Jewellery Design Inspiration Classes

Tutor Anna Campbell has been focussing on jewellery design recently and is writing a couple of blog posts for LJS about the subject. Here is a focus on our classes that help you develop your jewellery design skills.

If you have been making jewellery for a little while or have attended a few of our classes you will know that we tend to teach you different techniques in the majority of our sessions. These techniques are designed to help you develop the skills you need to get to the next level of jewellery making. However, we often don’t have time in these classes to also think about jewellery design and inspiration and there does come a time in your development as a jeweller when you need to focus on this in order to develop your own signature style. Luckily we do have a few classes that focus on design and inspiration.

Fashion jewellery

Our one day fashion jewellery class starts with a look at fashion trends in jewellery. You create a mood board and then work from this to develop your own piece or pieces. The Fashion Jewellery class focusses on the use of beading, wire, fabrics, buttons, ribbons etc to create statement pieces with tutor support and learners on this course tend to go in their own directions rather than make pieces with the same techniques as other learners.

Example Design Mood Board

Jewellery Design

Our one day Jewellery Design class is especially for those who would like to spend a day really thinking about design, inspiration, sketching and developing ideas. It’s a real treat to have a jewellery professional working with you in a small group and providing one to one advice. Bring along your sketchbook and prepare to keep drawing and developing your design inspirations. We have lots of resources to give you ideas if you’re stuck as well as practical advice.

Jewellery Design and Ideas Development

Technical drawing for jewellery

This one day course in Technical drawing for jewellery is a beginners level course for those that would like to learn how to draw accurate technical drawings for jewellery making. This skill is important if you are making pieces on commission as it allows you to check designs with your clients before you start making. Additionally, it’s a skill you need if you would like to use computer aided design (or just pass on your designs to a CAD specialist) for 3D printing, for manufacturing or for your portfolio.

You will look at some examples and then learn basic techniques for mapping out and creating high quality black and white outline drawings.

6 week jewellery design and drawing evening class   

For all of the above in one course why not attend our 6 week jewellery design and drawing evening class.

Covering: 

Week 1 – Fashion Jewellery. Creating a mood board to encourage you to focus on design, colours and style and help you visualise who might wear your jewellery

Week 2 – Fashion Jewellery. Use a range of beads, buttons, ribbons, fabric, chain, etc to create a piece of fashion jewellery inspired by the mood board you created in week 1

Weeks 3 & 4 – Jewellery Design. Over 2 classes you will learn how to make basic design sketches and various methods of using inspiration from photographs, magazines and the world around you to create jewellery designs. The classes will also look at the key elements of a design and choosing the right materials for your idea

Weeks 5 & 6 – Technical Drawing. Learning the basic techniques of mapping out and creating high quality black and white outline drawings from different angles to provide either to your customers, jewellers for manufacturing or as part of your own design portfolio.

We’d love to hear from you if you have taken one of these classes. What did you find valuable? What other design classes would you like us to provide? Let us know your feedback and thoughts in the comments below.

AUTHOR: Anna Campbell