Sunday, December 2, 2012

More On The Design Process


In March 2012, I was looking at the design process through the eyes of Jessica Stoops who had just won an Editor’s Choice award in a contest sponsored by my favourite magazine, Jewelry Stringing. You can see my original post here.

Today, I came across a blog post Jessica wrote on Artisan Whimsy, a social networking site for jewelry designers. Her post is titled, “My Steps For Designing a Necklace”, and it further examines this process.

She makes it seem so easy. Why do I struggle with it? This is an ongoing dilemma for me. 

Jessica's five easy steps to designing a necklace sound simple enough. Do I over-think the whole process? Am I too much of a 'perfectionist'? Perhaps I'm just not as creative as I'd like to be?

Anyway, I am going to sit down and work through all the steps as she lays them out. I hope to have one piece completed to show you by next weekend.  Wish me luck!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link! I am a beginner in jewellery design (or anyway, that's how I see myself) so it's always very useful to hear how others think through their design process.

    She does make it sound so simple, doesn't she. I think I would describe my own design process as quite similar to hers (except I don't go online to find the right components - I use what I have to hand), so why don't I produce such amazing pieces? Other than the obvious answer of "talent" (as I can't do anything about my "talent" or lack of, I ignore that part of it!), I guess the key is tacit knowledge. I can't figure out how to do links within comments, but there's quite a good Wikipedia page on this. That's something you can only acquire by practice, working within a community, and getting feedback from experts. Especially the feedback bit.

    So I do actually design using the basic process she describes. But, I learn to do this better through my blog and through the comments more experienced designers are kind enough to leave :-D

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    1. Sarah, I think part of the problem is that we are too critical of our own work. Others think it's fabulous, but we judge ourselves too harshly.

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    2. That is very true. Especially we are self-critical/perfectionist and thus end up paralysing our own creativity. It's good to be able to be self-critical and reflect on what we could do better, but we have to learn to keep that in check and only use that facility when it's actually helpful - or we'd never get anything done!

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  2. I agree i think we all judge ourselves too harshly

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