Designing With Us
Before you reach out to start your custom piece, there are a few things worth considering. For inspiration and examples of our work, see our Instagram or our custom listings.
Budget
Knowing your budget directs the stones, materials, weights and technical decisions. Everyone has one. Tell us what we're working within and we'll shape the design to it, so the dream piece is real rather than always just a dream.
References
Collected images, a brain dump of words, Pinterest boards, rough sketches: anything and everything. Colour combinations you want replicated in stones, a shape, a texture, a piece you keep coming back to. Even if it feels unfocused, there's almost always a common thread running through what you've gravitated towards, and finding it is part of our job. Equally, if you already have a precise vision, we'll build to it.
Materials
Some stones and metals suit certain pieces better than others, and we'll steer you away from anything that won't hold up to wear. Tell us where your head's at and we'll work from there. Our Materials page covers everything we use in detail.
If you have stones of your own you'd like used, we take these case by case. We generally prefer to source our own, so we can vouch for the stone and match it properly to the setting, but we'll talk you through what is and isn't possible.
Sizing
We can send out a ring sizer, or help you get that sneaky ring size if it needs to happen on the down low.
Other things worth thinking about:
- Rings: depth and height of the metal, chunkiness, the shape of the face.
- Pendants: overall length and width.
- Chains: gauge thickness and length.
Timeframes
Custom work is too variable for a single number, and we'd rather give you an honest range than a date we can't hold. Most fine jewellery runs two to four weeks from design approval. Simple pieces move faster. Anything involving stone sourcing, extensive pavé, engraving or enamel takes longer. A pavé ring with forty-five stones is not the same job as a single claw-set solitaire, and all our setting is done in house. The design stage comes before that window, and how long it takes depends on how quickly you sign off.
Once the design and stones are confirmed, we'll give you a firmer estimate. Even then, lead times are estimates, not guaranteed dates. If you need something by a particular date, tell us at the start and we'll be straight with you about whether it's achievable.
ENGAGEMENT PIECES
We usually work from the stone out. You'll be shown options for the centre stone and once it's chosen the setting is designed around it, proportions, the height it sits at, how it wears next to a band. Rings are almost always worked up as renders and we'll 3D print the design so you can see it on the hand before we make it.
If you're proposing and it needs to stay quiet we can work around a ring size you've obtained yourself, keep communication to one channel and time delivery to a date.
Wedding bands can be designed alongside the engagement ring so the two sit properly together or made later to match.
HOW IT WORKS
- Enquiry. Enquire with whatever you have, a clear idea, a vague one, a folder of screenshots. We'll come back with questions, a sense of what's achievable within your budget and a rough timeframe.
- Deposit. Design work begins with a $500 deposit, non-refundable once design begins and comes off the final price.
- Design. Rings are worked up as sketches and renders and where it's useful we'll 3D print the design so you can try the actual form on your hand before any metal is cut. Pendants and other pieces get renders where the design calls for it. We go back and forth until it's right, there's no set number of revisions because some pieces land on the first pass and others take a few.
- Stones. For pieces built around a centre stone, we source options and present them to you to choose from. Sometimes the right stone turns up in days. Sometimes it takes weeks. Custom cutting adds more time again.
- Approval and final price. Once the design and stones are locked we will quote you the final price and the balance is paid before we begin.
- Making. Carved or modelled, cast and then brought back to the bench for setting, engraving, enamel and finishing. Every stone is set here by hand.
- Collection or delivery. Collect from the Sydney studio, or we ship with tracking.