Career options in Jewellery Making
A career in jewellery designing is a rather lucrative profession today. India is the largest consumer of gold in the world, with revenues currently estimated at over $13 billion. The country also consumes 20 percent of world gold consumption.
The jewellery designing industry in a fast growing industry and employs around 1.3 million people. So if you are of the artistic bent of mind, you have an interesting career option here, waiting to be discovered. Interestingly, jewellery design is not just for professionals, there are a large number of short term courses available in all major cities of the country, and all kinds of people, from software professionals looking for a stress buster, to housewives wanting to channel their creativity are doing short term jewellery design courses.
If you don’t plan to turn jewellery design into a profession you can still do a course and create some fantastic personalized gifts for your friends. Incase you haven’t already noted, there is all kinds of jewellery you can design, not just metal and stone.
Today, jewellery is being made from a large list of materials including, clay, paper, plastic and fabric. The range of materials that can be used and the huge scope for creativity is making jewellery design an attractive field to make ones career in. Some Career Options in Jewellery Design
Goldsmith:
A goldsmith can work with any material, knows construction, can work for someone else making jewellery or for oneself.
A Custom/Special Order Jeweller:
may be employed and self employed and work directly with the public or within a trade shop. A custom order jeweller creates one-of-a-kind individualized work for a client. This is a job which combines skills in goldsmithing/wax/model making, design, rendering, psychology, pricing, selling and negotiating.
Artist Jewellers:
are those who enjoy working by themselves. There are wide open niches in conceptual work and high end work. A Fashion Jeweller: is a person who designs and makes jewellery and accessories for the fashion industry. It requires a flair for PR , design, audience understanding and good business sense.
Designer:
a designer designs jewellery through drawings, models or even wax originals. May be employed by a company or self employed. Closely linked to jewellery design is the manufacturing of jewellery. You can choose to either graduate into manufacturing by bringing to life your designs or link up with a manufacturer, who will reproduce your design.
Career options in jewellery manufacturer include
A Manufacturer:
May be anyone from someone running a small production to mass production, from service work for others to marketing one’s designs online.
Crafts Jewellery Maker:
A maker who markets through craft fairs and gallery-stores, usually with a line of hand-made, unique or low production run pieces.
Production Bench Worker:
A goldsmith who specializes in production work, anything from running a punch press, to repetitive hand work.
Repair person:
specializes in repairs. Often the best way of starting and learning jewellery skills and the basis of many a successful jewellery business.
Stonesetter:
a good setter earns very well and is well respected.
Store Owner/Manager:
This is where the income lies highest, at the retail end of the chain. It requires good business skills and hard work, commitment and a great deal of money to do. Many owners however came to this point from goldsmithing bench jobs originally.
Specialized careers related to Jewellery making
Gemologist/Appraiser:
Usually an employed position. Training and equipment costs can be high. Diamonds are a specialized sub-section of gemology.
Hand Engraver:
This profession has almost gone. It is not hard to learn, merely requiring a great deal of practice. A good hand engraver can make a lot of money in service work for the industry because of its rarity.
Model maker:
a goldsmith specializing in making original metal models. Often an employed position it is the highest level of goldsmithing in many ways.
Silversmith:
another almost extinct career but because of that some good options for independent service or original work, requires good marketing skills and training in Art School. Other career options include Caster, Plater, Polisher and Faculty Pre-requisite for career in Jewellery designing .
Some of the premier institutes in India provide diploma courses in Jewellery designing to those completing their graduation in any stream. Many institutes offer short-term courses after completing X or XII standards as well. The various types of courses would give essential information on colour coding schemes, polishing and finishing, drawing techniques and ornament making and designing etc.
The course duration could vary from 3 months to 3 years. Jewellery designing institutes are now using computerized programmes like Rhino, Gemvision Matrix, Jewel CAD, etc. This allows students to easily made and store designs and produce them on demand. Jewellery design obviously has a huge potential in India, the internet has also made things easy for those wanting to launch their own business.
One can begin selling their products online from their very home and even use the internet to exhibit their designs and produce on demand.
