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Saumya Amar
Jewelley Designer
Job Description: Jewelry Designers work with different kinds of metals and precious stones and minerals. They either make jewelries and sell them or just sell their designs to jewelry companies. They can design entirely by hand or they can even use software. To be a jewelry designer, you should be good in making drawings and working with computer programs. You should also have a good knowledge about the widely used metals and minerals and their physical and chemical properties. You must have good marketing skills in order to sell your designs. Average salary of jewelry designer is around $40 000 per year. If you want to be a self-employed jewelry designer, then you should be able to discuss with your clients about your projects and his choice or budget. You should also be able to sketch out your designs either by using computer software or drawing your ideas on paper for giving your clients a good visual idea of your finished design. Their day is quite hectic and often involves meeting with clients, making sketches and planning for the ideas.
Qualifications: It is possible to set your career in jewelry designer without formal qualification. Years of experience and working skills are way more important than formal qualification. It is your working habits and skills that will help you in pursuing this career. The more experience you have, the better you are in this career. There are some college courses and degree programs which help students to improve and enhance their skills. They also offer programs in gemology and metalworking. You should be good in oral communication as you have to attend a lot of meetings with clients and also if you are working as a team, it is really important to be able to express your ideas. Planning process is also really important for a jewelry designer. Jewelry designers need to keep everything organized and ready to go. All the orders, stones and the designs need to be in their designated place. Not only jewelry designers, but everyone should be good in problem solving. You should know how to handle situation if something goes wrong either during meeting the clients or even while making designs. One of the most important working habits for jewelry designer is serving the customers. You should always make your designs as per the customer’s need. If you are not fulfilling your customer’s needs and choice, your designs won’t receive that much of customer’s attention.
Education: Some of the universities that offer programs in jewelry designing are California College of Arts, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Indiana University and Virginia Commonwealth University. They offer minimum of 2 year and maximum of 3 year MFA in art. They also study metalworking techniques and how to work with different kinds of materials.
One of the universities in India that offer jewelry design programs are:
SouthDelhi Polytechnic University is a university which offers courses for Jewelry Designing which is only for women. They offer different courses such as Design Studies, Design Execution, Nature Study, Methods & Minerals and Gemology. Some of them have 2 year programs but most of them have 3 programs. For entering in this university, you should present your certificates and mark sheets of the previous examination and some of your previous works.
School of Jewellery is another university in UK which has lots of courses such as CAD rhino and Matrix for Designers/Makers, Creative Self-Development which includes Enameling, Hand engraving, Silversmithing and Stone setting. They are usually 1 or 2 year programs. For entering in this university, you need English Language result (either IELTS or TOEFL). Your previous certificates and mark sheets.
Support groups- Some of the support groups that help young designers are:
LVMH is in Hong Kong for less than 40 years old. They organize competition for young designers. The winners of these competitions are awarded with $300,000 and winners are awarded with 12 months of working team of LVMH.
Contemporary Jewelry Design Group is also one of the groups of extraordinary jewelry and exceptional designers. They not only focus on designing jewelry but also extracting minerals and stones naturally and go through all the process in refining the minerals to actually making them.



