what are the benefits of entering jewellery competitions for jewellery artists?
Entering jewellery competitions can be a great challenge for you personally and great promotion for your jewellery business. Jeweller Sally Costen has entered and won many jewellery competitions including achieving a Goldsmiths Award three years in a row. Sally offers some insider advice on entering competitions.
Sally Costen is a graphic designer who decided to retrain and took the 1-year Diploma in Creative Jewellery at the London Jewellery School. When she graduated in 2015, she entered and won the F Hinds High Street by Design competition, with Chairman Andrew Hinds calling Sally ‘a name to watch out for’. Her work went on to be sold in their 116 stores nationwide. Sally was also a member of the judging panel for the competition in 2016. She has also gone on to win Goldsmiths Awards over three consecutive years and one in 2023. Sally runs her own jewellery business, The Clerkenwell Jeweller.
choosing a competition
There are so many competitions out there so when choosing one to focus on you need to consider what you want to achieve by entering; is it to challenge yourself to work to a theme or deadline? Is it to get recognition for yourself and your work? Your motivation to enter will help you decide which competition is worth considering.
After completing the Diploma at the London Jewellery School, I had received lots of positive comments on two specific pieces I had made, so it was that which prompted me to enter them into a competition. I purposely chose a commercial competition rather than an art competition as I had just graduated and I wanted feedback on the viability of my jewellery designs.
do your research
I did a lot of research before entering the F Hinds contest to give myself the best possible chance. Similarly, you should spend some time looking at who is setting the competition; what is their business and their motivation?
This will tell you if they're looking for designs that are artistic or commercial. Check the entry criteria carefully so you know whether they want a sketched design, a photo or a finished piece sent to them. Look at the work of previous winners; what do the winners have in common? Is there a certain feel, style or jewellery technique that is more prominent in the winners? If you can find out, look at who the judges are and what their style and interests are.
My research paid off as I submitted three entries for the competition that I felt, from my research, met the brief well. The judging was blind so they didn’ know who the entries were made by and I ended up coming both first and second!
Storytelling
Catching the judge’s eye and winning is not just about the design itself; it's how you represent your idea. I submitted my entry as a presentation of different angles of the piece, like a technical drawing, labelling the materials and stones. I wanted it to be clear how the piece looked and, in the end, they made the piece to sell in their store from this sketch alone.
Wedding and engagement ring set designed and made by Sally Costen
From the judge’s perspective
I was asked to be one of the judges for the competition in 2016, so I saw the process from both sides. The experience was fantastic; very eye-opening! The main thing I learnt was that there are so many entries to be looked at that each one had very little time to catch the eye of the judge before it was cast aside so it is important to represent your design clearly. If it was not instantly recognisable or easy to understand as a design it was out.
what to do if you win!
I was just starting out as a jeweller when I won this competition so I feel I didn't take advantage of the opportunity as I would now, so here is what hindsight has taught me!
There was a gap for me from being informed that I had won the competition and it being announced publicly. This is an ideal opportunity to prepare to leverage this for publicity for you as an artist or for your business. You need to be ready to tell people about your win on your social media, and website/selling platforms such as Etsy. It is also worth contacting relevant press, for example, local papers, local radio, or specialist interest magazines, to see if they would be interested in featuring you.
The process of designing/making jewellery for a competition and the feedback you can get is excellent for your development as a jeweller and artist and my advice is to go for it!
Check out Sally’s award-winning jewellery https://www.theclerkenwelljeweller.com/
(This article was first written by Jewellers Academy and published for Making Jewellery magazine. It has been edited for the blog and is published with the permission of GMC publications)