A contribution for Jewelry Design Teaching

Abstract After a few years in the teaching of jewelry design, it was observed the need of providing the students a methodology, in order to develop a structured, systematic and organized work. With the objective of assisting and guiding students throughout jewelry design stages, it has developed a method composed by three main steps: Investigation and Analysis; Creation; Construction and Evaluation. This article presents a method for jewelry design and describes its three main steps.


Introduction
The most appreciated and valued human adornment of all times is the jewelry. In the past, as well as nowadays, jewels are wore in order to satisfy vanity, represent wealth, show power or simply by symbolism or superstition. Jewelry can also resemble status, beauty and sentimental aspects for people. (BATISTA, 2004) In the past, jewels were all made manually, however nowadays they are produced by the jewelry industry; they result from a long process that involves creativity and design, quality of raw materials, the use of modern manufacturing technology, specialized professionals (smelters, cutters, setters, assemblers) and the perfection of final pieces. (BATISTA, 2015) By considering the fierce international competition, the Brazilian jewelry industry invests on innovation and originality of its pieces; it also recognizes the design potential as a driving force for competitiveness and business strategies.
Jewelry Design is an activity that involves researching, creating and planning a serial production of jewelry pieces, mainly by focusing on the aesthetic function, comfort (ergonomics) and durability. It other words, it is a collection of tasks established by the designer, who is taking in consideration the generation of new concepts, material selection, the piece's visual aspect and practicality, way before allowing it into the production line. (BATISTA, 2015) In Brazil, the teaching of Jewelry Design is expanding due to the fact that it represents a segment of great potential when considering the Brazilian business market, since in this country there are many extracting fields and areas of raw material (such as quarries and mines) for jewelry manufacture.
Jewelry Design lies within the intersection between areas such as Product Design and Fashion Design. The jewel is an industrial product; therefore, when creating new collections, fashion trends are usually taken into consideration. On the opposite, jewelries are not ephemeral products such as clothes, shoes, handbags and others items. The jewel is a long lasting product (due to the noble materials they are composed by) that is known for remaining through generations.
When starting a project of developing a new jewelry collection, the students (and/or designers) are aware of the long path ahead to be followed, considering that developing a new product is quite a complex task that requires commitment and willingness, therefore to explore a vast number of possibilities. Overcoming the existing products on the market and present something original is clearly a big challenge; consequently, this professional must perform a systematic work in order to obtain his best results.
The literature on Jewelry Design still is incipient, and the jewelry designer lacks from support and information when substantiating the solutions resulted from the project. The author of this study works in the Jewelry Design area and has noticed the need of providing the students a methodology, in order to develop a structured, systematic and organized work. With the objective of assisting and guiding students throughout jewelry design stages, Batista (2012) has developed a method (see Figure 1) composed by three main steps, where the designer can overview the entire process.
The Jewelry Design Process Steps are: 1) Investigation and analysis: the designer must identify customer requirements; the needs and preferences of the user, as well as the anthropometric data; 2) Creation: the designer should define a theme of creation, the concept of jewelry, create and select the best solution.
3) Construction and evaluation: in this step the designer must build and evaluate the jewelry prototype to verify the ergonomic aspects of this product; it should describe the manufacturing process of the new jewelry.