Manual Designing As A Career

Jewellery manufacturing is one of the biggest export revenue earning industry of India. The FY17 gems & jewelry exports figure accounted for approx 15.0% of country's total exports. There are numerous skilled & unskilled people right from Chartered Accountants, Chemical engineers, MBA's to helpers, fillers, polishers involved in this industry.

In a jewelry manufacturing firm normal flow of process chain is : Customers project - Sales/ Merchandisers -  Manual Designer - CAD - CAM - Model - Dye pack - Casting - Filing - Setting - Polishing - Rhodium - Final ready sample.  So in this blog I would like to draw your attention to the profession of Manual Designers. They are the one who actually visualise any jewelry in their mind & put them down on paper for execution as final jewelry piece. It is a highly rewarding career. You don't have to be highly educated in any particular stream to get into this profession but candidates should have good imaginative skills. Knowledge of English is also quite helpful as many successful designers are expected to understand the requirements of their clients directly from them. Also while visiting global trade shows knowledge of English comes handy.

A Manual Designers first & primary requirement is that they should have good imagination since they run the ideas inside their brain & create a picture of the final jewelry in their mind itself. Good sketching skill is also needed, but today many computer softwares like Corel Draw, Rhino & Photoshop comes in handy for drawing.

A Manual Designer is expected to draw how the piece of jewelry would look if seen from top, front or right view (refer image below). Also jewelry are luxury items & demands price. So giving approximate diamond details & metal weights is also the job of designers.

Candidates interested in this field should choose their mentors / gurus wisely. There are many institutes in India offering diploma courses in this field like NIFT, IIGJ, IIJ are some well known institutes in this field. Some even conduct their own entrance tests before admitting any students in their campus. But then there are other institutes like IGI, GIA etc, offering short term diploma courses. There are quite a few successful designers who have actually not studied through any of these institutes but have made professional working industry designers as their mentors to learn the skill. Many professional designers do actually offer part time guidance for a fee to budding designers achieve their goals. So one should do thorough research & query before joining  & should choose a course based on their liking.

Some basic tips for starters are to draw straight continuous horizontal, vertical & diagonal lines without raising their pencil in a 3 inch square box. They should also practice drawing continuous waves horizontally, vertically & diagonally in the 3 inch box (refer image below). Also once you get confidence in the above mentioned assignments you should try applying heavy to light pressure to your pencil while drawing lines to get dark to light & light to dark line effects.

Also practice drawing different size & shapes like circle, squares, marquise, pear & other free flow shapes like Paisley. But they should all be in continuous strokes without lifting your pencil (see below).

Meanwhile one should also keep themselves updated by latest jewelry  trends in market by visiting online jewelry selling portals. Download the styles which you like & with the help of tracing paper try tracing the styles from printouts. You will be able to judge the stability & confidence of your hand in the sketch yourself. You should also carefully observe jewelry pieces online or if possible physically to understand the mechanism & modulations of every piece. This will help you imagine your ideas in mind before you sketch them on paper. The above mentioned assignments will help you get a fair idea of this field but a mentor will give you the required in depth knowledge to become a professional Designer. One should also get basic knowledge of different precious stones like diamond, emerald, rubies & metals like gold, silver, platinum as they are the raw materials used in jewelry. Proper & smart usage of these elements will help set your style apart from various other options available in market.
In today's competitive market manual designers are expected to give technical details of the sketches they make. Hence, knowledge of softwares like Corel draw, Photoshop, Rhino is really helpful to make your designs presentable. 3D drawing helps make your sketch look very lively. Also learn good shading & smudging skills to make your sketch look attractive.

My personal advise to new professionals who enter this industry as Designers would be to keep learning & observing various other manufacturing processes also used to make the final jewelry. This will help you gain immense practical knowledge of how a jewelry is being made & apply the same while sketching.
Inspiration for jewelry can come in from various sources, so one should always keep their mind open & observe things around them. Continiously & consiciously one should try to apply his observations to jewelry so that unquie user friendly jewelry are created.
Many companies based on your skill gives you opportunity to visit domestic as well as international trade shows. This helps gain more knowledge about various new trends, techniques & ideas coming in market which can be readily applied to make better products. Also companies send their good designers for store visits abroad & they also let their clients speak directly to designers so that they understand clients requirements & execute styles accordingly. So friends do not restrict yourself to only sketching but keep grabbing opportunities coming your way to get the most of your careers growth.

Remuneration is also good in this field & directly depends upon your skill. You get into this field as a trainee but you can grow to become a team leader, merchandiser, sales executive or even much more. Merchandisers & Sales executives who had designing background are in more demand as they have better visualisation & better understanding of the products.
There are 3 broad options to work as a designer :
(1) As a full time designer: You can join any jewelry manufacturing unit & work with them to design product range.
(2) Freelance designer : You can work on contract basis with multiple firms & work with them on multiple projects. You are compensated based on your sketch selections. You get the flexibility of time & project you would like to work.
(3) Exclusive designers : They are the most sought after designers. You can open your own jewelry shop or work on exclusive designer projects with firms. Many high profile people prefer to have their jewelry designed through them. These Designers not only sketch but are actually involved in every process till final jewelry sample is produced. They have good knowledge of the technicalities involved in manufacturing & hence are always in huge demand.
Friends I hope this blog has helped you gain a fair idea of becoming a Manual Designer & scope of it as a career. I would love your comments as it would help me improve further. Please leave your valuable comments & click on LIKE if you liked this blog.