Rendered design sheet
Deliverable: A ring designed and hand rendered in three orthographic views with metal and stone rendered convincingly, at accurate scale.
Course
Jewellery Design
Jewellery design taken to manufacture — sketching, CAD modelling, stone setting and casting constraints — with the metal weight and costing a workshop will hold you to.
- Duration: 3, 6 or 12 months
- Classroom
- Level: beginner to advanced
What you will be able to do
- Sketch and render jewellery by hand to a presentable standard
- Model a piece in CAD that is castable rather than merely printable
- Set stones correctly with the right prong, bezel or pavé construction
- Calculate metal weight and estimate cost before anything is made
- Prepare a model for 3D printing and investment casting
- Present a design a client or a buyer can approve
Who this course is for
- Class 12 pass, graduates and career changers
- Jewellers and workshop staff moving into design
- Retailers who want to design their own range
- No prior drawing or CAD experience required
Syllabus
7 modules · 3, 6 or 12 months
Module 1. Design foundations
- Proportion, balance and how a piece sits on the body
- Jewellery categories and their conventions
- Metals — gold karats, silver, platinum and their behaviour
- Gemstones, cuts, sizes and settings
Module 2. Hand sketching and rendering
- Orthographic views for jewellery
- Rendering metal and stone in gouache and marker
- Communicating scale accurately
- Presentation sheets
Module 3. CAD modelling
- Rhino for jewellery — curves, surfaces and solids
- Rings, shanks and sizing
- Pendants, earrings and repeated elements
- Matrix builders and parametric jewellery tools
Module 4. Stones and settings
- Prong, bezel, channel and pavé construction
- Seat cutting and stone security in the model
- Calibrated versus non-calibrated stones
- Setting allowance and what the setter needs
Module 5. Manufacture constraints
- Minimum wall and prong thickness for casting
- Undercuts, porosity and what fails in the mould
- Sprues, orientation and printing for casting
- Finishing allowance and polishing loss
Module 6. Weight and costing
- Volume to metal weight for each karat
- Stone cost, labour and wastage
- Estimating a piece before it is made
- Quoting a client honestly
Module 7. Portfolio and practice
- Rendering CAD models for client presentation
- Building a coherent collection
- Working with a workshop and a setter
- Client brief to approved design
Tools and technologies you will use
- Rhino 3D with jewellery plugins
- Matrix or MatrixGold
- Hand rendering materials
- 3D printer and casting workflow
- Gemstone reference sets
Projects you will build
Castable CAD model
Deliverable: A ring modelled in CAD with correct prong thickness, seat cuts and minimum wall, checked against casting constraints and exported ready to print.
Weight and cost estimate
Deliverable: A metal weight calculated from the model volume for 18K and 22K, with stone and labour costs added to reach a quotable figure.
Collection
Deliverable: Three coordinated pieces sharing a design language, presented as rendered images with technical drawings and estimated costs for each.
Where this course can take you
- Jewellery Designer
- Jewellery CAD Designer
- Product Designer
- Retail Design Consultant
- Workshop Coordinator
Duration, modes and fees
- Duration
- 3, 6 or 12 months
- Delivery modes
- Classroom
- Fees
- Share your details for the current fee
- Fees vary by track. The three, six and twelve month options are priced separately. Classroom mode only — casting and workshop sessions are on site.
Placement assistance
Every student gets placement assistance — that is what 100% placement assistance means. It is support for all, not a job for all. We do not promise a specific salary, a specific number of interviews, or placement at any named company, and you should be wary of anyone who does.
What is included
- A place in the monthly placement drive, held every third Saturday
- The readiness programme every second Saturday — mock interviews and preparation
- CV review against the specific roles you are targeting
- Portfolio review, so your project work is presented the way a reviewer will read it
- Access to the vacancy pool employers send directly to the Samyak network
- Guidance on which roles realistically fit your background and which do not
- A place in the next drive, with coaching, if you are not selected in this one
What is not included
- Any guarantee of a job, an interview, or a particular salary
- Placement at a named or partner company
- Applying to jobs on your behalf
- Support before you have completed the course and its project work
- Visa, relocation or overseas placement assistance
Three tracks, one programme
| Track | Length | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate | 3 months | Fundamentals, sketching, rendering, basic CAD |
| Diploma | 6 months | The above plus stones, settings, casting constraints and costing |
| Advanced diploma | 12 months | The above plus a full collection, advanced CAD and workshop practice |
Tell us whether you intend to design for a workshop, for a retail counter or for yourself, and we will name one rather than the longest.
If it cannot be cast, it is not a design
This is the line the whole course runs along.
Prongs below the thickness that survives a mould. Walls too thin to fill. An undercut that traps investment and ruins the pour. Every one of these looks perfect on screen and fails at the workshop, and the cost is metal, time and a customer’s date.
Designing inside manufacture constraints is the difference between a jewellery designer and somebody modelling attractive shapes.
Weight before metal
A design nobody has weighed is a design nobody can quote.
Volume to weight for 18K and 22K, stones, labour, wastage and polishing loss — these turn a picture into a number you can put in front of a customer before anything is committed. Retail jewellers who take this course frequently say the costing module alone paid for it.
Small things read differently
Jewellery is worn at arm’s length and viewed at a few centimetres.
A design that looks striking zoomed in on a monitor can vanish on a finger, and a detail that reads beautifully at 300% is invisible at scale. Working at true size, and checking renders at true size, is a habit the course enforces from the first sketch sheet.
Questions
Jewellery Design — frequently asked questions
Which of the three tracks should I take?
The three-month certificate covers design fundamentals, sketching and basic CAD. The six-month diploma adds stone setting, manufacture constraints and costing. The twelve-month advanced diploma adds a full collection, advanced CAD and workshop practice. If you intend to work as a designer rather than assist one, take the longest.
Do I need to be able to draw?
No. Sketching is taught from the start, and most of the deliverable work is CAD anyway. What genuinely matters is a sense of proportion and an eye for how a piece reads at actual size — jewellery is small, and designs that look striking on a screen frequently disappear on a finger.
Why does the course keep talking about casting?
Because a model that cannot be cast is not a design. Prongs too thin to survive the mould, walls below minimum thickness, undercuts that trap investment — these look perfect on screen and fail in the workshop. Designing within manufacture constraints is what separates a jewellery designer from someone modelling shapes.
Is this useful for a retail jeweller rather than a designer?
Very. Being able to model a customer's request, render it for approval and quote a weight before committing metal changes how a shop operates. Several students take it precisely for that — the costing module is often the part they say paid for the course.
Enquire about Jewellery Design
Three details is all we need. A course advisor will call you back.
Related courses
- Rhino 3D
NURBS modelling for shapes parametric CAD handles badly — clean curves, continuous surfaces and watertight solids, with Grasshopper for anything repetitive.
- Matrix Jewellery CAD
The jewellery-specific CAD workflow — builders, gem tools, pavé and rendering — used properly, so the model that leaves your screen can actually be cast and set.
- ZBrush Digital Sculpting
Digital sculpting taught form first — silhouette and anatomy before pores and wrinkles — and finished properly, with retopology and baked maps a pipeline can use.
- Interior Design
Interior design taught as a delivered project — space planning, material selection, working drawings, 3D views and a costed BOQ — available as a certificate, diploma or advanced diploma.
Next step
Talk to a course advisor
Tell us what you want to learn and we will help you pick the right course, batch and mode.