BACKGROUND
This collection was designed by duo Leslie Montes and Luis Martinez for a jewelry design project at IED Madrid. After determining a target market, we decided to design a collection suitable for both men and women in keeping with the growing popularity of unisex accessories.
CONCEPT
The concepts that inspired the collection are the arrow and the yin-yang. The arrow is meant to represent the constant unidirectional flow of time and life. The duality of the silver and black finishes represents the good and bad times in life. Using these two concepts together, the collection communicates a feeling of hope with its reminder that whether times are good or bad, life goes on.
COLLECTION
The pieces in this collection come in pairs composed of stackable silver and oxidized silver versions. The collection consists of stackable rings, pendants, and bracelets in a minimalist unisex design.
The pieces can be stacked in the same or opposing directions depending on personal preference.
FABRICATION
After finalizing the design, we prototyped the collection ourselves. For the rings and bracelets, we created prototypes out of metals such as copper and aluminum with hand tools including jewelry saws, soldering iron, and metal files. We then fabricated silicone molds to create wax copies of the prototypes. For the pendant, we made the prototype directly out of modeling wax.
Once we had the wax copies, we contracted a local jewelry studio to cast the pieces in silver. When we obtained the silver pieces, we fixed any imperfections with soldering irons and proceeded to file and polish the pieces to a flawless finish. The matte black pieces were achieved by using an oxidizing solution.
