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Writer's pictureAlys Power

Five books to help you design your own jewellery

Sometimes thinking about what you want to make is harder than learning to make it. Design is a difficult and slippery part of the creative process and something we often see even the most able students struggle with. But there are lots of places you can go to find help in creating your own jewellery designs. Read on for five of our favourite books on jewellery design and the creative process.


It's a classic for a reason. This bestseller presents an inspirational twelve-week program intended to increase creativity by capturing the creative energy of the universe and offers insights by the author into the creative process. It might press the spiritual button too hard for some but it also offers some really practical habits to get into to bring your creativity out.

It's not specific to jewellers - this one will help any maker, artist or designer unleash their creative spirit.







This is a creative guide to designing jewellery, written by experienced jewellery maker, Liz Olver. In this book she gives comprehensive details on the essential stages of the design process - from working out the brief and seeking inspiration to working with technical drawings and developing the idea further as the piece evolves. Case studies, real-life projects and tips provide professional advice and encouragement. The book is written and illustrated in a clear cut and easily accessible style. It's clearly explained, beautifully illustrated and thought provoking in just the right way.


Informed by interviews with artists across a broad range of disciplines, and often with special access to their sketchbooks and studios, Kyra Cane explores the many ways in which artists use drawing to inform, inspire and create their work. She describes how makers draw to record source material, as a form of planning, to develop surface decoration and three-dimensional forms, as a way of thinking about and reflecting on their work, and how they use new technology. Thinking carefully about the function of your drawing - what you need it to do to develop your design is a really life changing moment for lots of makers. This book helps you to stop worrying about what your drawing and design process looks like and refocus on what it achieves for you.


Jewellery Design and Development takes a unique approach to understanding these processes, by exploring the works of seventeen innovative jewellers from around the world, and examining the different ways in which they generate and develop their ideas. Tracking all the stages from initial concepts through to finished pieces, the author analyses each individual maker's personal style and methodology, using illustrated examples and interviews with the designers themselves. No other book provides this kind of insight into the creative processes involved in jewellery making, from the materials used to the narratives at play behind a completed piece, whether conventional or subversive.



This design and inspiration handbook is for jewellery makers who want to make use of the design potential of their sketchbook and confidently create an authentic and individual jewellery collection. It introduces you to some of the ways you can travel through your creative journey. You’ll translate your initial inspiration into realised jewellery designs with permission to try, to play, to take risks and to make mistakes within the safety of your sketchbook. Six chapters explain the stages of design development from initial concept and inspiration to technical testing and mock-ups. Exercises to fill in help you define and refine your creative approach. Tasks to complete in your sketchbook allow you to explore different techniques and methods of drawing and design development. The Jewellers Creative Journal will help you take your ideas from concept to collection.

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