- Identification of problems: aesthetic conflicts of ready-made accessories When entering the assembly stage of the work, I face a key challenge: how to connect the independently printed parts into a unified and wearable whole. My first attempt was to use ready-made semi-finished metal accessories on the market, including copper rings of different sizes and colors (as shown in the figure, the gold and silver rings). However, this method soon exposed serious problems:
- Imbalance in proportion and volume: These ready-made accessories are either visually too thin and cannot match my 3D printing model (with the roughness and volume of Gothic skeletons); or they are too large or too small to look out of stit.
- Aesthetic Inconsistency: The smooth and industrialized texture of ready-made accessories has an aesthetic conflict with the customized, organic or gothic/uncanny style of my work. They look like ”foreign“, which destroys the overall narrative of the work.
- Iterative Experiment: Exploring the Unity of Function and Form In order to solve this mismatch problem, I conducted a series of rapid iteration experiments. I have tested a variety of connection methods, including but not limited to different specifications of connecting buckles, eye pins and even beads, trying to find a scheme that can both realize function (connection) and complement each other aesthetically (style). As shown in the picture, these attempts have failed to achieve the desired effect. This process made me realize that connectors should not only be functional ”tools“, but must be regarded as an integral part of the design itself.
- Solution: The harmony of customized connectors and materials In the end, I decided to give up the idea of looking for ready-made products and turn to bespoke making connection components. I chose a thicker metal wire (a thicker gauge wire) to make a suitable coil ring by hand-bent. This solution has brought about several key breakthroughs.：
- Visual Harmony: The hand-bent coil has a sense of ”primitive“ or ”roughness“, which fits perfectly with the aesthetics of my Gothic style model. At the same time, I can independently control the thickness and size of the coil to match the main body in terms of ”visual weight“.
- Fusion of materials: I continued the sad-by-se use of gold and silver metal. This two-tone combination enriches the sense of hierarchy of the work and also echoes the use of different metal materials in the Gothic style (such as the sanctuary box).
- Process Reflection: Modular Combination Exploration These pictures also record my exploration of ”Modular Composition“. Since I printed many spare parts, I was able to try different arrangements during the assembly process. This makes my design process no longer linear (from A to B), but a dynamic and exploratory assembly to find the best visual narrative effect. Conclusion:
This iteration process proves that in jewelry design, the connection structure itself is a design language. By switching from ”finding accessories“ to ”creating accessories“, I not only solved the technical problems, but also strengthened the aesthetic Cohesion and conceptual integrity of the work.
chuyun lu‘s 