The Benchpeg Awards 2016: Winners Announced

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This week in partnership with the Make Your Mark event held at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London we held the Benchpeg Awards 2016. The event, which included a showcase exhibition, evening awards reception and awards conferment, was a culmination of months of planning, nearly 150 entries to the competition and a glittering array of prizes.

Awards Showcase
The event kicked off with a showcase which was open to the public, at Goldsmiths’ Hall, home of the London Assay Office, of the 19 shortlisted entries which had been selected by a panel of independent judges from 147 national entries.

The Shortlist
The shortlisted submissions, selected by the 10 judges were designed and made by:

The Judging
The independent panel of judges then arrived at Goldsmiths’ Hall to physically handle, interrogate and discuss each entry. The judges immensely enjoyed viewing the shortlisted entries, and commented on the high quality of submissions and the breadth of design and concept behind each of the pieces. At times the discussions were animated!

Awards Reception
Benchpeg was pleased to have run the event in partnership with the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office and their Make Your Mark event, who held an Awards Reception at Goldsmith’s Hall, to which VIPs of industry were invited, along with the Benchpeg guest list and Awards shortlist.

There was a definite air of anticipation at the reception towards the build-up of the announcement of the awards.

View pictures from the evening Awards Reception below in the carousel. Use the gold diamonds on either side of the image to scroll between pictures.

Pictures taken at the Benchpeg Awards Reception. Credit: Julia Skupny

Winners

Design for Manufacture submissions were invited in CAD or hand finished pieces. Judges took into consideration methodology of production, ease of manufacture and how the design would best translate when placed into production. David Miracca of Miracca London and Award Prize Sponsor presented the award for this category to Victoria Barker for her 2D CAD creations.

Design for Commercial Sales in this category the judges looked at the most economical way of manufacturing the submitted piece, and also considered the design aesthetic which best fitted into a current trend. The judges were also mindful of selecting the design that best represented a commercial impact in todays’ retail market. Gianluca De Girolamo of Adshot and Award Prize Sponsor presented the award for this category to Ching-I Chien for her Allure Spiked Drop Earrings.

Design for Creativity, Innovation and Disruption in this category judges considered all the entries and favoured those which displayed thinking outside of the box – those entries which displayed the most unconventional jewellery design. In their selection the judges really wanted to question the very nature of the meaning of jewellery and how it could project the best representation of future British jewellery design. Fei Liu, of Fei Liu Fine Jewellery and Award Prize Sponsor presented the award for this category to Shuming Chen for her Monitoring in the Dark collection.

Prizes
Firstly, the winners will receive a day’s worth of design mentoring with this year’s Jewellery Designer of the Year and previous Bridal Jewellery Designer of the Year Fei Liu, followed by mentoring and guidance in the use of new technologies at Centre for Digital Design and Manufacturing at School of Jewellery in Birmingham. The winners can then take this learning and apply it when working with Miracca London, who work with some of the finest jewellery houses along Bond Street to help create high jewellery pieces with their in-house expertise. This prize offers project management consultancy to help get the winner from the design stage to the manufacture of their complete range and will also include introducing the winner to 'the correct people' at every stage of the manufacturing process in order to create an ongoing production chain for the winner's future growth. The prize also includes a voucher for 150 pave stone settings set in a piece of their design with one of the UK's best micro setters, and then finally a full photography package from AdShot to represent the winners' finished pieces at their best led by Adshot’s Creative Director who has previously worked with names such as Vivienne Westwood, Swarovski and Fabergé. Benchpeg will also provide support with PR and promotion. So, the prizes tonight are truly an end-to-end suite of support to completely launch a career for the winners.

Thanks
We would like to thank all those who participated in this year’s Awards by entering a submission and for making it a very special event. Those who made the shortlist are to be congratulated on the originality of their designs and for the quality of the final piece which was submitted.

Awards Sponsors
We would like to thank the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office for hosting the event at Goldsmiths’ Hall.

We would like to thank our Award Sponsors Miracca London, Fei Liu Fine Jewellery, the Centre for Digital Design and Manufacturing, Adshot Photography and to Cadfolio and CadMan for their ongoing support.

A big thanks to Endjin, who gave expert assistance in graphics and set up to compliment the website which they built for us.

Judges
We would also like to thank our panel of expert industry judges who have generously given their time to select this year’s shortlist and winners: Claire Foster, Director of Accessories & Footwear and Katharine Smith, Senior Editor at WGSN; Kath Libbert, of Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery; Katerina Perez, Katerina Perez.com; Kate Baxter from The Cut London and Dave Merry, Head of Training, Education & Trading Standards Liaison, Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office.

Philanthropic Endeavours
The Benchpeg Awards are aimed at creating an opportunity to an individual which will act as a catalyst for career in industry, a helping hand on the career ladder which would not otherwise exist. The three award categories which were created for the competition were deliberately chosen to offer an extra space in industry to enable designers a more inspirational and creative avenue to display their own knowledge and creativity.

Benchpeg would like to take this opportunity to thank our advertisers, those who spend a little bit of their budget which enables us to make it go a long way and use it altruistically with initiatives such as this, because without their support what we do just wouldn’t be possible.

Images credits: Julia Skupny, Amy Mead, Benchpeg

Author:

Rebecca van Rooijen

Published: