The earliest stages of designing an engagement or wedding ring begins with two simple things, the ring’s size and how wide or narrow my client would like their ring. This is the structural foundation for everything that will follow. This is also where the challenge and the fun begin in creating a design that is both beautiful and personally significant to the wearer. One thing that I have learned over the years of creating one-of-a-kind engagement and wedding rings is that there are few absolutes when it comes to the design of a client’s ring. Each person has their own aesthetics or what they find to be beautiful and much of my early conversations with a new client attempts to focus on questions like these…. Do you like contemporary design or objects that are more historical or vintage? Do you like clean and polished lines and surfaces like a 1957 Corvette or are you attracted more to organic surfaces or textures such as an old brick wall, or the patterns on a fiddle head fern? One of my favorite questions to ask is do they enjoy music or poetry that ends with a bit of a surprise, that catches them off guard or do they appreciate things that have more of an expected conclusion. It really is amazing at how much design information you can get from asking questions like these that have nothing specific to do with jewelry. I find that people have commonalities when it comes to objects and designs that they are drawn to and even though they might have never purchased a piece of jewelry before I can get a solid start on client’s design from their responses to these sorts of questions. What’s your favorite type of design?
A wedding ring begins like a blank canvas
