King crowned for CAD designed ring

8.3 k views | Posted October 16, 2012 | By Dean Millard • Staff Journalist

Another Australian jeweller has tasted success in an international jewellery design competition, once again highlighting the depth of talent in the local industry.

Australian jeweller Mark King has been rewarded for making the transition to working with CAD technology six years ago by being the Overall Design winner in an international CAD design competition.

The Matrix 7 Design Contest was open to all Matrix Version 7 users worldwide and all entries were created and rendered using Gemvision’s Matrix jewellery CAD software, with more that $10,500 of prizes awarded.

King won with a ring design that was inspired by a quarter section of a car wire wheel. The main body of the ring is made with 18-carat yellow gold, while the centre wire section has been crafted from 18-carat white gold, weighing a total of 18.9 grams. It includes one 50-point diamond, 17 0.005-point diamonds on the wires and 24 one-point diamonds on the outside weave pattern.

Jeweller Mark King

After nearly 40 years in the jewellery industry across New Zealand, Australia and Thailand King decided to move to the US six years ago to learn about Matrix, a move he says he wishes he could have made years earlier.

“I had been in Thailand for a long time and wanted to do something different,” King said. “I wanted to change from product development for large scale manufacturing companies to more personalized custom made designing, especially now I am getting older. CAD/CAM jewellery is perfect for me and I really love what I do.”

He said there was no doubt CAD/CAM technology was changing the future of jewellery design and it was exciting to be involved with it.

“I like the idea of designing jewellery on computer and I wish CAD/CAM was around when I first started working in the jewellery business. It is the future of making jewellery, it is now possible to make designs for jewellery that could never be made by hand. It will change the direction of jewellery designs.”

While King’s and the other category awards were decided by a panel of judges, the grand prize for the competition, “Best in Show”, was voted on by Symposium dinner attendees with Green Lake Jewelry Works’ Shinya Takahashi claiming the award.