How CAD Replaced Jewelry Artists
How CAD replaced Jewelry Artists is a very interesting discussion thats an old story of technology replacing workers. In this care it's little more tragic because jewelry Artisans. Folks who can sculpt wax into anything a person could imagine are becoming extinct. If you had to choose between art painted by hand or art made by computer software, which of the two would you say has greater value???
Obviously most would say the item with the human touch, because inherently we recognize the effort and talent it takes for people to create quality art by hand. In the jewelry industry though, the talent required to create a jewelry masterpiece is becoming increasingly less common and computer aided designs or CAD jewelry has become the norm. Many celebrities are spending top dollar for jewelry which has little or no human contact at all in designing it.
Photo: CAD software. The jewelry in this image isn't a real ring. It's a computer rendering of a CAD design.
Before CAD software became popular, it took the skill of a Model Maker to create the collection of jewelry brands. These artists would spend hours carving designs out of blocks of special carving wax. It took a sculptor of a certain skill level to do this, as it is very specialized work. When you were charged, the price reflected the materials used to create it, as well as the labor of the artists/ jewelry designer's as well as their craftsmanship, talent level or expertise.
Today when you go to a jewelers showroom much of what you will see was created by computer. Today many designers use contractors who plots the design on computer. When the contractor is finished, he/she uploads the design into what is called a milling machine or 3d printer which is fully automated and produces the design to exact dimensions of the rendering made on computer. The human element is all but eliminated from the design process unless you count keystrokes.
Photo: This milling machine takes the CAD design and carves the wax model used to make most fine jewelry on the market today.
It's quite safe to say that CAD design in the jewelry industry is the new normal. The argument for CAD designs says that while one's hand may create imperfections the computer generated designs are perfect. Jewelry designs that are designed by hand isn't perfect and this creates what many call "Character". My father, Heru Semahj, called this "Perfect Imperfections".
The real reason the jewelry industry has gone CAD is because it's easier to do. The mindset is "Why cultivate talented model makers and pay them a yearly salary when one could purchase cad software along with a 3D printer and save money". Sadly, many talented model makers are leaving the jewelry industry and companies who once hired them are finding it increasingly difficult to justify their salaries.
It's sad that so many are pushing for less human involvement in such an artistic art form as jewelry design. We hope this trend doesn't continue to the point where "hands on" artist become totally extinct in the jewelry industry. As it stands right now, they are most definitely an endangered species.
While technology must be embraced, we believe that some things a computers or AI could never (or should ever), replace. Though we appreciate innovation, we have remained true to the art form of traditional jewelry making and while we can create custom pieces using CAD if necessary or requested by our client, we take pride in the fact that we maintain jewelry making traditions that are centered on the human touch.