Daily Wire Tip Dec. 26: Designing Original Pieces

By on December 26, 2009
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Daily Wire Jewelry Making Tip
December 26, 2009

Question:

How do you keep from getting discouraged when you’ve designed something you think is going to be an original and then see a piece very similar in a magazine or for sale on a web site? I always seem to be too late with my ideas.

Answer:

At a recent, national classes event, another instructor and I were discussing just this same subject. We agreed, that from our experience of talking and working with students from all over the world, that it is entirely possible and definitely probable for two or more people to have come up with similar designs at about the same time.

This is all about the natural learning process. You spend hours looking through magazines; books and/or the Internet, looking at different design ideas, colors and combinations that remain in your head. Then as you work through several months of patterns and ideas, suddenly you decide to combine two or more designs or single out one technique from a complicated pattern. And you think, “Voila! I’ve never seen this before, it must be new and it’s mine!” Only to open a magazine that same afternoon and see that someone has already been published with something similar (that they had to have submitted for publication a minimum of 4 to 6 months before). Bummer!

This same situation happens to most of us often. Don’t be discouraged; instead praise yourself for having come up with the idea ‘on your own’! And keep on playing and designing, knowing that you’re progressing in the right direction.

Answer contributed by Dale “Cougar” Armstrong

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11 Comments

  1. avatar

    Loretta Gill

    December 26, 2009 at 12:53 pm

    Thank you so much for your words of encouragement and I am very excited about where my designs take me and look forward to the journey.

  2. avatar

    Hyacinth Pierre

    December 26, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    thank you

  3. avatar

    Alex

    December 27, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Also, remember that you are making something with your own hands, and designing from your own self; it doesn’t matter what others might make or have made. It is yours.

    I have the handicap of not really having a designing bone in my body. I can sit at the bench for hours just looking for a color combination for designs I already have. Unless my wife, who has great color and combination sense, comes and rescues me, I get nothing done!

    However, if I can see how a design is made, or sometimes just see the design, I can duplicate it, often putting a twist or element of my own into it. I am more a craftsman than artist.

    I knew a wood carver who whittled birds from pieces of spruce. I asked him how he did it. He told me to whittle away everything that didn’t look like a bird. I got a piece and whittled, ending up with a pile of wood chips. When I asked where I went wrong, he said “you gotta be able to see the bird in that piece of spruce!”. I simply cannot make out the bird in the piece of spruce.

    Be very glad and thankful that you are able to come up with unique designs, whether someone “scoops” you or not. You are very blessed.

    • avatar

      Anne Bellissimo

      January 2, 2016 at 8:09 am

      Don’t be so hard on yourself. You have an engineering and tool sense that is rare. It sounds as if you and your wife are a great team. Do a deep dive into what interests you in addition to wire. Science fiction, religious symbols, the internal combustion engine? Designs will come.

    • avatar

      Vicki E

      January 2, 2016 at 9:18 am

      WOW! Alex, excellent advice and encouragement. Thank you.

  4. avatar

    mary

    December 28, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    It is extremely hard to re-invent the wheel and sell it. We are all influenced by what we see and read, etc. My father-in-law once told me that he was strictly a “pattern person” and not a creative person. He couldn’t think up on his own anything but give him a pattern and directions and he could turn the item out one after the other.
    We are all a blend of things, some of us can read a pattern and grasp it and get to work. Others, like myself, can sit there and read those same directions a 100 times and still not get it. Show it to me and duh, it makes sense. I am a visual folk.
    I think you should celebrate anything that you create with your own hands, regardless of the fact that someone may have already created it as well and published it. So many designs have been around for so long that no one remembers who did the first one, etc.
    I think you should also do some research into ancient civilizations and their jewelry styles and you will see just how long the same ideas and designs have been around and simply redressed by all of us.

    • avatar

      Kim Worley

      February 22, 2015 at 3:28 pm

      You’re right on. Going through history designs are a perfect way to get ideas or make them your own. Plus there’s no copyright. Unless it’s from a company that still exists. Ie: Tiffany,Fabrege’ (I’m sure I’ve misspelled this) Sources of historic jewelry are readily available online and at your local library. Jewelry can also be seen in portraits. Good luck And have fun not stress!

  5. avatar

    Judith Durling

    January 17, 2015 at 8:53 am

    This happens to creative people and doesn’t mean we are missing the mark. We just keep on designing. That’s why patents are placed on new ideas. It isn’t because the person living 50 or 500 miles away from me sees my design and copies it, although that certainly can happen.

  6. avatar

    Ellen

    January 3, 2016 at 1:06 am

    If anyone copies one of your design it vil never be the same, it vil always be some differens. I love to come up with new ideas, but it is not every day. Ellen

  7. avatar

    col

    March 1, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    this happens in all spheres of life, I was a chef for 20 yrs, and we all used one an others ideas etc-not too much was original I go out for dinner nowadays and see dishes, processes and even presentation styles that I did in the late 80’s every goes around, same as fashion trends etc.

  8. avatar

    Lane Knox

    March 7, 2016 at 2:31 am

    More than 25 years ago, a university in Vienna put up a rather large cash reward, looking for eight bars of truly original music. That money remains unclaimed to this day.

    Why? Because there are a set/limited number of notes/scales/combinations in the music world … and people have been playing (and recording) music pretty much since we first started forming tribes. In other words, with all the millions of people playing over the millennia … and the limited number of notes one can play … it’s no real surprise that all of the potential combinations seem to have been tried/recorded at least once over the millennia.

    Something similar can be said about big chunks of the jewelry making world. Chainmaile, for example, is created by combining different sized rings. In other words, there’s not a lot of variety/moving parts in the general technique when 99% of it simply involves interlinking rings. Creating a piece of art using chainmaile techniques just incorporates a repeating pattern into that process. It’s also an art form that’s been practiced on this planet for thousands of years, spanning vast parts of the globe, so–in that expanse of time, space and human creativity–it’s a wee bit naive to think that no one else has *ever* come up with that same pattern and/or combination of rings you just envisioned. You may have read every chainmaile book on the planet/never seen a particular pattern when you “think it up” … but that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t already had the same idea. The reality is, it may have even happened “more than once” already during the entire evolution of the art form ………….

    …….. but that’s okay, because part of your art form is (and always will be) the beauty of your execution. Sure, you may be repeating a pattern others have used before you, but this is your chance to put your own spin on it in in some ways, too, incorporating your own personal vision into that ancient form. And–to me–that’s just as rewarding as trying to be first at something :)