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3D Drawing; designing your own jewellery
Bespoke jewellery
Diamondsbyme
10 February 2023
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A few weeks ago, we wrote a blog about designing your own jewellery at DiamondsByMe. After you've put your own sketch on paper or worked out your idea together with one of our designers, we've arrived at the next step: 3D drawing. Probably a lot of people are not at all familiar with designing jewellery, and certainly not with using a 3D drawing programme. So all the more reason to devote a nice blog to this. In this blog, we explain how we work out the designs on the computer and one of our designers has the floor.
3D designs on the computer
People have been drawing the most beautiful jewellery for centuries. Usually this is done with a simple pencil on paper. In recent years, however, computer-based design has become increasingly popular. Not only is drawing on the computer faster, this new technique also offers many possibilities. As one of the first in the Netherlands, we at DiamondsByMe offer a wide range of jewellery, all designed with a 3D drawing programme. We use a new CAD programme that has been specially developed for jewellery design. The entire design process of our jewellery is done in-house; from making a 3D drawing to finishing the ring.
Combination of hand/CAD
It regularly happens that we receive a customer's own sketch or image on which they have visualized their dream jewellery, or that we sit down with a customer to put a sketch on paper. Also in our showroom, our staff often help customers in the design process. These sketches are then worked out by one of our designers on the computer in the CAD programme.
Is it difficult?
Questions we regularly get are: "Is it difficult?" and "Can I learn it too?". At first glance, it seems very easy to quickly draw a piece of jewellery on the computer, but nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, there are simple designs that take less time, but often our designers spend between 2 and 4 hours completely drawing a piece of jewellery. This involves a lot of work. Think, for instance, of the thickness and width of the ring, the position of the stones, the possibility of actually placing these stones in the ring in the desired way, whether all separate parts can be soldered together properly by our goldsmiths and whether the jewellery can be finished properly. So a ring with many details naturally also takes a lot of time.
The jewellery designer speaks
One of our designers briefly explains how he learned 3D drawing and why he started doing it...
"My name is Hojat and I am head designer at DiamondsByMe. I once started as a goldsmith, but my passion lies mainly in designing new jewellery. Previously, I always drew jewellery by hand, but as all the technological advancements are also increasingly affecting the processes of us as jewellery designers and goldsmiths, this course seemed like a good investment for the future.
As a goldsmith, it is of course not possible to make everything that is in your head, but this software still makes almost everything possible: complex jewellery, special shapes, etc. You can calculate everything in advance and create a nice render. A render is a detailed image of the actual jewellery. Based on this render, you can advise customers better. It also takes much less time. A goldsmith can spend hours working out certain details in a ring. Because we at DiamondsByMe use these techniques, we save a lot of time. This allows us to offer our jewellery at a lower price.
In total, it took me no less than 10 years to achieve what I am now capable of with the drawing programme. In these 10 years, I followed trainings and courses, read books and devoured hundreds of pages and videos on the Internet. The perfect combination to make stunning jewellery is when you have a background as a goldsmith and the knowledge of 3D drawing programmes. This allows you to properly estimate how much material you need to set a stone and know exactly how it is done. It is also important to keep a goldsmith's capabilities in mind when designing a piece of jewellery. By doing so, you make the final production process as pleasant as possible for everyone. In our team, we work with several goldsmiths. Together, we can brainstorm well on the possibilities of a new design. If you design a very complicated piece of jewellery on the computer, but have no knowledge of the goldsmith's trade, you will most likely not end up with a beautiful piece of jewellery. This is because without knowledge, you cannot assess whether your design is ready to produce for a goldsmith."
Through the video below, we will show you in an accelerated version what designing a ring in such a 3D drawing programme is like.
