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 How I Design
by Alice Korach
Not long ago a Bugle reader asked me how I come up with my jewelry designs. Thinking about how to answer her got me reflecting on how my mind processes the things I see. I like to look at the world out of the corners of my eyes. This means that some of my best ideas come from only partially seeing something or from taking in a general impression and distilling it into its key components based on the effect it has on me, rather than on memorizing all the details.
Sometimes I only catch a glimpse and don’t realize what I’m seeing. My imagination takes over and a simple object like the corners of two couch pillows in a neighbor’s window become the raised knees of a happy fat woman lying in the sun on a breezy summer day.
 For jewelry ideas, I subscribe to several fashion magazines, including In Style. I like to look at all of them at one time. I flip quickly through, looking at ads as well as the clothes and jewelry to get a sense of the colors that are being featured as well as the overall look. (Ads in fashion magazines are particularly good for giving you a sense of color trends.) I’m not thinking or analyzing at this point; I’m just opening my mind to general impressions.
This quick review also gives me a sense of the trends in jewelry because I always notice it. Is it thin and delicate or chunky and multi-strand? Is it sparkly and special occasion or are natural materials and ethnic colors and styles being shown? Pastels, neutrals, jewel tones and stones, or animal prints? Are earrings big with long or multiple dangles, or are they quiet and small? Usually the answer includes a bit of almost everything. After all, very little in real life is a question of either-or. There are always more than two sides to any issue. But this kind of review does give me a sense of trends.
Next I go through a magazine page by page, paying careful attention to the jewelry. I tear out all the jewelry pictures that appeal to me, even if I can barely see what the jewelry looks like because it’s out of focus or too small. (These pictures are particularly useful because all they supply is an impression; I have to use my imagination for all the details.) Then I go through my torn-out pages and divide them into categories: necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other, and put them in folders.
As I go through the pages this time, I start thinking about what kinds of beads I might want to use for a given piece and what techniques I might draw on to produce the general effect. I don’t solder or cast metal, and I don’t have an unlimited budget; so I have to figure out what kinds of beads and techniques might work. I often write or sketch on the picture. I don’t want to copy a piece literally, so I consider it an advantage that the particular findings or exact beads are probably impossible to find or too costly for my budget. Maybe a multi-strand necklace derives its impact from using mostly one color accented with a little of a strongly contrasting color. The design might be regular, composed of an alteration of two or three sizes and shapes, or it might be highly textural with a great many different sizes and shapes of beads. Maybe the piece looks lacy, so some kind of netting, using seed beads as a major component, will best replicate the effect. Perhaps I need to construct a finding by bending wire to echo an appealing shape.
I certainly can’t afford $300 worth of aquamarines for my piece, but I can probably get a similar effect from the huge variety of shapes, sizes, and finishes in Czech glass, synthetic stone (which is usually made of glass), or faceted crystals (Austrian crystals come in more colors, sizes, and shapes, but Chinese lead crystal sparkles as brightly and costs a lot less).
The key is to determine what it is about the original piece that most appeals to you and then pick materials or a technique that will allow you to achieve that aspect of the piece. All artists and designers have always drawn on works from the past for inspiration and ideas, but they only copy exactly to learn a technique. Copied work is practice work and isn’t sold. It’s that next stage – when you use a technique to extract the elements of an original that affect you most strongly and produce a piece that reflects your own vision and sense of beauty.
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