JEWELLERY DESIGN DIPLOMA COURSE 

Unlock your creative potential with our Introduction to Jewellery Design course, specially designed for anyone eager to dive into the world of jewellery design or creative design. 

With practical tutor guidance you will learn how Jewellery Designers create their designs.

 

Observation Skills: Develop your ability to see the world differently and uncover endless design possibilities. Learn to transform patterns, shapes, and everyday interactions into unique design ideas.

 

Pattern and Shape Transformation: Explore how simple patterns and shapes can become design ideas.

 

Creative Inspiration: Explore how stories, texts, languages, and more can inspire new design concepts with guidance from your tutor.

 

Collating and Organising ideas: Discover the importance of mood boards, learn how to create them, and use them to capture your inspirations and ideas and other useful online resources you may find helpful for arranging your ideas.

Design Development: Learn basic methods for converting a design concept into a tangible design idea using simple sketchbook techniques. The emphasis on the importance of recording your ideas without being limited by your drawing skills.

 

Practice

Following your first design session you will receive a small homework project to practice the techniques covered, this will help raise any issues arising that can be discussed with your tutor.

Who should attend: No previous experience in jewellery making or design is required. This course is open to anyone who wishes to explore creative thinking, generate design ideas, and develop them into real designs.

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Materials

Before your course your tutor will contact you to advise what you need to have ready and bring to your tuition session with them

 

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This course provides a step by step practical introduction and exploration of on the effective use of sketches to illustrate your ideas for Jewellery.

 

The content of this course lays down the important basic foundations for the drawing techniques required to effectively create recognisable simple Jewellery design sketches.

 

Content includes: sketching techniques for critical Jewellery shapes, the importance of perspective, basic shading techniques, drawing reflective surfaces, using tinted paper & coloured pencils, and creating basic recognisable gemstone shapes.

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At the beginning of your course session , the tutor will firstly explain essential drawing methods via demonstrations and then, with step-by-step tutor guidance you will then complete some practical pencil sketches. These sketching tasks will provide important practical techniques for effective sketching of important shapes using perspective and shading to create simple shape combinations.

 

Techniques for creating simple gemstone shapes will also be included. There will also be a brief introduction and practise of using pencil on tinted paper and simple use of coloured pencils, another option for creating jewellery design sketches to communicate your ideas. ​

In between the course sessions the tutor will provide you with a small homework project to practice the techniques covered.

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Materials

Before your course your tutor will contact you to advise what you need to have ready and bring to your tuition session with them

 

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This course is designed to be the next step on from the Introduction to our Design Sketching course and enable you create beautiful full colour drawings to entice your customers to buy your bespoke Jewellery.

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You will also be able to use these drawings to create a design portfolio and to show your design skills on your Website or Social Media pages to reinforce your design skills.

Being able to communicate your design ideas accurately is critical for Jewellers undertaking bespoke commission or remodeling work.

 

The first part of this course will be to review and discuss your practice drawings of simple forms set at the end of day of the previous course, which are not expected to be perfect, but as aid for the tutor see in which areas might need improvement.

 

You will then take a little time to re-visit and through step-by-step guided practice of the techniques learn to build confidence and accuracy in technique.

The main part of this tuition concentrates on developing and improving techniques for technical hand drawing (Rendering).

 

​Your drawing practice during the course will indicate the beginnings of your design/drawing style, so that future collections of drawings can form a cohesive body of work suitable for a portfolio.

If you have some jewellery ideas you might like to discuss these with the tutor to ask if they might form part of your practice on the day.

 

Materials

Before your course your tutor will contact you to advise what you need to have ready and bring to your tuition session with them

 

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The emphasis of this course if for you to gain a greater understanding of the options and decisions that need to be made for refining and finalising a Jewellery design before production/manufacturing begins.

 

With your design concept complete and your ideas drawn (and potentially shown to a client), the next important step is to refine your jewellery design by finalising the important details. This course has been created to assist Jewellery Designers who may have limited bench experience and who might be unfamiliar with some of the choices available for refining or concluding designs, and this course explains the decisions that ideally need to be made at the pre-production stage.

 

All the information gathered to refine your design will form a Design Control Sheet, which when completed can be used to explain your design configuration - particularly useful if you are outsourcing the manufacture of your Jewellery.

 

Part one: Learn about important design matters such as scale, proportion; material choices; fastenings and fittings. All of these areas are required to inform the process of getting your jewellery made by hand or by CAD, they are also invaluable for determining cost and selling price implications and are effective for recording your design/commission practice.

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A design homework task is set after session one and forms an important part of the session two content.

 

Part two: You will be using one of your own designs as an example for applying all the items discussed in session one in order to conclude your design. Any decisions made at this stage are not final, they simply used in this course to demonstrate what is required for refining your design and what needs to form the basis of a

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• Finally you will be provided with some useful reading/reference material or links for future use.

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Materials

Before your course your tutor will contact you to advise what you need to have ready and bring to your tuition session with them.

 

IMPORTANT: Suitable for all however, you must acquire Jewellery sketching /drawing techniques because these also form an essential part of your Design Control Sheet content.​​​

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This course is designed specifically for jewellery designers who want to choose gemstones with confidence, creativity, and technical insight.

 

You will learn how to select gemstones that enhance your design vision while performing reliably in wearable jewellery and you will explore the essential attributes that influence design outcomes; hardness, durability, cutting styles, colour distribution, and how gemstone choice affects both value and the overall aesthetic.

 

What you will learn

 

Design Impact

How colour, cut, size, and brilliance, shape the tone and identity of your designs, and how thoughtful gemstone choices help you express themes from vintage romance to modern minimalism.

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Wearability & Function

Choosing gemtones that suit the piece’s purpose and the wearer’s lifestyle such as hardness and durability; resistance to wear and chemicals; suitability for daily vs. occasional wear to ensure your designs remain beautiful, practical, and long‑lasting.

 

The Influence of Stylistic Factors

Color Harmony: Balancing or contrasting gemstone colours with metals and other design elements.

Cut & Shape: Using different cuts to influence light performance and silhouette.

Size & proportion: Matching gemstone scale to the design’s form and the wearer’s comfort.

 

Trend Sensitivity

Client appeal: How to bend contemporary trends or timeless styles to appeal to your Ideal Customer.

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Symbolic Meaning

How to add depth of meaning through traditional narratives or personal significance.

 

By integrating these creative and practical principles, you will be able to design gemstone jewellery that is visually captivating, comfortable to wear, durable and deeply meaningful to the wearer.

 

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• No previous Gemmological knowledge is required in order to participate and benefit from this Course.

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