Just a quick update this week for our Seahorse in progress.

For setting, the seahorse has been placed into a pitch bowl. The pitch bowl gives the jeweler a firm base to hold onto while setting without having the hold onto the actual piece of jewelry. The piece is mounted into the pitch bowl by shellac and together they make sure that the piece is stable and secure so that the jeweler has full control over setting each diamond by hand. So far you can see small diamonds have been set in to the head, body, and tail with a technique called pavé setting.

Add new comment

Recently it was brought to our attention that one of our retail jewelers posted an excellent blog about us. We are very honored and want to send a big thank you to EE Robbins for the kind words. You can view the originl post here: EE Robbins Blog

 

"Thank God for Mark Schneider"

 "Mark Schneider has won more design awards than any other jewelry designer in modern history. In fact, the long list of prestigious jewelry design awards that he has won just got that much longer after winning several more honors for his bridal collection this past spring. He is one of the few jewelry Designers in the entire world to have his works exhibited in the Smithsonian Institute.

We are very proud to be among a handful of exclusive stores in the country to represent his beautiful ring line. However, it is not his unrivaled design talent or his beautiful ring creations that are the key reason why we are so grateful to feature Mark’s prestigious line of engagement and wedding rings.

The overwhelming reason we are so proud to represent his line is because Mark Schneider is simply one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He comes up to visit our stores several times a year and he knows most of our associates by name. He appreciates each and every one of our associates. He brings donuts or bagels in the mornings when he visits us. He asks about our families and shows that he truly cares about our company’s best interests, our associates and our customers. He is kind, sincere, thoughtful, humble and honest.

He encompasses not only what we look for in a vendor, but the qualities you want in a close friend. I wish every one of our vendors could be like Mark Schneider. Our work would be so much more enjoyable if everyone was able to conduct their business like Mark, his wonderful wife Nancy and his caring and attentive staff.

While we do have a handful of other vendors that we love and appreciate working with; unfortunately I have to say that based on our experience, most jewelry manufacturers and Designers have proven to be the diametric opposite of Mark. All of these Manufacturers are naturally hungry for your business, but through the years, we’ve sadly learned that when it comes right down to it, most don’t really care about our company, our associates or our clients. What the majority of them seem to care about is how much you buy from them and how quickly you pay your bills. I guess this is the sad reality of the business world; maybe even the world in general. However, since I admittedly tend to be an idealist, I find this reality disturbing.

We at E.E. Robbins very much believe that a business relationship, in order to be successful, needs to be based on mutual trust and respect. A relationship where each party truly wants the other to be successful and realizes that in order to do this, both must understand and care about the others wants and needs. Just like a successful marriage, it’s best if we share common goals and views of how we want to the world to be. I guess it comes down to doing business with people who live by the Golden Rule; who believe in treating others just as we ourselves want to be treated. While this unwritten rule sure seems simple enough and most everyone talks the talk; unfortunately we have found vendors like Mark Schneider to be very rare indeed.

If you like believe in karma as we do and you are looking for a unique and beautiful engagement or wedding ring, you just can’t do better than a ring from Mark Schneider to symbolize your lifelong commitment to each other. In any case, we remain thankful that we have the privilege of doing business with people like Mark Schneider."

-Emmerson Robbins, EE Robbins

Add new comment

Solid gold!

Right after casting our seahorse isn’t looking so pretty. As you can see in the picture to the left, the metal looks dull and is covered in a reddish-pink wax residue. Liquid hot metal was pushed through our original carving, burning away what was wax and replacing it with gold. If you take a look at the seahorses’ head, and the ‘ball’ in its mouth, you can see extensions where the metal entered.

 

The piece is given a general clean up to remove excess metal, enhance the detail, and to give it some shine. Once it is clean the seahorse is ready for stone setting.

Comments (2)

Now that the design and sketch have been approved by the customer, the next step in the process is to carve a wax of the design. In this step one of our jewelers literally takes a piece of wax and carves out the design - a process all of our original designs go through. The jeweler takes into consideration the final size and the amount of metal the piece will need. If there is too much metal the cast piece comes out too heavy and expensive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the final structure of the wax is formed, details are added and the wax is ready to move onto casting.

Add new comment

From sculptural colored gemstone jewelry to engagement rings, Mark designs it all. But one of his favorite things to undertake is taking specific customer requests, adding his own design sensibility, and creating works of art. Recently we received a particularly interesting design request which we thought would be fun to share with you. Over the next couple weeks you will be able to see this design transformed from old jewelry and a sketch, to a beautiful new piece of jewelry.

 

At first a pin was drawn out in Mark’s signature fluid style (above), but after some collaboration they decided a upon a beautiful seahorse pin. This is the design they came up with:

 

While it looks good on paper the final design will be determined by the physical constraints of what is practical and what looks most appealing. Check back with us next week to see how our master jewelers take the drawing and translate it into a hand carved wax model.

Add new comment

For those of you who have been anxiously waiting to see what the previously posted sketches would become, your wait has ended...All of Mark's new bridal designs have been launch on our brand new, New Designs Page!

For the first time ever you may vote for your favorite new styles, leave your comments, or even ask Mark questions about the designs. Don't be shy we want to hear it all; let out your inner designer!

 

 

Comments (2)

Below are a few of my new design ideas for the bridal collection. There will be approxmately 10-12 new designs that will be launched in late May. Please feel free to comment; I look forward to what you have to say.

-Mark

 

Comments (2)

This month Mark reached another milestone: winning four JCK Jewelers Choice Awards, pushing his total awards and honors over 50!

“I am very excited and honored about passing this threshold in my career,” Mark explains about his most recent achievement. “With so many talented jewelry designers it is very rewarding to be recognized by the industry and to place 1^st in four different categories.”

Later this month on his blog Mark will be posting a few new design ideas for the JCK show in Las Vegas. “I look forward to hearing your comments about my new designs. As an artist I enjoy getting reactions and feedback on my work; feedback from you helps me to evaluate the direction I am going.”

Mark and all of us at Mark Schneider Design would like to thank JCK and all the jeweler's who voted for Mark’s designs for this honor.

First Place: Best Bridal Design Under $2,500

 

First Place: Best Bridal Design Over $10,000

 

First Place: Contemporary Jewelry Over $1,000

 

First Place: Men's Jewelry Over $1,000

 

To see all of the winners and finalists, click here: JCK Jewelers Choice Winners & Finalists

To see more of Mark’s award winning designs: Awards page.

Add new comment

We just got some exciting news...we're in the news!

Host of Philadelphia's FYI Philly (ABC 6), Karen Rogers beautifully flaunts one of Mark's newest designs, a rutilated quartz pendant (pictured below).

The 18k white & yellow gold piece features an approx. 20mm bubble cut rutilated quartz and 1.07ct of diamonds. Karen wears the piece throughout the feature, with special coverage at 4:40mins into the video. Check it out:

 

Special thank you to Anthony Jewelers in Palmyra, New Jersey for loaning the piece to the program!

 

In our own news: Mark's newest video "Artist's Inspirations" is now live in the movie section of our website. Check it out and learn where ideas and inspirations come from for award winning jewelry!

 

Add new comment

Mark's spectacular Ammolite Necklace and Green Tourmaline Earrings are featured on the cover of this months issue of JQ (Jewelers Quarterly) International Magazine!

Check out the featured article on page 29.

Click Cover to Read:

The bold 18k green gold ammolite necklace boasts 5ct of tsavorites, 4.07ct of rubelite tourmalines, 1.81ct of blue sapphires, 2.62ct of citrines, 0.50ct of rubies, and 6.90ct of diamonds. The necklaces' main feature, ammolite, is a rare fossil recently discovered in North America. Discover more about this amazing fossil at Korite International's website: http://www.korite.com/ammolite.html. The necklace holds 254ct of this beautifully prismatic fossil. For additional information about the piece contact us: 800.452.5804

Add new comment

It’s been a long road, full of a lot of technical stuff I don’t understand, but the website update has been launched! My team and I have many big ideas for this site and as we delved into this most current update we realized the whole site had to be retrofitted and updated for where we wanted to go. It’s been a year’s battle but we’re hoping this is only the beginning of some great future changes to the site. Our goal is to have the site be as easy and friendly as possible, while being informative. It is important to be informed in any big decision, especially in jewelry, and you should know what you are getting beforehand. Hopefully the site reflects this, along with our passion for jewelry, design, and quality.

As I’ve said in earlier posts, the gents’ collection is something I’ve been excited about putting on the site for some time now. I have been asked many times for matching gents bands to my engagement rings, and I think it has inspired a unique collection. I’ll admit that designing gents’ rings tends to be a little easier (or entertaining), since I can visualize wearing any of these rings myself. All of my gents bands come with my signature euro shank (squared off base) to fit and wear with the hand better, and can be made with a secret heart to match my bridal rings. We had some photography shot of some of the relationships I was thinking of while designing this collection. Enjoy, and I look forward to your comments!

Comments (1)

Congratulations to Mark on winning a 2010 AGTA Spectrum Award, Platinum Honors!

This is Mark’s 25^th Spectrum Award, and brings his awards and honors total to 47!

This platinum gents ring features a 13.81ct spessartite garnet, 1.58ct of yellow diamonds, and 0.62ct of white diamonds.

To receive more updates on Mark, check us out on Facebook.

Photo by Robert and Orasa Weldon

Add new comment

First off I want to thank everyone who responded and made comments on my last post. We’ve had some problems with the blog meshing with our website and the comments did not show up until recently. I was very happy to read the comments and have to apologize to those who asked questions that were never answered. With the blog beginning to function again I plan to start posting more and responding to your questions and comments.

To Amanda and Anna, thank you for your questions that bring up an important point about what Mark Schneider Design does as a company. We hand make all of our rings here in our shop, in Long Beach, California. Each ring is custom made for its wearer and because of this you can modify my designs into anything you want it to be.

We create the ring around your finger size, cast the ring to your specific stone, and can do personal engraving or even putting a personalized message in the Secret Heart diamond. I also want to point out that we have had couples swap out the diamonds for colored stones and even incorporate their birth stones. An engagement ring is a symbol of a couple, and I allow customization of my designs so that the ring can reflect their uniqueness. All my rings can be made in white or yellow gold, and platinum. All of our diamonds come from conflict free cutters and all of our gold is purchased from US smelters that use only existing gold resources. Hopefully this helps in some of the decision making process, please let me know if you have any questions.

Other things to look forward to with the website: I am currently in the process of creating some men’s wedding bands to go along with my secret heart collection. I’ve gotten many requests from couples over the years to design both the rings and I thought it was finally time to make a collection out of them. There are about 9 styles that should be uploaded to the website by middle of next month and then some new designs that are in the works now. These new designs will incorporate some very interesting diamonds that I acquired at the Tucson Gem show this last February, and some other ideas I’ve been playing around with. I am always looking to push the boundaries outside of what a traditional ring should look like.

Some of the stones that these new designs will incorporate include some old mine cut diamonds, rose cut diamonds and beautiful coffee colored diamonds. The details of these designs are more organic and use different color and shape stones while keeping clean fluid lines, while others will have more of a geometric feel.

I have had many responses from my bridal line and appreciate all the feedback. You have asked for men’s rings, and that has prompted me to create this new collection. Once they are up on the website please let me know what you think and any feedback that you have is always welcome. My goal in creating jewelry is to design pieces that are beautiful from every angle, comfortable to wear and as unique as each individual wearer.

Add new comment

Welcome to my blog. This blog is intended to share my design philosophy, work and personal experience that have shaped my career and art. I hope this channel of communication will give you a window into my creative process and a better understanding of me as a person and artist. I encourage you to feel free to give me feedback on the content of my blog. It is important for me as an artist to see how people interpret and respond to my work.

The most asked question I am asked is, “How do I come up with ideas for my designs?” There is no single answer to this question. My work like most artists is an expression of my life experience good and bad. I’ve always had a love for architecture, furniture design and nature. All of these areas have influenced my work and can be observed in my designs.

The following ring design is an example of my work and has an interesting story behind the inspiration of the design. The motivation for the design was the Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers of America (MJSA) Vision Award contest. My goal was to create a piece of jewelry using a pearl that could be worn as a ring and a pendant, working with three elements that would protect as well as showcase the pearl. The following is my working drawings of the final design.

An interesting anecdote to the idea behind this design occurred at the award presentation to this ring. A young lady approached me at the event and asked me, “What was your inspiration for the design?” I said that I don’t recall any particular idea when I started the project. She then asked me “Have you ever seen the movie, Contact with Jodie Foster?” and I said, “Yes!” For those of you who have seen this movie, do you see any similarities to the design on the time machine in the movie? I didn’t consciously at the time I designed the ring, but I do now.

Comments (11)