the artist introduces mass. This may begin with a point or a line or a plane or a specific shape or color or texture or pattern. More mass is added. Mass.
The designer sets boundaries, places and distributes things, brings things together, determines the scale, signifies directions and dimensions. The designer begins to co-relate the mass to the space around, within, or through it. Mass on Space.
The designer regulates the relationship and relative importance of the surface of the mass to the entirety of the mass itself. Sometimes the mass (or its surface) is expected to be static. Sometimes it is expected to move. Occasionally ornamentation is added. In the context of jewelry, some of this mass should be able to hold a shape; other of this mass should be able to move, drape and flow when worn. Mass on Mass.
Technique makes something out of nothingness. It is designed. It is constructed. The act of implementing a technique – that is, revealing a pattern of choice behaviors — is communicative. It has intent. Mass, Space, Intent.
Eventually, the designer applies Technique to this mass, and in so doing, creates composition. Things are assembled. They are pulled together. The mass suddenly has order. It has organization. It is communicative. It interacts with the desires others place on it. It evokes an emotional response. It references a context or situation in which it is to be worn. Mass, Space, Intent, Content.
Thus, things placed within the space are pulled together, juxtaposed, connected, inter-related in some way. We call this composition. Composition might mean how the jewelry designer
– Treats the surface
– Emphasizes dimension
– Joins units
– Impresses into things, onto things or through things
– Pulls or Stretches or Twists things
– Covers, embellishes, frames or exposes things
– Asserts or changes the scale
– Determines sizes, shapes and volumes
– Arranges, Places, Distributes things
– Relates positive to negative space
– Creates a rhythm, form or theme
– Expects things to move or be static
– Anticipates who might wear it, how it might be worn, and where it might be worn
A piece of jewelry becomes a wholly finite environment within what otherwise would have been nothingness. But filling this space with form is not enough. It is not the end of the designer’s role and responsibility.
With order, organization and communication come significance, meaning, implication, connectedness and consequence for everyone around it. Expression occurs. An explanation or story emerges.
The designer must give this mass-in-space a quality other than emptiness. It must have content, meaning, purpose. The designer must allow this mass-in-space to be enjoyed. Again, expressed. Much of this comes down to materials and techniques.
That means the designer must impose upon this space some personal Philosophy of Technique—hopefully employing artistic and design knowledge, skill and understanding. This philosophy is how this designer thinks-like-a-designer. It becomes a key part of the designer’s fluency, adaptability, and originality as a professional. It is how the designer touches things and brings things together. This is a philosophy of selection, implementation and management of mass-in-space which
– Balances, equalizes, meditates
– Restricts
– Releases
– Senses and newly senses
– Becomes a standpoint, a flashpoint, or a jumping off point
– Sees new possibilities, forecasts, anticipates or expects
– Creates and re-creates feelings
– Plays with tolerances, stresses and strains
– Makes things parsimonious where enough is enough
– Results in things which are finished, successful and resonant
The mass has form and arrangement within space. It begins to convey sensation and feelings and content and meaning. But the designer still has not completed the job. Jewelry cannot be fully experienced in anticipation. It must be worn. It must be inhabited. It must communicate, interact, connect. Any philosophy of technique must account for all of this. Mass, Space, Intent, Content, Dialectic.
The elemental parts and their pleasing arrangement into a whole must allow it to be enjoyed by others. Be influenced by it. Persuaded. A desire to touch it. See it. Wear it. Buy it. Display it. Show it to others. Others, on some level, must accept the designer’s Philosophy of Technique, that is, the designer’s definition with intent for manipulating mass within space, in order to
– Recognize how to look at it and react to it
– Understand how to wear it
– Be inspired as the artist was inspired
– Feel the balance, harmony, variety, cacophony, continuity, interdependence among spaces and masses
– Anticipate the effects of movement, drape and flow
– Get a sense of psycho-socio-cultural release
– Get a sense of psycho-socio-cultural restriction
– Know when the piece is finished and successful
– Judge the piece in terms of value and worth
– Assess the risk within some context of wearing or purchasing it
– Assess the risk within some context of sharing it with others
Designers over time gain fluency in their philosophies of several techniques. Such fluency is recognized and comes to the fore when Techniques serve the desires, understandings and values of both designer and client. Techniques and the philosophies (ways of thinking) which underly them must fully communicate the particular intent, concepts and experiences expressed by the jewelry designer. They must anticipate, as well, the particular shared understandings others have about whether the piece will be judged finished and successful.
Designer and client have a special relationship which comes to light within the composed, constructed and manipulated piece of jewelry as it is introduced and expressed publicly.
Through Technique. Through Skill. And a Philosophy.
TECHNIQUES INVOLVE RELATIONSHIPS
Techniques, and the relative skill in applying them, are used to resolve the relational tensions underlying the craftmanship, artistry and design of any piece of jewelry. How these relationships are implemented and managed affect how the finished jewelry will be perceived sensorially, sensually, and symbolically. These will affect how the wearer/viewer recognizes the artist’s intent. These will affect how the wearer/viewer sees their desires reflected within the piece, thus the value and worth of the piece to them.
In design terms, this is called Expression. Expression in design is the communication of quality and meaning. The designer expresses quality and meaning through the selection, implementation and application of technique. We sometimes refer to this as skill. A technique will have a function. It will have a set of mechanics and processes. It will have purpose. There will be variations in how the mechanics and processes will be put into effect. Sometimes it will require a stiffening up; othertimes a loosening up. A pressing or pulling harder or softer. A curving or straightening. A transformation from 2 dimensions to 3 dimensions. Repositioning. Altering texture.
The technique, its function and application will further get interpreted and transformed, that is, expressed, into wearable art. Similar to how sounds are made into music. And how words are made into literature. There is an underlying vocabulary and grammar to jewelry design, from decoding to comprehension to fluency.
Some aspects of expression are universal, but perhaps most are very subjective, reflective of the interpretations and intents (philosophies) of the artist, the wearer/viewer, and the general culture. Because of this, each and every expression of design through technique will have to resolve some underlying tensions. Of special concern are these tensions and relationships:
Aesthetic (beauty) vs. Architectural (function)
Should Parts Be Considered Center Stage or Supplemental
Special Relationship to Light and Shadow
Special Relationship to Texture
Special Relationship to Color and Ornamentation
Aesthetic vs.Architectural
Jewelry Design all too often is viewed apart from the human body, as if we were creating sculptures, rather than wearable art. Yet its successful creation and implementation is not independent of the body, but moreso dependent upon it. It must feel good, move with the body, minimize the stresses and strains on the components and materials. And look good at the same time.
This sets up a tension in the relationship between the Aesthetic and the Architectural. The problems of jewelry design extend beyond the organizing of space and mass(es) within it. The designer must plan for and create a harmonious and expressive relationship between object and body and between object and person as the object is worn. This often means compromising. Trading off some of the aesthetics for more functionality.
Before you choose and implement any technique…
STOP
ASK YOURSELF: What about this technique and the steps involved in implementing this technique will help my piece maintain its shape (structure)?
Before you choose and implement any technique…
STOP
ASK YOURSELF: What about this technique and the steps involved in implementing this technique will help my piece move, drape and low (support)?
Should Parts Be Considered Center Stage or Supplemental
The question becomes how the various parts or segments of the jewelry should relate to one another. We might have strap, a yoke, a centerpiece or focal point, a bail, and a clasp assembly. The tension here becomes whether the jewelry as a whole should be judged critically as an expression of art and design, or only the centerpiece or focal point should be so judged.
With the latter, the non-center/focus parts of the jewelry are seen merely as supplemental. This is similar to how a frame functions for painting or a pedestal for a sculpture.
With the former, each segment or component part cannot exist or be expressive apart from any other. The piece must be judged as a whole. The whole must be more resonant or evocative than the sum of its parts.
Here we begin to question what exactly technique is. Is it only that set of mechanics and processes applied to only a section of the whole piece of jewelry? Or is it how the designer makes choices about construction and manipulation from getting from one end of the piece of jewelry to the other?
Special RelationshipTo Light And Shadow
Light and shadow are both critical design elements to be manipulated as a part of the jewelry designer’s active decision making process. Yet, light and shadow affect the experience of any piece of jewelry in ways which are outside that designer’s scope and control, as well.
Light and shadow are necessary for the expression of the artist’s intent and inspiration in jewelry. Because light and shadow move, change character, and come and go with their source, light and shadow have the power to give that mass of component parts a living quality. This effect is compounded (or foiled) as the wearer moves, changes position, travels from room to room or inside to outside.
The designer cannot control all this, but should be able to predict a lot of this behavior, and make appropriate design choices accordingly.
The designer can channel light through the selection of materials and their reflective, absorptive and refractive properties. The designer can play with color, pattern and texture. The designer can be strategic about the placement of positive and negative spaces. The designer can arrange or embellish surfaces in anticipation of all this. The designer can diffuse light or transform or distort colors. The designer can add movement or dimensionality to enliven their forms. The designer can even use light or shadow to hide things which might negatively affect the overall aesthetic.
The points, lines, planes and shapes incorporated into any piece of jewelry become receptacles of light and shadow which can change in character or form as time progresses, people move and contexts change. An important part in the success of jewelry designs is played by the quality and intensity of light (and shadow) within context.
Special RelationshipTo Texture
Jewelry is experienced both tactilely and visually.
Sometimes these complement each other; othertimes, they compete or conflict. Texture plays a major role here. On the one hand, it expresses something about the quality of the materials used. On the other, it gives a particular quality to light and shadow, and their interplay with the piece as worn.
Designers often select materials partly based on their tactile textures. They might also alter these textures to expand on the variety of expressive qualities that might be offered. The stone might be used as is. It might be smoothed and polished. It might be roughed up, carved or chiseled. The material might end up expressing something about the natural state or about refinement and sophistication.
Visually, the designer makes many choices about how to employ the materials. They may emphasize verticality over horizontality. Projecting over recession. Slow or fast rhythm. Opacity may be altered. The designer produces differing visual expressions based on patterns and how lighting of the surface conveys the sensory experience of these patterns.
A single texture, whether the goal is tactile or visual, is rarely employed alone in jewelry design. The actual variety of materials and treatments produces a complex of textures that must be composed and harmonized and resonant into the jewelry’s expressive and consistent whole.
Special Relationship To Color and Ornament
Color is a characteristic of all jewelry making materials. It is a constant feature of any piece of jewelry. Materials might be selected for their color and visual appeal. Techniques might be selected for their ability to enhance or play with color and its visual appeal.
Yet, on the other hand, other jewelry making materials and techniques might be selected primarily for their structural properties – that is, their ability to be used to create, maintain, and retain shape or silhouette. They might be used as mere armature or to create that armature. The colors of these materials or the effects resulting from how techniques manipulated them may not be suited to the expressive goals of the designer. Because of the nature of jewelry making techniques and components, there also may be an unintended or unwanted absence of color, such as gaps of light between beads.
Thus, because of these kinds of things, materials with more suitable expressive colors, either as is or as manipulated, are added to the surface as embellishment and ornamentation. Sometimes these materials are dyes or coatings or fired-on chemicals. Sometimes these materials are more substantive materials like glass, gemstone, wood or shell.
These ornamental materials may cover parts of the surface or hide the entire surface of the piece. They may disguise it. They may be used to alter how color is perceived and experienced. They may completely change the experience. But without technique, and a philosophy of technique, these ornamental options may make it impossible to achieve the sensory, visual or structural powers the ornamentation is meant to provide.
The tension arises when the designer makes choices whether the ornamentation is to be used to enhance the expressiveness of the piece as originally designed (applied ornamentation), or, whether the ornamentation is to be used to create a completely different meaning, decorative motif, or symbolic expression, regardless of appropriateness to that original design (mimetic ornamentation).
Applied ornamentation enhances the designer’s power and control to assert intent and inspiration within the jewelry. Often applied ornamentation makes some reference to the underlying structures behind it. But the designer needs to be careful that this doesn’t turn into merely applied decoration. As ornament, whatever is done is integral to the piece. As decoration, it is not.
Mimetic ornamentation is often used to make a piece more familiar, more accepting, more reassuring to various audiences. It might be used to disguise something. It might have symbolic value. Here, too, the designer needs to be careful that this doesn’t turn into merely applied decoration.
A third consideration is whether the ornamentation is critical to the jewelry’s functioning or materials (inherent ornamentation). It is important that it be organic to the piece. That is, it should derive directly from and be a function of the nature of the jewelry and the materials used. It may allow size adjustment. Its placement may reinforce to overcome vulnerabilities. It may redistribute stresses and strains. It may aid in movement. It may assist in maintaining a shape. It may rationalize color, texture and/or pattern within and throughout the piece.
SURVEY OF JEWELRY MAKING TECHNIQUES
There are many, many different types of techniques used in jewelry making. Each encompasses basic mechanics. Each is implemented within a procedure or process. Each is a form of expression.
These techniques or forms of expression differ from each other in terms of the choices the designer makes about how mass should get related to space for creating composition. They differ in how structure (shape) is created and preserved, and in how support (movement, drape and flow) is built in, achieved and maintained. They differ in how pattern and texture is created or added. These techniques differ, apart from the materials used, in how people interact with them, aesthetically, functionally, sensorially and sensually.
These techniques are not mutually exclusive, and are often combined. It is up to the designer to select the technique or techniques to be used, maximizing the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of each. Usually, the designer, when combining techniques, will want one technique to predominate. The designer does not want the underlying philosophies of two or more techniques to conflict, compete, or not coordinate.
Stringing, Bead Weaving
Beads and other components are assembled together into a composition and silhouette. The stringing materials range from the very narrow, like beading thread, cable thread and cable wire, to thicker, like bead cord, leather, waxed cotton, ribbon, satin cord, and braided leather. The stringing materials are often hidden, and typically play a supplemental role to the beads and other components within any composition.
Philosophy of Technique: Objects are placed and assembled together within a space in relationship to the direction and linearity of some type of stringing material or canvas. There is great attention to the use of points and lines, usually within a singular plane. Shapes are basic, often only in reference to a silhouette. Minimal attention is paid to dimensionality.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the stringing material or canvas. The stringing material or canvas is able to withstand tension and compression.
Often, designers place too much reliance on the clasp assembly to provide support (movement, drape and flow), instead of embedding support elements (rings, loops, unglued-knots, hinges, springs, coils, rivets, rotators) throughout the piece. In a similar way, often designers place too much reliance on the placement of objects on the canvas (that is, stringing material) for maintaining structure (shape), instead of other elements that could be used to maintain shape, while mitigating against stress and strain.
Each stringing and bead weaving technique and its procedures and processes for implementation rely on part of the implementation to maintain a shape, and on part of the implementation to allow for movement, drape and flow. The particular technique used to assemble the beads (and related components) sets the tone in pattern, shape, form and texture. Some stringing and bead weaving techniques are great at maintaining shapes. Other techniques are good at allowing for movement. The better techniques are good at accommodating both structure and support.
Knotting, Braiding, Knitting, Crocheting
The stringing materials take center stage, either in combination with other elements, or alone. The composition may or may not include beads and other components. Occasionally glue is used, but its use should be minimized.
Philosophy of Technique: Within a space, the artist places and intertwines various types of stringing materials. The artist varies tightness and looseness, placement and distribution of sizes, volumes and mass to achieve the dual goals of structure and support.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the intertwining (knotting, chaining, braiding) of the stringing material or canvas. The intertwined stringing material or canvas is able to withstand tension and compression.
Each strategy for knotting or braiding attempts to simultaneously achieve structure and support. The technique might vary the placement of fixed points with the use of chaining to create lines, forms and planes within the composition. Considerable attention is paid to the positioning of positive and negative spaces.
There is a lot of attention to the use of line. These techniques allow for incorporation of various strategies for achieving a sense of dimensionality. The shapes may be allowed to stretch or contract, allowing easy response to issues resulting from stress or strain. Texture is a major emphasis.
Embroidery, Embellishment, Fringing
Elements are attached to the surface of the canvas. This surface is often referred to as the foundation or base. These elements may be glued or sewn or woven on. The canvas typically plays a diminished or supplemental role, though this is not a requirement.
Philosophy of Technique: The space available has been defined by a particular canvas. This might be a string. This might be a flat surface. Elements are placed on and secured to this surface; the mechanics here relate to structural goals. The pliability, manipulability, and/or maneuverability of the canvas relate to support goals.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the stringing material or canvas. The stringing material or canvas is able to withstand tension and compression.
The embellishment may be used to create a particular image, or pattern, or texture. Often it is used to add a sense of dimensionality and/or movement to a piece. It invites people to want to touch the composition because it adds a very sensual quality to a piece beyond the characteristics of the materials or colors used.
Stamping, Engraving, Etching
Elements are embedded on or worked into the surface of the canvas. The canvas may be comprised of any material.
Philosophy of Technique: The space available has been defined by a particular canvas. This is typically a flat surface of some kind, but not limited to any one material. Structural, as well as support, goals depend on the physical, functional and chemical properties of the canvas. Sometimes these properties are altered through the application of the techniques. Texture and pattern are major focuses.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity and material strength of the canvas coupled with that canvas’s ability to maintain its integrity after it has been physically or chemically altered. The resulting canvas is able to with stand tension and compression.
Wire Working, Wire Wrapping, Wire Weaving
Hard Wire is manipulated into forms which hold their shape, serve as structural supports, or create pleasing patterns and textures.
Philosophy of Technique: The designer places wires into a space. The wires may be bent to form lines, planes, shapes and forms. The wires may be interwoven, bundled together, coiled, or otherwise anchored or tied together to create a canvas and form the basic foundation of a piece of jewelry.
During the process of applying a wire technique and creating a piece of jewelry, the physical properties of the wire must be changed. The designer takes wire, applies a technique to it, and continues to apply the technique until the wire is stiff enough to hold a shape. Each time you manipulate wire, it gets harder and harder and harder. If you manipulate it too much, it will become brittle and break. The wire can be pulled, coiled, bent, twisted, or hammered.
A piece is made stable by the stiffness or hardness of the canvas and its material strength, where it is stiff enough to hold a shape, but not so stiff as to become brittle and break. The resulting canvas is able towithstand tension and compression.
Considerable attention must be paid to strategies of support, that is, how things get joined and jointed. That is, whatever the piece of jewelry, it must be able to move freely, and withstand all sources of stress or strain.
For example, hard wire would not be used as a stringing material. If you put beads on the hard wire to create a bracelet or necklace, the wire would distort in shape when the piece is worn, but not return to its original shape. In this case, you would have to create several segments or components using the wire, and then make some kind of chain to create that jointedness and support. Picture a rosary which is a bead chain made of wire.
Metalsmithing, Fabrication, Cold Connections
Here metal is shaped and formed into a broad, layered canvas or a series of canvases we call components. Layers of sheet, wire and granules, or a series of components may be combined in some way, either to create a more complex composition, increase a sense of dimensionality or movement, or allow for jointedness, connectivity and support. The designer might use heat and solder – fabrication. Or the designer might use rivets, hinges, loops, rings, rotators – cold connections. The layers or the series of components may be textured or not.
Philosophy of Technique: Into a space, the designer places pieces of metal. These pieces of metal may sit side-by-side, on top of each other, overlap, sit perpendicular or at an angle. The components are attached together, using heat and solder, glue, or cold connections. Each layered canvas or component is a composition unto itself.
Canvases and components are rigid shapes and are constructed to withstand stress and strain. When constructing a piece of jewelry, typically the designer interconnects various components in a way which allows movement, drape and flow.
Interconnected components may be thematic or tell a story.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity and material strength of the canvas after it has been successfully altered through shaping, heat, soldered connection, glue or cold connection. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression, up until the point it bends or dents. Usually, if that happens, the piece can be unbent or undented. Considerable attention must be paid to strategies of support, that is, how things get joined and jointed.
Casting, Modeling, Molding, Carving, Shaping
Here a material is reconfigured and altered into some kind of shape or form. The material may be rigid, like wood or stone. It may be malleable like clay or casting material. The material, once altered, may or may not be subject to additional actions to change its physical, functional or chemical properties, such as the application of heat or cold or a chemical bath.
Philosophy of Technique: The material is positioned within a space. As it is manipulated, it most likely will alter its relationship to that space. It will be able to play many roles from point to line to plane, and from shape to form to theme. The designer must be critically aware of how the technique will alter this relationship between space and mass, and light and shadow, and how these in turn, will affect form and composition.
A piece is made stable by the rigidity of the canvas after it has been shaped. Cast pieces have difficulty responding to strong forces. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression only to that point before it crumbles and breaks.
Structure and support considerations can either be built into the resulting component, or components may be treated in similar ways as in metalsmithing.
Lampworking, Wound Glass, Encasing
Rods and stringers of glass are heated by a torch and wound around a steel rod called a mandrel. Sometimes shards of glass, sometimes with abstract patterns, sometimes representative of realistic images, are laid on the hot glass, and covered (encased) by a transparent glass wound over them. The result is a bead or pendant or a small sculpture.
Philosophy of Technique: The material slowly enters and occupies a defined space. The artist plays with different types of glass, glass colors and transparencies, rods of glass, pieces of glass, ground up glass, and metallic foils. Things are placed and layered and spiraled. Surfaces can be altered by tools. Once begun, the artist must take the technique to completion. Thus, the artist’s ideas, focus, and intent are very concentrated and intense. Glass as a material requires the manipulation of the interpenetration of mass with space.
A piece is made stable by the properties of the glass. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression to the extent the properties of the glass will allow.
Glass Blowing
Air is forced through a steel straw. At the end of this straw is a blob of molten glass. The air forces it to hollow out. As this happens, the artist rolls it, hammers it, textures it, domes it, otherwise shapes it until it is a finished piece. The artist may roll the glass over other pieces of glass, to melt them into the piece. As the glass cools, the result might be a bead or a pendant or a small sculpture.
Philosophy of Technique: The material expands within a space. This space may be very narrow and defined, or very expansive, perhaps ill-defined. The resulting object has surface and interior and exterior spaces. The qualities of the surface create a play between mass and space, and their interpenetration.
A piece is made stable by the properties of the glass. The resulting canvas is able to withstand tension and compression to the extent the properties of the glass walls will allow.
Computer Aided Design (CAD), 3-D Printing
Here the artist uses computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. The output is typically in the form of electronic files or technical drawings for 3-D printing, machining or other manufacturing operation. 3-D printing takes a CAD model and builds it, material layer by layer in an additive manufacturing fashion. Frequently, the 3-D printed object is a casting mold, rather than the finished piece.
Philosophy of Technique: CAD can place points, lines and curves within a 2-dimensional space, or curves, surfaces and solids within a 3-dimensional space. CAD can simulate motion and its impact on any object. It can take into account other parameters and constraints. The final technical output must convey more than information about shape. It must convey information about the extents to which various materials may be used in the design, their dimensions and tolerances. It must convey information about the pros and cons of processes the artist might use in the design.
One pay-off for the artist is that the computer can detail many more ways, and many more unexpected ways, to relate mass to space than typically thought of without it.
HOW TO LEARN TECHNIQUE
A good design, poorly executed, is not worth all that much.
So, how do we learn techniques is ways which help us develop ourselves as designers and be fluent in how we select, implement and apply them?
We need to be very aware of what influences us in our
o Selection of Technique
o Implementation of Technique
o Application of Technique
Selection: Anticipating What Will Happen If And When
We begin to develop our fluency in technique at the point of selection. To select a technique is to anticipate what will happen to the piece of jewelry after it is designed, constructed and worn. This involves all our senses from thought to touch to sight.
When we touch a piece constructed using a particular technique, how will it feel? Will it curve or bend? Will it curve or bend in the direction we need it to? Will it drape nicely on the body? Move easily with the body? Feel comfortable when worn? Will it hold its shape?
When we see a piece constructed using a particular technique, what will be the resulting pattern and texture? What will be the interplay of light and shadow? Will it look good from all sides when sitting on an easel? Will it look good from all sides when someone is wearing it? When that person is moving? Will all color issues be resolved?
We play a What-If game. What-If we used a variation on the technique? What-If we used another technique? What-If we combined techniques or sequenced them or staggered them? What-if we settled for a little less beauty to achieve better movement, drape and flow?
We might do some research. Has the technique been used by another artist or in another project you were attracted to? Was it used successfully? Did it work well in terms of structure and support? Did it contribute to (or at least not detract from) the visual appearance of the piece?
We might do some pre-testing. Will the technique hold up to our expectations? Will it still work with some variation? Will it work under differing circumstances?
We are honest with ourselves about our biases. Will we pick something only because we have done it before? Or we are very familiar with it? Or it is the easiest or path of least resistance?
Implementation: Basic Mechanics and Processes
We want to learn the basic mechanics of each technique in a way which highlights their philosophies – that is, how we think them through. We think about managing:
– Structure and Support
– How To Hold The Piece To Work It
– How To Distribute Stresses and Points of Vulnerability
– How To Create A Clasp Assembly
– How To Finish Off The Piece
Structure and Support. To begin, we know that each and every technique has as part of its mechanics and processes some aspects which help us create and maintain structures (shape). And each and everytechnique has some aspects which help us create and maintain support (movement, drape and flow). We want to be able to break down any technique so that we can recognize what results in what.
Holding The Piece To Work It. Next, the basic mechanics also includes strategies for how to hold the piece while you work it.
Picture yourself as an artist. An artist has an easel and something to use as a clamp to hold things in place.
A bead weaver would use their forefinger on one hand as an easel, pressing the developing bead work project against it, and then take their thumb on that same hand, and clamp down over the work to keep it in place.
A silversmith might use a steel bench block as an easel, and a vice as a clamp.
Someone doing braiding or knotting might use a clipboard as an easel and a bulldog clip as a clamp.
Your challenge is to hold the piece in such a way that you maximize your ability to implement a technique all the while maximizing the strengths of that technique and minimizing its weaknesses. This is called leveraging. You use whatever it is that is equivalent to the artist’s easel and clamp in such a way that you can successfully leverage the technique for your purposes.
Holding your piece correctly also sends signals to your hands telling you when each individual step is completed, and when you are finished.
Distribute Stresses and Points of Vulnerability.
In any piece of jewelry, it can be expected that the stress-bearing and strain-bearing strengths and weaknesses of each component will be unevenly distributed throughout the pieces. That is, there will be some areas or points in the piece of jewelry which will be vulnerable to stresses and strains. This may cause the piece to break or lose its shape or otherwise disrupt its integrity.
The jewelry designer needs to be able to easily look at a piece or its sketch or design plan and identify all the points of vulnerability. After identifying these, the designer will need to figure out ways to compensate for these weaknesses in design.
Usually points of vulnerability occur in these places or situations:
Where the clasp assembly is attached to the piece
At the beginning and the end of the piece
Along the edges
Corners and inside corners
Where components have very sharp holes or edges
When using materials which degrade, deteriorate, bleed, rub off, distort, are too soft
Where there is not an exact fit between two pieces or elements
Where there is insufficient support or jointedness
These points of vulnerability may need reinforcement. More support or structural elements may need to be added. Things may need to be re-located or positioned within the design. They may need to be eliminated from the design.
Most often, places of vulnerability occur where the structures or supports in place take on the shapes of either H, L, T, or U. Think of these shapes as hazards. These shapes tend to split when confronted with external or internal forces. They tend to split because each leg is often confronted with different levels or directions of force. The legs are not braced. These hazardous shapes cry out for additional reinforcements or support or structural systems.
The Clasp Assembly.The “CLASP ASSEMBLY” usually consists of several parts. It includes everything it takes to attach the clasp to your beadwork. Besides the Clasp itself, there are probably jump rings and connectors, crimp beads, clamps, cones, end caps or other jewelry findings.
Visually, the Clasp Assembly is part of the vernacular of the piece. Ideally, it should seem organically related to the piece or at least a logical inclusion.
Structurally, the Clasp Assembly should hold the piece together as the piece is worn. It may have some impact on maintaining the shape of the silhouette.
Most importantly, the Clasp Assembly should be put together as a support system. It is the most important support system in any piece of jewelry. Support systems used in a necklace or bracelet are similar tothe joints in your body. They aid in movement. They prevent any one piece from being adversely affected by the forces this movement brings to the piece. They keep the piece from being stiff. They make the piece look and feel better, when worn.
The Clasp Assembly of any piece of jewelry should be designed first before the rest of the piece is designed, or designed currently with the rest of the piece. Too often, jewelry designers select the clasp after they have finished the rest of the piece. They do not seem to understand how the clasp assembly is an integral part of the implementation of any technique. In this case, not only does the clasp assembly look like it was the last choice, but it usually falls short of meeting its visual, structural and support roles.
Finishing Off The Piece. We always need to step back and reflect whether the piece as designed and implemented will be judged as finished and successful by each of the myriad audiences we hope to please. Will their judgments confirm or reject our philosophy of the particular technique(s) we used?
It is the challenge for the designer not to make the piece under-done or over-done. Each and every material and component part should be integral to the piece as a whole.
Application: Achieving Expressiveness
Expressiveness refers to the power of the piece of jewelry to fit with both the designer’s as well as all other’s expectations about desire, connectedness, power, value and worth. This is one and the same thing as measuring the extent to which both materials and techniques can be seen to have been leveraged, to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
A technique has been applied in the most expressive way at that point where the design elements and the materials selected have been composed, manipulated and constructed in the most optimum way. We can judge the degree of expressiveness by honing in on two concepts: Parsimony and Resonance.
Parsimony (maximum applied impact):Parsimony is when you know enough is enough. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.
Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as Economy, but the idea of economy is reserved for the visual effects. For jewelry designers, we want that economy or parsimony to apply to functional and situational effects, as well. The designer needs to be able to decide when enough is enough.
Parsimony… – forces explanation; its forced-choice nature is most revealing about the artist’s understandings and intentions
– relies on evidence moreso than assumptions to get at criticality
– focuses examination of the few elements that make a difference
Resonance (coherency of applied impact):Resonance is some level of felt energy that is a little more than an emotional response. The difference between saying that piece of jewelry is “beautiful” vs. saying that piece of jewelry “makes me want to wear it”. Or that “I want to touch it”. Or “My friends need to see this.”
Resonance is something more than emotion. It is some kind of additional energy we see, feel and otherwise experience. Emotion is very reactive. Resonance is intuitive, involving, identifying. Resonance is an empathetic response where artist and audience realize a shared (or contradictory) understanding without losing sight of whose views and feelings belong to whom.
Resonance results from how the artist applies technique to control light, shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. Resonance results from how the artist leverages the strengths of materials and techniques and minimizes their weaknesses. Resonance results from social, cultural and situational cues. Resonance results from how the artist takes us to the edge of universal, objective understandings, and pushes us every so slightly, but not too, too far, beyond that edge.
Jewelry which resonates…
– is communicative and authentic
– shows the artist’s hand as intention, not instinct
– evokes both an emotional as well as energetic response from wearer and viewer
– shows both degrees of control, as well as moments of the unexpected
– makes something noteworthy from something ordinary
– finds the whole greater than the sum of the parts
– lets the materials and techniques speak
– anticipates shared understandings of many different audiences about design elements and principles, and some obvious inclusion, exclusion or intentional violation of them
– results from a design process that appears to have been more systemic (e.g., ingrained within an integrated process) than systematic (e.g., a step-by-step approach)
– both appeals and functions at the boundary where jewelry meets person
TECHNOLOGY AND JEWELRY DESIGN
The potential of technology merged with craft is infinite.
Technology includes things like,
– New methods, processes and materials
– New ways to implement ideas
– Ability to generate new styles
– Opportunity to create meaningful forms
– Unseen contributions to aesthetic structure and composition
– Less costly and/or more production-friendly methods for creating pieces, especially for projects which might not otherwise get implemented
New materials and composites are created and enter the marketplace every year.
New ways of extracting, shaping, finishing, stabilizing materials come on line each year.
Computer Aided Design (CAD) and 3-D printing provide the tools to jewelry designers to create things beyond their imaginations.
Electroforming enables the creation of lightweight pieces from various metals.
Lasers are used to weld, cut and decorate.
Laser-Sintering melts powdered metal, layer by layer, into a finished piece.
Jewelry makers and beaders frequently come up with new techniques, mechanics and processes for creating jewelry. Technology provides creatives with original ways of expression.
“Smart” elements are getting introduced into some designs, transforming your jewelry into a smart device. These might measure health and fitness; might change color and appearance to suit different environments or clothing; might warm or cool the body.
TO WHAT EXTENT SHOULD JEWELRY DESIGNERS
RESPOND TO TECHNOLOGY?
Technology is a very powerful tool. Combined with craftmanship, it can create a new language of shape, object, and sensation. We have to be careful, however, that we use technology to support jewelry which is hand-made, and not supplant it.
The use of technology allows the designer to create new forms and materials that otherwise would not exist. Technology often translates into convenience and more rapid production. In today’s globalized world, this might offer a competitive edge. Technology also enables more customization, and faster customization. Again, in a globalized world, this would offer a competitive advantage. Technology encourages us to look forward, rather than back, for our inspirations and insights.
Again, it is important to emphasize that we do not want all this technological efficiency to diminish the act of “creativity”. We don’t want to standardize everything and reduce everything into a set of how-to instructions. We want to expand our creative abilities. We want to increase the power of the designer to produce pieces reflective of the artist’s hand. We want our jewelry to be as expressive as possible of the needs, wants and desires of our various clientele.
The impact of jewelry on our professional practice. Whether we use new technologies in our professional practice, or not, we cannot escape them. We must be up-to-date and aware of technological impacts on what we do and how we do it.
The impact of technology on work and jobs was the focus of an opinion piece in the New York Times by David H. Autor and David Dorn.
As jewelry designers, we are living through and with all the positives and negatives that arise through this technological change.
How has technology affected what we do as designers?
How has it affected what we do to survive and thrive as designers?
Have we mechanized and computerized the jewelry design business into obsolescence?
How have you had to organize your jewelry designer lives differently?
given the rise of
-The internet,
-Ebay, Etsy and Amazon.com
-Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
-New technologies and materials like precious metal clay, polymer clay, crystal clay, 3-D printing
What has happened to your local bead stores? Jewelry stores? Boutiques?
What has happened to bead and jewelry making magazines?
If you teach classes for pay, or sell kits and instructions, how do you compete against the literally millions of online tutorials, classes, instructions and kits offered for free? How does this affect what you teach or design to sell as kits?
If you sell jewelry, how do you compete against the 60,000,000 other people who sell jewelry online? How does this affect your marketing, your pricing, your designs?
If you make part of your living doing the arts and crafts show circuit, will there still be a need for this in the future?
_________________________________________
FOOTNOTES
Autor, David H. and Dorn, David. “How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class”, New York Times, August 24, 2013.
It’s a strongly held belief of mine that Beaders and Jewelry Designers should be taught and learn and practice as if they were Architects.
Beaders and Jewelry Designers and Architects impose shape, light, shadow, aesthetics and function onto an otherwise empty space. The scale might be different, and the purposes might vary, but they all do the same thing, requiring the same kinds of thinking and insights.
The knowledge base and insights required are many. Beaders and Jewelry Designers need to understand the consequences which result from their selection of materials. They need to know what works and doesn’t work when specific techniques and processes of construction are implemented.
They also need to recognize, given any design goal, how these kinds of choices enhance or impede movement, drape, flow, and durability. As well, they need to be aware how these choices affect the creation and retention of shapes and forms. The need to understand the roles of stresses and strains on the continued success of jewelry over time. Last they need to be capable in making choices about aesthetics and function, fully comfortable with the tradeoffs one must make before one completes the finished piece.
I like my students to be fully aware how they physically build a piece of jewelry. Structurally so it holds a shape. Mechanically so it moves, drapes and flows as intended. Functionally so that it withstands the tests of stress, strain, time and place. Aesthetically so that the surface and surface treatments resonate.
So, this is a start — a Statement of Opinion.
I want to spend some time and effort teasing out this Opinion into more concrete terms. If we were establishing a professional program of Beading and Jewelry Design, and wanted to get beyond Craft, and beyond the confines and limitations of traditional Art theory, how would we began to generate that language and vocabulary of Design which our students would be taught? I think the discipline of Architecture offers a lot of clues and insights.
Let’s begin the discussion and see where it goes.
And a first question would involve generating more awareness where a knowledge of how choices about structure and materials can affect “shape” or “movement”.
QUESTION 1: WHAT CAN YOU ACHIEVE WITH SOME TECHNIQUES OR MATERIALS THAT YOU CAN’T ACHIEVE WITH OTHERS?
For example, I prefer to use Fireline with right angle weave stitch, and a more traditional beading thread with peyote stitch. The Fireline gives me more control over maintaining a tighter and more even thread tension with RAW, but I find it often makes my peyote pieces too stiff.
I find that the type of joint created with brick stitch allows me to make a much greater and often more satisfying range of shapes than if I tried to make the same shapes with peyote stitch — the architectural joints created with peyote don’t allow the same multi-directional movement as those with brick.
Coated and galvanized beads often do not work well in bracelets. The coatings chip off too easily.
It is more difficult to achieve a satisfying outcome, when mixing different kinds of materials rather than using a single type of material in the same piece.
Beth Katz S. I completely agree with your thoughts about the architecture correlation. I have a friend who is a landscape architect. The name of his company escapes me (so what else is new?), but it ends with “chitecture.” When I told him that many of my pieces are structural in nature and that I am often inspired by various types of architecture, he suggested I use the name “beaditecture,” but I thought I was a mouthful. No do, however, like the idea.
Lynn D. The structural practicalities of any beading piece are very important, particularly if the piece is sculptural and/or wearable. I often see beadwork that is stunningly beautiful but that wouldn’t survive if worn regularly… or that would be hideously uncomfortable for the wearer. Even the small practical things like whether a bead is top- or side-drilled can be very important when you’re connecting things together and want them to hang the right way round!
Susan Lifton S. I definitely agree that architects and beaders/jewelry designers share similar skills — I’ve been an architect for over 20 years and only began beading 4 years ago. I picked up beading very quickly as I already had skills in math, design, color, spacial relationships, geometry, structure and problem solving.
Continuing the discussion…
QUESTION 2: IF THE BEADER/JEWELRY MAKER SAW THEIR PROJECTS AS AN ARCHITECT WOULD, WHAT KINDS OF WORDS AND PHRASES WOULD THEY USE TO DESCRIBE THE PROJECT, OR HOW THEY WERE APPLYING THE TECHNIQUE OR WHAT THEY WERE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH?
For example, when I teach a stitch, like circular peyote or tubular Ndebele, where we start the stitch by making a circle of beads, I now refer to this circle as a 1-stack column. I want my students to recognize this circle as a necessary supporting structure. So I use the word “column”.
In some projects, where I have my students attach two components with say, a bead between them, I now refer to this connecting bead as a “supporting joint”. I want my students to recognize that this connector has important structural purposes. It has to both hold the two components together and allow them to maintain a shape and silhouette, as well as allow them to move, or self-adjust to the varying forces of movement when the piece is worn, somewhat independently or co-dependently.
In the piece under construction and pictured, the joint is made up of a 2-hole superduo. To be effective, the distance between the holes of the superduo have to align perfectly with the corner holes of two tila beads. In this piece, I would have preferred to use 2-hole Czechmate Tile beads instead of Tilas, because they make the piece look richer and more attractive, but the hole alignment doesn’t work. Because of this mis-alignment, with the Czechmate Tiles, too much stress is placed at the joint, working against my structural goals and necessities.
In teaching dimensional beadwork, I now differentiate between the parts of the piece which serve to provide structure or shape — usually two “arms” crossing somewhat perpendicularly — , and the other parts of the piece which merely fill in the “space” between these supports.
ARCHITECTURAL LANGUAGE
Architects have an established way of visual thinking and methodical communication. They have meaningful ways for relating design intent to visual representation and context.
Architects talk about such things as construction and construction materials, they refer to columns, arches, walls, floors, structures, load weights, slabs, foundations, spatial relationships, building blocks, shapes, posts and beams, frameworks, platforms, scale.
Architects might reinterpret any piece of jewelry in terms of its structural anatomy.
They might see a piece of jewelry having a footprint.
They would be concerned with the effects of movement, drape and flexibility, thinking about things like static, strength, stiffness, comfort, bending, stretching, shifting, light and shadow, lateral structural systems, beams and columns.
They would confront the consequences and implications of force, stress, and strain.
Architects would think about how best to manage the visual presentation, seeing it as somehow a skin or surface supported internally or externally by various structures which help it hold its shape and enhance its visual presentation.
Daisy V. Yes , we are Architects , always building something with ALL the differents shapes available . THATS THE MAGIC OF WORKIN WITH BEADS !! Let our imagination run wild !!
Continuing the discussion…
QUESTION 3: CAN YOU THINK OF WAYS IN WHICH THE SMART MANAGEMENT OF THREAD TENSION EITHER (1) INCREASED YOUR ABILITY TO MAINTAIN A PARTICULAR SHAPE OR POSITIONING OF AN ELEMENT OR A CURVATURE WITHIN YOUR PIECE, OR, (2) ENHANCED THE MOVEMENT, DRAPE AND FLOW OF YOUR PIECE?
Your thread (or, similarly for any other stringing material like cord, cable wire, hard wire or elastic string) is your canvas. We often don’t think about this. However, we should. As the canvas, your thread serves several functions. Foremost, it serves to keep your piece’s shape.
The more thread you stitch into the holes of your beads, the more power your canvas has to maintain this shape in the face of forces resulting from movement.
The way you stitch this thread through various pathways in and around your beads enhances or impedes the ability of your piece, or parts of your piece, to move, drape and flow.
How you prepare your canvas before you use it affects its durability and integrity. You might stretch it. You might wax it. You might color it with a marker. You might twist it when making twisted fringe so it holds its twist.
The canvas and how it is used may determine a piece’s silhouette. It may force upon your piece a sense of boundaries and frames, verticals and horizontals, straight lines and curves.
Whether you want any parts of the canvas to show, or whether you want to hide all the canvas within the holes of your beads.
Architecturally, we would want to have the best understanding of how the canvas works, at each and every point of our piece. How it works at the clasp. How it works at the point of focus. How it works along less embellished areas. How it works along more embellished areas.
And we would want to know how the management of our canvas — that is, the management of thread tension — affects each different type of stitch. And what opportunities and limitations each different type of creates for managing our canvas.
We frequently talk about (and compare ourselves to others) in terms of whether our personal tension is towards the tighter or the looser, but, otherwise, we often don’t see that managing tension has more implications for the success of our pieces. We need to be able to switch back and forth between tighter and looser, to accomplish our architectural goals for our pieces.
Right Angle Weave Stitch Sample
So, for example, I discovered that right angle weave requires both tight and looser thread tension throughout. For right angle weave to function architecturally — it functions like a spring mattress — the beads within the RAW unit need to be very tightly bound together so that the beads within the unit function as one. The tension needs to be looser within the connecting beads between RAW units, so that each unit can move somewhat independently and self-adjust to the forces of movement. This architectural understanding influences how I design my thread pathways in projects where I incorporate right angle weave.
Peyote Stitch Sample
Nancy Cain had a very informative article about mastering thread tension for tubular peyote stitch in the June/July 2015 Beadwork. She wrote, “Learning and understanding the foundation aspect of peyote stitch and the role of thread tension is the key to starting a structural shape….The first five rounds are the most important for setting tension for the entire piece.”
[ I’ve also found that if you don’t get the first 3 rows very tight, you can lose control over the tension in the rest of your piece. For me, these organization of these rows forms a “column” and must conform to the structural requirements, as such. ]
Nancy covers a lot of relevant ground in her article which is very worth reading.
THE EVOLVING POSITION STATEMENT: Architectural Basis of Jewelry Design
It’s a strongly held belief of mine that Beaders and Jewelry Designers should be taught as if they were Architects. Beaders and Jewelry Designers and Architects impose shape, light, shadow, aesthetics and function onto an otherwise empty space. The scale might be different, and the purposes might vary, but they all do the same thing, requiring the same kinds of thinking and insights.
The knowledge base and insights required are many. Beaders and Jewelry Designers need to understand the consequences which result from their selection of materials. They need to know what works and doesn’t work when specific techniques and processes of construction are implemented. They also need to recognize, given any design goal, how these kinds of choices enhance or impede movement, drape, flow, and durability. As well, they need to be aware how these choices affect the creation and retention of shapes and forms. Last they need to be capable in making choices about aesthetics and function, fully comfortable with the tradeoffs one must make before one completes the finished piece.
I like my students to be fully aware how they physically build a piece of jewelry. Structurally so it holds a shape. Mechanically so it moves, drapes and flows as intended. Functionally so that it withstands the tests of time and place. Aesthetically so that the surface and surface treatments resonate.
7. DON’T SETTLE ON THE FIRST NAME YOU COME UP WITH
8. PICKING YOUR BUSINESS NAME (final drafty)
9. PROTECTING YOUR BUSINESS NAME
10. CREATING A TAG LINE
11. WRITE UP SHORT DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
12. NAME YOUR JEWELRY
13. WRITING A STORY AND ELEVATOR PITCH ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
14. GO FORTH AND PROSPER
Right off the bat….
List your initial, first-things-coming-to-mind business name or range of business name ideas here:
NAMING YOUR BUSINESS: WHAT’S INVOLVED
It’s Really Difficult To Pick A Business Name
Would you ever buy a Swarovski necklace or a bead crocheted rope lariat from a company called “Flan”?
The “FLAN CORPORATION” sells handcrafted, bead strung and bead woven jewelry.
The name “FLAN” doesn’t suggest anything associated with “jewelry” or the “emotions jewelry should evoke”. The name “FLAN” doesn’t connect in any way with people who might be looking to buy some jewelry. The name “FLAN” doesn’t lend itself very well to the kinds of imagery you might use in a logo, or on a business card or on a website. The name doesn’t really make you want to find out more information about the company.
As the people at the FLAN CORPORATION discovered every early on in their new, budding jewelry business, as new customers failed to knock down their doors…
IT’S REALLY DIFFICULT TO PICK A BUSINESS NAME
Your name choice can make your business the talk of the town, or doom it to obscurity.
Picking a business name can be harder than naming your child.
It can be harder than naming your dog.
I’ve tried many times to come up with business names with varying degrees of success.
And the first business name you pick might seem great and work great at the beginning, but will it evolve with your business as well? Maybe yes, maybe not.
People often make snap judgments about your business based on your business name.
Your business name can often make or break your success.
What’s important is not only how good your business name sounds, and how appealing it is today, but also how adaptable it is over time, as you grow or change your business.
TYPES OF BUSINESS NAMES There are all types of business names.
Some are ABSTRACT — a blank slate upon which to create an image, suggestive of what your business is about.
Some are INFORMATIVE — so that customers immediately know what your business is, where it is, who owns it.
One problem that businesses which select an Informative name run into is that the name can become a straight-jacket. If your name is a niche business name, and you change or outgrow your business, your name might not grow with it. You don’t want to outgrow your business name. What if Amazon had been named Bookstore.com — books were the primary item they were selling when they first started? They would be limited to selling books.
One name that outgrew itself is Burlington Coat Factory. When they were naming their store, they didn’t think far enough into the future. When they expanded their product offerings, they had to change their tagline to, “We’re more than just coats.” (They also always have to have a legal disclaimer in their ads that says, “Not affiliated with Burlington Industries.” Ouch.)
Some are COINED — names that come from made-up words, usually to try to evoke an emotional feeling or to make your business more memorable.
If you invent a new “word” for your name, be careful that it doesn’t sound unnatural. Mashing two words together or mixing up a bunch of letters to form a new word rarely appears or sounds smooth. And be cautious using trendy suffixes to make up a new word. Sprayology, Teaosophy and Perfumania are all train wrecks.
Watch out that you don’t run into a trap where you try to be Mysterious with your Coined business name.
A sure-fire way to annoy people is to choose a name that’s completely random and seemingly meaningless. One I wonder about a lot is Vungle. I have no idea what this company does, and I don’t want to know. Likewise, can you guess what companies Qdoba, Magoosh, Iggli, Kiip, Zippil, or Zumper do?
Blindly following naming trends will lead to nothing but trouble down the road. But don’t just take my word for it. Ask the founders of Xobni, Svbtle, anddel.icio.us.
Some Coined Names involve NEW FORMS — new ways of spelling traditional words, like YRNGS for Earrings, to make your business more memorable and have qualities of innovation or with-it-ness.
The problem with having a name like Naymz, Takkle, Flickr, or Speesees is that you will forever have to spell it when you say it, because it isn’t spelled how people hear it. (Think about how often you have to spell your own first and last name. Why would you want to have to do this with your brand name, too?)
Plus, Siri and other voice recognition software do not understand names that are not spelled naturally. And if you and your employees have to spell your name out loud for people, you are wasting everyone’s time and apologizing for it, over and over again.
SELF-MARKETING ANALYSIS
Be Brutally Honest About What Your Business Is (And Will Be) All About.
You first need to know: What Do You Want To Communicate?
Over the years, I have had to come up with many business names for different types of businesses, some more, some less successful.
Take the business name, “Land of Odds”.
The name was always received well by customers, and was memorable.
Originally (starting in 1980), I used the name for a hobby business where I restored antique lamps and sold some antiques.
Years later, with my partner Jayden, we opened up a retail store (in 1989) that sold all kinds of handmade jewelry and unusual collectibles and beads. The name still had a good fit.
Eventually, Land of Odds evolved from a bricks and mortar operation to an internet e-commerce store. Here visibility and recognition depended on how well the website got indexed by search engines. We were not selling LAND. We were not selling ODDS. Our name, which had served us so well over many, many years, became a bit of a handicap.
We also opened (in 1999) a retail store we called “Be Dazzled”. At first, Be Dazzled sold finished jewelry, collectibles, some clothing, greeting cards, and beads. But at its location, mostly the beads sold, and nothing else. So we narrowed the operation to beads.
The name was always popular and attractive, but there are many bead stores across the country that called themselves some version of “Bead Dazzled”, and there were many hair salons across the country that called themselves some version of “Be Dazzled”. People frequently confused us with other businesses.
Again, as more and more business, directly or indirectly, moved online, I wished we had formally named our business “Be Dazzled Beads”, so it would be more easily indexed.
And for awhile, one business opened up a few miles from us in Nashville, and named their business, “BeadDazzled”. Nothing we could do about that.
On-line, however, I called our website’s domain name www.bedazzledbeads.com . Had to get that word “beads” in there so that search engines would index us correctly, and customers specifically interested in beads would find us.
Several years ago, I began making high end, handcrafted jewelry. Coming up with a name for this business was difficult, as well. I settled on Warren Feld Jewelry — www.warrenfeldjewelry.com.
Several things went into consideration here. I wanted to create a strong brand identity associated with my name. I wanted to make it difficult for other people to copy my business name. Since I anticipated that most of my business would be conducted on-line, I wanted a key word that search engines would see and associate with my business.
However, I settled for a name configuration that is so common among jewelry designers — Your Name Jewelry — that it was not a name that would stand out as much, set me off from the pack as much, or be as memorable as much — not like Land of Odds has been. [Same issue with Your Name Designs.]
Also, if I ever entertained thoughts of selling this business, having my name in the business name would probably be a negative.
Self-Marketing Analysis means that you take some time and write down what you think your business is today, and what it will evolve into tomorrow.
This includes:
BUSINESS ATTRIBUTES: What Is Your Business Today (Real or Anticipated)?
What do I want a name to accomplish for my company? What do you want your name to accomplish for you? A name can help separate you from competitors and reinforce your company’s image, says Steve Manning, founder of Sausalito, Calif.-based Igor, a naming agency. He suggests clearly defining your brand positioning before choosing a name, as Apple did to differentiate itself from corporate sounding names like IBM and NEC. “They were looking for a name that supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different,” Manning says.
Exercise: DISCUSS Name Options, In light of each evaluative question posed below…
Will the name be too limiting? Don’t box yourself in, says Phoenix-based Martin Zwilling, CEO and founder of Startup Professionals Inc., an advisor to early-stage startups. Avoid picking names that could limit your business from enlarging its product line or expanding to new locations, he says, citing the example of Angelsoft.com, a company formed in 2004 to help connect startup companies with angel investors. A couple of years ago, the company realized it needed to appeal equally to venture capital and other types of investors. So, it did a costly rebranding to Gust.com, which is less specific and evokes a nice “wind in the sails” image.
Does the name make sense for my business? For most companies, it’s best to adopt a name that provides some information about their products and services. That doesn’t mean it can’t also have a catchy ring. Lawn and Order, for example, is a good name for a landscaping business because it gets people’s attention and also clearly relates to the company’s services, Zwilling says. While unusual words like Yahoo and Fogdog sometimes work, quirky names are always a crapshoot.
Is the name easy to remember? The shorter the name, the better, Zwilling says, suggesting that business owners limit it to two syllables and avoid using hyphens or other special characters. He also recommends skipping acronyms, which mean nothing to most people, and picking a name whose first letter is closer to A than Z because certain algorithms and directory listings work alphabetically. “When choosing an identity for a company or a product, simple and straightforward are back in style and cost less to brand,” he says.
Is the name easy for people to spell? That may seem to be a given, but some companies purposely select names that consumers can’t easily spell. It’s a risky strategy to try to make a company stand out, and some naming consultants recommend against it. “If your name looks like a typo, scratch it off the list,” says Alexandra Watkins, founder and chief innovation officer of Eat My Words, a naming service based in San Francisco. She also believes that it’s important that your name be spelled exactly as it sounds. Otherwise, you will forever have to spell it out for people when saying the name or your company’s email or website address aloud. “Think of how often you have to spell your own first or last name for people,” she says. “Why would you want a brand name with the same problem?”
How will potential customers first encounter your name? Some naming experts believe there are exceptions to the easy-to-spell rule, especially if most people will see your name for the first time in a print or online ad. For example, consider Zulily, the online company offering daily deals for moms, babies and kids. “If you just heard that name, you might not guess how to spell it, but the company’s aggressive online ad campaign has meant that most people first see it spelled out,” says Chris Johnson, a naming consultant in Seattle and author of The Name Inspector blog, who came up with the name Zulily. “The payoff is that the unusual sound and spelling of the name have helped them create a very distinctive brand.”
Does the name sound good and is it easy to pronounce? Manning says the sound of the name is important in conveying a feeling of energy and excitement. You also must be sure potential customers can easily pronounce your company’s name. “It is a hard fact that people are able to spell, pronounce and remember names that they are familiar with,” he says, pointing to Apple, Stingray, Oracle and Virgin as strong names. But he doesn’t like such company names as Chordiant, Livent and Naviant. “These names are impossible to spell or remember without a huge advertising budget, and the look, rhythm and sound of them cast a cold, impersonal persona,” he says.
Is your name meaningful only to yourself? A name with hidden or personal meanings evokes nothing about your brand, and you won’t be there to explain it when most people encounter it. “Refrain from Swahili, words spelled backwards, and naming things after your dog,” Watkins says. She gives the example of Lynette Hoy, who was using her first and last name for her PR firm in Bainbridge Island, Wash. The name didn’t work because it failed to evoke Hoy’s fiery personality and passion, Watkins says. So, the company was rebranded Firetalker PR, and Hoy took the title of Fire Chief. She called her office The Firehouse, and began offering PR packages such as Inferno, Controlled Burn and The Matchbox. “Her entire brand is built around that name and lends itself to endless ways to extend the name,” Watkins says. “Her prior name didn’t lend itself to any theme or wordplay.”
Is the name visually appealing? You also want to consider how the name looks in a logo, ad or a billboard, Manning says. He points to Gogo, the inflight Internet service provider, as a good name for design purposes. “It’s the balance of the letters, all rounded and friendly, versus a word with hard, angular letters like Ks and Ts and Rs,” Manning says. Other visually appealing names include Volvo because it has no low-hanging letters and Xerox for the symmetry of beginning and ending with the same letter.
How will your name look? — On the web, as part of a logo, in an email address, on social media, on packaging.
What connotations does it evoke? — Is your name too corporate or not corporate enough? Does it reflect your business philosophy and culture? Does it appeal to your market?
Is it unique? — Pick a name that hasn’t been claimed by others, online or offline. A quick web search and domain name search (more on this below) will alert you to any existing use. When naming a business, you need to think about your potential customers. What’s their appetite for embracing the new? Or should you place emphasis on tradition and history?
DELINEATING ALL THE NAMING POSSIBILITIES
Initially, at least, Don’t Limit Yourself.
How did you come up with your current business name, or list of business name possibilities?
If you were starting from scratch, and trying to name your jewelry-making business, what things could you do?
What factors are important?
What do you want your name to communicate?
Do you like how certain words sound or look printed on a page?
DISCUSSION Q: How does your business name, or name possibilities relate to what you wrote about your jewelry above?
Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. It should reinforce the key elements of your business. Your work in developing a niche and a mission statement will help you pinpoint the elements you want to emphasize in your name.
The more your name communicates to consumers about your business, the less effort you must exert to explain it. According to naming experts, entrepreneurs should give priority to real words or combinations of words over fabricated words. People prefer words they can relate to and understand. That’s why professional namers universally condemn strings of numbers or initials as a bad choice.
BRAINSTORM PROCESS: You first brainstorm with yourself only.
First, write down every name, word, partial word which comes to your mind?
Second, What inspired you, or inspires you? Why did you get into this business?
Third, look at your jewelry and think about every word that might be used to describe it.
What are your styles of jewelry? Sophisticated, every day, novelty? Gemstone, crystal, glass? Only one of a kind, or more mass-produced? In what settings will you sell your jewelry?
Fourth, think about your work process — how you organize your jewelry making supplies, how you apply your craft, how you finish off your projects. What are all the words which come to mind here?
Fifth, think about your potential customers, markets and niche markets. Who are they? How will your jewelry benefit them? What are all the words which come to mind here?
Sixth, find out what types of business names are jewelry designers currently using?
USE YOUR RESOURCES…
If you do a Google search on “jewelry designers” or “directories jewelry”, you can come up with lists of names other people use. Most use the artist’s name and either the word “design” or the word “jewelry”. Susan Fein Designs. Susan Fein Jewelry. Susan Fein Jewelry Designs. Susan Fein Designed Jewelry.
The Google search will also show you other types of business names jewelry designers use. You might also page through jewelry popular and trade magazines.
Play With Words And Word Combinations
Write down all the words and phrases that appeal to you.
BRAINSTORMING (with other people)
Now, involve other people in this “coming-up-with-names” process.
Similar to what you did “inside” your head. Now see how other people think, react and understand what you are trying to do.
At this point, you come up with every word, phrase and idea that has any possibility.
Share your lists of words and names with others.
See what additional words and names they can come up with.
Brainstorm with EVERYONE. As many family, friends and strangers (who may be potential customers) you can. Don’t be shy about this.
Brainstorm. When making the decision about words and names, brainstorm a lot. Brainstorm with yourself. Your friends and family. Potential customers. In this initial part of the naming process, don’t reject anything. You want to pull out as many ideas as possible. You never know what combination of words and phrases might click.
How would they describe your work and your design abilities?
Why do they think you wanted to get into this business?
What do they think inspires you?
What qualities do they think people will associate with your jewelry?
What target markets do they think you should go after?
How do they see your products benefiting others?
When choosing a business name, keep the following tips in mind:
· Choose a name that appeals not only to you but also to the kind of customers you are trying to attract.
· Choose a comforting or familiar name that conjures up pleasant memories so customers respond to your business on an emotional level.
· Don’t pick a name that is long or confusing.
· Stay away from cute puns that only you understand.
· Don’t use the word “Inc.” after your name unless your company is actually incorporated.
Here are five of my most lucrative brainstorming tools and techniques:
Open the thesaurus treasure chest.
Begin your online brainstorming on a thesaurus website, where you can find a jackpot of synonyms and related words. My go-to one is Thesaurus.com. When a consultant I know had to come up with fresh name ideas for a hip frozen yogurt franchise in Utah that was targeted at teenagers, he hit the jackpot when he typed in the word “cold” and found these three fun names:
Bitter: With one of the two yogurt flavors being tart, it was self-deprecating and fun Goosebumps: Perfect for their target audience of hormonal teenagers Frigid: Playful and fun. He actually used this later as the name of an ice cream store
2. Comb through glossaries of terms.
Every sport, hobby and industry has its own lingo of fun words and phrases. You can find pages and pages of them online by searching for “glossaries,” “lingo,” “vernacular,” “jargon,” “dictionaries,” “thesaurus,” “terms,” “words” or “slang,” which are essentially the same thing but will turn up different results in searches. While brainstorming frozen yogurt store names, my consultant friend looked at snowboarder glossaries and stumbled upon the word “Chatter,” which was perfect for this business, as it evokes teens socializing with each other.
3. Go “Googlestorming.”
There are endless ways to utilize Google for brainstorming, or as I call it, “Googlestorming.” For the frozen yogurt store, my friend searched for “coldest places on earth.” He found a small town “deep Siberian wilderness.” The word Siberian jumped out at him. “Siberia,” sounds hip, is relatable, and has an underlying humor to it. Great name for an ice cream or frozen yogurt shop.
4. Tune into iTunes.
Song titles make super sticky names, because just like the songs themselves, they get stuck in our head.
5. Search stock photos and Google images.
A picture says a thousand words. Photos can inspire awesome names, which is why I always do image searches to fuel my creativity. Stock photo websites such as Bigstock and Getty Images are fantastic places to get ideas and search for concepts related what you’re naming.
There are many word and image resources online to help stimulate your creativity. Try the ones above and poke around to find others. You’ll have the freedom to come up with ideas without anyone shooting them down. And you won’t have to buy anyone dinner.
6. Online Business Name Generators
FILTERING
PUT WORDS TOGETHER INTO PHRASES
See how combinations of words might work for you…
Then, filter
Start Putting Words Together Into Phrases. From this list of potential key words and tags, start putting words together in various combinations. Say them out loud. Plug in some of these words into the GOOGLE or Yahoo browser bar, and see what other suggested key words they are associated with.
For some of your favorite words, you might look these up in different languages — French or Spanish or German or Italian or Chinese or whatever.
Check these words in a Thesaurus to find related words. For each 2 or 3 or more word combinations, do a Google or Yahoo search on them, and see what comes up. Are these the kinds of businesses you want your own to pop up with in an internet search? See any other words other businesses use that relate? Does it appear that no other business is using the same name you want to use?
Filter
Begin to group the words and names into categories, such as GREAT, GOOD, FAIR and BAD.
If you are marketing to a multi-lingual audience, will the words you use be recognized in more than one language, and will they be seen as positive and have no negative connotations?
Some better business names function on more than one level of understanding — a play on words. That is, a word or part of a word can convey more than one meaning, and each meaning can be appreciated. A business called “JewelryWorks” or “DesignWorks” suggests that the jewelry is handcrafted, as well as successful — it works! — for the wearer.
Names that begin with hard sounds — K, — usually work better.
Find words or pairings with a rhythm or semantic flow, which helps to avoid leaving someone with a hard stop. This tends to create alliteration, such as Freaky Friday or Sunny Shores.
People are most likely to remember how something makes them feel. This means that beautiful-sounding names have a better chance of encoding into long-term memory. Interesting fact: “Cellar Door” has been rated as the most phonetically beautiful pairing of words.
Names with letters that have high point values in Scrabble — J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y and Z — tend to be more memorable, likely because they are less commonly found in western languages. This less commonly found attribute makes a name more distinct for encoding into memory.
Letter form beauty. Brand names are more often seen in writing than any other form, so having a name translated into visual language, such as a logo, is an important next step. Take OXO and xpedx for example.
Context is important. A name should feel like a fit for the category it is going to occupy. Do this by being relatable through contextual meaning. For example, naming a small pillow company Microsoft today would be odd, but 100 years ago it may have worked.
The more physical and tangible a word is, the easier it will be to remember. The reason? It gives someone an image in their mind and helps to store it as a memory. Take “mossy rock” vs. “soft place” as an example. One is an object and the other is a concept. Guess which one someone would remember tomorrow?
Not every name is going to encompass all of these factors, but considering them gives a better sense of how memorable a name may be when it reaches the eyes and ears of a brand’s audiences.
Avoid tongue twisters. “Six Thistles Jewelry”, looks pretty on paper, offers many graphic illustration options, but is very difficult to say aloud.
Don’t Settle On The First Name You Come Up With
The best approach is to generate 3–5 business names, and start pre-testing them.
Again, search Google, domain name registries and trademark offices.
Again, bring your friends and families into a brainstorming session. Show your friends and family members all 3–5 names, and ask them to pick their favorites, and tell you why.
REALITY TEST
Subject your 3–5 choices to some rigorous and extensive reality-testing…
THE PRINTED WORDS. Type out the names, using different type-font faces. You can easily do this in your word processing or web-page editing software. How does it visually appear on the page, and do you like it or not? Besides the overall look, be sure that anyone reading your typed out name (or domain name or email address) won’t confuse lower case “L” with the number “1” or a capital “I”, or Zeroes and “O’s” or Fives and “S’s” or underscores with hyphens or blanks when the name or email address is shown as a highlighted, underlined link.
THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT. Type in your business name and domain name into a web browser and search engine. How does it look in the location bar at the top of the browser. In the search list, how does it appear, where does it come up, and what other businesses come up with it?
Type your email address into the TO section of an email.
Make sure you haven’t picked a name where, when you write it down, some letters slur together, making it illegible for others to read.
On the screen, it’s difficult to read “ill” , for example. Again, Besides the overall look, be sure that anyone reading your typed out name (or domain name or email address) won’t confuse lower case “L” with the number “1” or a capital “I”, or Zeroes and “O’s” or Fives and “S’s” or underscores with hyphens or blanks when the name or email address is shown as a highlighted, underlined link.
Some online applications may reject anything with a non-letter symbol, like a hyphen or slash or exclamation point.
Online applications will not typically recognize letters in different colors.
How long will it take or how difficult will it be for someone to type out your email address?
Does your business name lend itself to a logo.
A long time ago, I had done some consulting with a friend — Marje Feinson. We called ourselves Feinson-Feld Planning Associates. “Feinson-Feld” was easy to say, sounded professional and established, and we liked it.
We had a terrible logo, however. We took the “F” of both of our last names, and had one F upright and one F facing down, to form a right-leaning box, and people would frequently ask which one of us was the upside down F. (Of course, it was me!)
Hold your jewelry next to your name. Match? Mismatch?
Say your business name out loud. How easy is it to say and pronounce and be understood? Have other people say your business name out loud.
Your name pronunciation is not güd. Your name should be approachable and intuitive to pronounce in your brand’s country of origin. Don’t rely on punctuation marks or letters in different colors to aid in pronunciation. Your name will not appear in color in the press or in search-engine results and people go batty trying to find accent marks and umlauts on their keyboard.
DISCUSSION: Relate business name/names to questions below…
Can people spell your business name?
Can people remember your business name?
When people hear your business name, will they know what your business is about?
Does the name seem as workable for a physical bricks and mortar business, as it does for an online business?
Think about how you intend to market your business — brochures, directories, ads, email campaigns, signage — does your name feel good and fit with these marketing strategies?
If your primary means of marketing is a listing in the Yellow Pages or some other directory, then the first letter of the name might be important. Should your business start with the letter “A”? Should your business name avoid the “a”, “an” and/or “the”?
Do certain words in your name make different people react in different ways? I remember a gemstone shop named Art By God. On the one hand, gemstones are literally Art by “God”. Lots of people can appreciate that. On the other hand, whenever you use “God” in a name, it may seem that you’re diminishing something some see as sacred. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable naming one of my businesses, “Land of Gods”. And I remember the TV commercial where a woman names her new shoe store “Clothing Optional”, and attracts a hoard of nudists.
If you have an identifiable major competitor, does your business name sufficiently distinguish you from them?
Using “DESIGN” or “JEWELRY” as part of the business name…..This has pros and cons. On the positive side, it’s important to get your name associated with the jewelry you make, and the certain style, look and/or quality of your jewelry. This is called branding. You always need to keep re-emphasizing your name. In terms of both positive and negative, this gives the search engines something to work with when indexing. The name is user friendly in that it is easy to interpret and understand.
On the negative side, it seems that almost everyone you are competing with uses the same naming construct. If a potential customer is paging through the yellow pages, or scrolling down a list of designers in a search engine, you can get lost in the crowd.
Sample potential customers.
What will the future bring?
Where do you see yourself in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? What will you be selling, to whom, at what price? Will it be the same merchandise you began with, or very different merchandise?
Will the name limit you in any way over time? Have you chosen something like Tennessee Jewls, and may want to sell outside Tennessee, or have non-Tennessee products to sell? Do you think you might want to expand beyond jewelry?
PICK YOUR BUSINESS NAME (consider thisa working title for now)
Now you are ready to choose the ONE…
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Double meanings often work best, such as in DesignWorks or DesignedExpressions.
DON’T SETTLE ON THE FIRST NAME YOU COME UP WITH
That first name you come up with probably won’t be the chosen name…
PICK. Pick your business name. (final draft)
Now, how do you make your final decision?
Recall all your initial criteria. Which name best fits your objectives? Which name most accurately describes the company you have in mind?
Some entrepreneurs arrive at a final decision by going with their gut or by doing consumer research or testing with focus groups to see how the names are perceived. You can doodle an idea of what each name will look like on a sign or on business stationery. Read each name aloud, paying attention to the way it sounds if you foresee radio advertising or telemarketing in your future. Use any or all of these criteria.
PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS NAME
Registration, Trademark, Service Mark, Copyright…
Register Your New Business Name
Registering a business name is a confusing area for new business owners. What does it mean and what are you required to do?
Registering your business name involves a process known as registering a “Doing Business As (DBA)” name or trade name. This process shouldn’t be confused with incorporation and it doesn’t provide trademark protection.
Registering your “Doing Business As” name is simply the process of letting your state government know that you are doing business as a name other than your personal name or the legal name of your partnership or corporation. If you are operating under your own name, although you can skip the process, it is still a strategically sound idea to register your name. In some states, you may have to register your name at the City and County level, as well as with the State.
A trademark protects words, names, symbols, and logos that distinguish goods and services. Your name is one of your most valuable business assets, so it’s worth protecting. You can file for a trademark for less than $300. Learn how to trademark your business name.
When it comes to starting a business, there’s often some confusion about the process of business name registration. How are trade names and trademarks different? Does a trade name afford any legal branding protection? Can your trade name be the same as your trademark?
Simply put, a trade name is the official name under which a company does business. It is also known as a “doing business as” name, assumed name, or fictitious name. A trade name does not afford any brand name protection or provide you with unlimited rights for the use of that name. However, registering a trade name is an important step for some — but not all — businesses (more on this below).
A trademark is used to protect your brand name and can also be associated with your trade name. A trademark can also protect symbols, logos and slogans. Your name is one of your most valuable business assets, so it’s worth protecting.
An important reason to distinguish between trade names and trademarks is that if a business starts to use its trade name to identify products and services, it could be perceived that the trade name is now functioning as a trademark, which could potentially infringe on existing trademarks.
NOTE: You cannot trademark adjectives.
Registering a Trade Name
Naming your business is an important branding exercise. If you choose to name your business as anything other than your own personal name (i.e. a “trade name”), then you’ll need to register it with the appropriate authority as a “doing business as” (DBA) name.
Consider this scenario: John Smith sets up a painting business and chooses to name it “John Smith Painting.” Because “John Smith Paining” is considered a DBA name (or trade name), John will need to register it as a fictitious business name with a government agency.
You need a DBA in the following scenarios:
Sole Proprietors or Partnerships — If you wish to start a business under any name other than your real one, you’ll need to register a DBA name so you can do business under the DBA name.
Existing Corporations or LLCs — If your business is already incorporated and you want to do business under a different name, you will need to register a DBA.
Note that many sole proprietors maintain a DBA or trade name to give their business a professional image, yet still use their own name on tax forms and invoices.
Depending on where your business is located, you’ll need to register your DBA name through either your county clerk’s office or your state government. Note: Not all states require fictitious business names or DBA registration. SBA’s Business Name Registration page has more information about the process, plus links to the registration authorities in each state.
Registering Your Trademark
Choosing to register a trademark is up to you, but your business name and identity is one of its most valuable assets, so it’s worth protecting.
Registering a trademark guarantees exclusive use, establishes legally that your mark is not already being used, and provides government protection from any liability or infringement issues that may arise. Being cautious in the beginning can certainly save you trouble in the long run. You may choose to personally apply for trademark registration or hire an intellectual property lawyer to register for you.
Trademarks can be registered on both federal and state levels. Federal trademarks can be registered through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Applications can be submitted online, by using the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS), or by requesting a hard copy application and mailing in a paper form. Although both methods are acceptable, filing online is a faster and more cost-effective process (less than $300).
It usually is more expensive to get a US Trademark. This can be confusing, and I would suggest consulting with a trademark attorney.
It is usually less expensive to get a Trademark in the state you do business with. The process is usually very simple, and usually you would not need the services of a trademark attorney.
Tip: Before you register, you’ll need to follow these steps:
Determine whether your product is eligible for a trademark
Conduct a trademark search using TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System)
Because it can be tricky with US Trademarks to identify potential infringement or clashes, and the penalties for doing so are high, it’s worth talking to a good intellectual property lawyer to ensure you cover all bases.
As with trade names, registering a trademark at the state level varies from state to state. Check out the USPTO’s State Trademark Information page for links to your state’s trademark office.
As you begin to narrow down a name, check with the US Trademark office to be sure no one else has used these names. Go to www.uspto.gov , and search the business names. Your state trademarks office may also have a searchable list.
Protect your business name by registering the name (and logo, if you have one) as a trademark or service mark. Also copyright your brochures and advertising copy, and any sets of instructions, if you create these.
As soon as you pick your business name, register it as a trade or service mark with your state trademark office. Each State you do business in, as well as the US as a whole, offer opportunities to protect your trade or service mark. It may or may not make sense to trademark in multiple states, or for the US as a whole.
In Tennessee, this process is especially inexpensive — around $40.00 per trade or service mark. You can prevent someone else from using your business name, or product name, by registering this name with the state(s), or US. You would put a TM next to the name you’ve trademarked, such as Be Dazzled BeadsTM .
Have I conducted a proper trademark search? A great name is worthless if someone else already has laid claim to it. Start with some free resources like Trademarkia.com or USPTO.gov to do a cursory search to see if the name is already in use. Then, hire a trademark attorney to do a more thorough screening, and if the name isn’t taken, to register it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “Get it right the first time,” Watkins says. “A third of our business comes from companies who are being threatened with trademark infringement.”
Or you can send a copy to yourself in a Registered letter, write on the outside of the envelop what is inside, and don’t open the envelop when you receive it back in the mail. This is a proof of date, should you need to challenge anyone.
REGISTER ONLINE DOMAIN NAME
Check to see if anyone has registered your business name online as a registered domain name. Go to www.networksolutions.com/ or www.GoDaddy.com and type in the name you want. If the name you want is taken, you can always vary the domain type, such as “.net” or “biz” instead of “.com”. You can vary a name by adding punctuation like a hyphen or period or deleting a space between words. You can vary a name by making it plural. You can vary the name by playing with the spelling of certain words — even making up your own creative spelling for some words.
Next, register a business domain name, so that you protect your business name from other people who might use it on-line. In translating your business name to an internet domain name, keep in mind that your email address will include that domain name. You want people to be able to easily and quickly type in your email address into an email. You do not want people to confuse the spelling or any added punctuation.
Pointers: The business name does not have to match your domain name. The .com extension would be best, even though there are many other choices. If possible, the domain name should be rich in key words. Avoid using punctuation as part of the business name.
To find out if your business name has been claimed online, do a simple web search to see if anyone is already using that name.
Next, check whether a domain name (or web address) is available. You can do this using the WHOIS database of domain names. If it is available, be sure to claim it right away. This guide explains how to register a domain name.
SET UP YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES
Determine how you want emails to be directed to you. Never use “info@yourname.com” or “customerservice@yourname.com” or “webmaster@yourname.com” or “store@yourname.com” or “mail@yourname.com” or “contact@yourname.com” or “ask@yourname.com” and generic things like that. These too often are challenged by spam prevention systems as spam. You don’t want your customers’ email systems automatically deleting your emails.
Claim Your Social Media Identity
It’s a good idea to claim your social media name early in the naming process — even if you are not sure which sites you intend to use. A name for your Facebook page can be set up and changed, but you can only claim a vanity URL or custom URL once you’ve got 25 fans or “likes.” This custom URL name must be unique, or un-claimed.
Along with the URL for the business name, you’ll want to check and make sure there are places on Facebook, LinkedIn,Twitter, and Instagram (at the minimum) to claim early on.
You will want your business listed as a business in various search engines, like Google and Bing, and various directories, like Yelp.
Being active on public social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to your own business blog, is almost an essential part of any business marketing toolkit. These tools can have enormous benefits, but they also have their dangers.
For example, some businesses jump on social networking sites only to discover that someone has already registered their company or product names on Facebook and Twitter and is misrepresenting their brand as a consequence. Likewise someone might be out there reproducing your copyrighted web copy, blogs, photographs and videos (all that good multi-media stuff that social networks love to propagate) — without your knowledge.
CREATE A TAG LINE
Use a catchy phrase to summarize your business and get people’s attention…
Create A Tag Line
On written documents, brochures, stationery, envelopes and on online documents with titles, headings and the like, you have an opportunity to present more “words”, that is “meanings”, about your business. This gives you a second opportunity to convey things about your business that perhaps your specific business name falls short on, or needs more emphasis.
After you’ve come up with a business name, return to your lists of key words, and not-so-key words, and think of a tag line. Think of it as a “subtitle”.
Your Tag Line is a marketing opportunity, and should be worded in a catchy way.
Great tag line for taxidermy business: “the only game in town”
A great tagline captures the essence of the value you provide to your customer in one or two concise sentences.
For my shop, Be Dazzled, “Don’t be Frazzled, Be Dazzled”
For my shop, Land of Odds, “Your Partner In Design”
Creating a tagline is a powerful exercise, as it forces you to think about exactly what it is you do for your customers that is unique. I call this a business’s Unique Advantage Point (UAP). It’s the perfect place to start when developing a tagline for your business.
First write a 9 words or less tag line. You need to be able to tell someone, in 1-sentence, preferably seven to nine words, who you are as a jewelry designer. What’s your style? What’s your approach? What’s your uniqueness? What’s your competitive advantage?
No qualifiers. No further supporting detail and elaboration. 1-Sentence.
It might be helpful to fill in this blank: “You want to buy/sell my jewelry because….(blank)….”
Or, “My jewelry is different and more relevant and better than everyone else’s because… (blank) …. “
A tagline doesn’t need to be overly clever or cute to be effective. A good tagline is primarily functional. It should explain the unique value that your business offers as clearly as possible.
Sure, many classic taglines are pretty smart. “Let your fingers do the walking” is a clever play on words for a telephone directory company. But it also clearly evokes the value that the Yellow Pages offers: easy access to reliable information.
Don’t Worry About Being Too Cute
Make It Memorable
Inject a Little Personality
Settle on a final draft.
Some examples of tag lines / slogans:
De Beers. A diamond is forever. Citizen. Beyond precision. Crystal gets closer to the body than ever before. Diamonds by the Yard. Every kiss begins with Kay. Live the moment. Perpetual spirit. Quality is Remembered Long After the Price is Forgotten. The crown jewellers for 150 years. The Jeweller of Kings. The right time for life. The added value of the first impression. Where Maryland gets engaged. For those who want more. Honesty, my addiction. Getting rid of headaches since 1888. Ring on your finger, necklace on your neck, and men on their knees. Diamonds. Divas. Desire. Love’s embrace. Want honesty? She only has two things on her list. Unleashing the beauty of the stone. Unstoppable. Our reputation shines as brightly as our diamonds. Beautiful, masterful design never goes out of fashion. Walk down our aisles first. Hearts on fire. The ultimate in luxury and style.
NEXT WRITTEN EXERCISE: Write Up Short Descriptions of Your Business
At this point, you have done a lot of work generating terms, key words, phrases all very relevant to your business. Take a little more time to generate some descriptions of your business which you can cut and paste into forms, such as the application forms for getting listed in various online directories.
Then, come up with a 250 word description of your business.
Then, come up with a 100 word description of your business.
Last, come up with a 25 word description of your business.
All these will be useful, when creating written documents, as well as web-pages, and, just as important, will be useful for filling out forms to register your business name with various search engines and directories online.
NAME YOUR JEWELRY
Naming your jewelry will increase your sales…
I was filling out an entry form the other day for a jewelry contest sponsored by Beading Daily, a part of Interweave Press. I was submitting my Duchess Aiko Necklace under the Czech Glass category. On the entry form, they asked you to name your piece, and I’m glad I had.
This piece was very classical looking, very European sic Roman sic Greek sic British aristocracy and French bureaucracy. Stuffy, Uppity, and Refined. Hence the “Duchess”.
I have frequently used a variation on a Japanese jewelry design technique and motif called a bundle of straw. The bundle of straw allows some interlacing, some interpenetration of forward, center and receding spaces, and some simple movements. I used a variation of this technique with a narrow tube bead that slipped through the larger holes of two positioned rondelle separator bars, and underneath two 14mm faceted and frosted carnelian discs. This had the effect of pushing the upper disc forward, increasing the dimensionality of the piece, as well. Hence, the “Aiko”.
I kept thinking how important it was to name all your pieces, and how I had named them — The E. Taylor (a take-off on a multimillion dollar piece worn by Elizabeth Taylor), the Barcelona Necklace (a translation of contemporary Spanish jewelry fashions and techniques), the Etruscan Vestment (a contemporary interpretation of an Etruscan collar), and Blue Waterfall (for a piece in silvers and a multitude of blues that felt very much like a moving waterfall).
The point here is, Name Your Jewelry. I find it useful in increasing attention and sales to name my jewelry. I name each piece of jewelry, and organize similar pieces of jewelry into collections and series, to which I assign names, as well.
This helps people relate to the various pieces I make. They get connected to my pieces because the “titles” give them meanings to relate to. Naming allows me to segment all the jewelry I make into smaller subsets. This enables me to explain techniques and materials pertinent to particular pieces, so I don’t end up, in my sales pitches, making broad generalizations about what I sell. And I find people often like to own more than one piece within any series or collection. People are natural “collectors.” The familiarity these names generate seems to encourage people to want to own a second or third piece of mine.
Pointers: Keep your names short. Relate the names to your design work, but not necessarily too literally. Have fun with your names.
WRITE A STORY ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS Sell yourself as an artist by telling your story…
Write A Short Story About Your Business and Your Biography as an Artist
Sell yourself, the jewelry artist, as well as your jewelry creations.
Buyers of your jewelry and other craft creations will want to know a lot about your craft or jewelry background. They will want to know about the piece, how you thought about it, what kinds of techniques you used to make it, where the materials come from, what makes the piece special or original. The more they know about you, the more connected they feel towards you. And the more comfortable they will feel about doing business with you.
They might want to know who taught you and how you learned your craft. They might want to know if you make your items full-time or part-time. They might be interested to learn where else you sell or have sold your pieces.
Write up a 3–4 paragraph story about yourself. It could be a true story, or it could be a fantasy you want associated with your products. This story, or parts of it, may end up in your brochures. It may end up on your packaging, such as earring cards, bags or gift boxes. It may end up on your web-site. It will be something you should be prepared to tell orally, as well.
Then re-write these paragraphs as 3 short, concise, distinct sentences. You won’t be able to tell everything about yourself. You won’t be able to go into your creative process.
Things that will work well in this 3-sentence structure are titles of articles you’ve written, awards won, specialized training programs, classes you teach, your website address, specialties you concentrate on, state where you are from.
ELEVATOR PITCH
Last, translate your short story and 3-sentence summary into a 30-second Elevator Pitch. Picture yourself on an elevator with a potential client, and you have 30 seconds to “make the sale”, so to speak.
While you are at it, ….
GO FORTH AND PROSPER
Once your decision is made, start building your enthusiasm for the new name immediately. Your name is your first step toward building a strong company identity, one that should last as long as you’re in business.
Part of the success of your business name is how you effectively use it in your marketing plans.
Right or wrong, the name you choose, or don’t choose, speaks volumes about your business savvy and understanding of the world you are about to enter.
