POR TFO LIO Contemporary Jewellery Designer
Ying Zhan
Design is an opportunity to Continue telling story, not just sum everything up.
Contents 01. CV 02. Project 1 03. Project2 04. Project3 05. More Projects
About me I am a mature and comprehensive jewellery designer, with confi- dence in design and bench making after six years studying in jewellery. I have several short term industry experience in different organizations and companies; Advanced knowledge in Adobe software and Microsoft office;Knowledge in gemological; Familiar with Asian and Western jewellery trend.
ying.zhan@hotmail.com katherinezhan www.yingzhan.wix/homepage
Education • 2014 - 2016 MA Jewellery & Metalwork Sheffield Hallam University • 2009 - 2013 BA Jewellery Design China University of Geo-science, Jiangchen college
Experiences & Involvement Jewellery designer The Contemporary Jewellery Exchange 2015 I was a selected artist and be paired with an Italian jeweller to be part of the TCJE exhibition and ‘Year book’. TCJE is an organization where 370 jewellery artists are selected from all over the world. Designer Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI) 25th Anniversary Souvenir, 2015 This was a competitive brief to design a souvenir for guests at MERI's 25th Anniversary dinner. We created a 5 toothed cog that would both represent the company and it’s history as well as incite discussion and networking opportunities. Geologist intern Kyereboso Gold Mining Project, China/ Ghana 2013 - 2014 Assisting Ghanaian professionals and Chinese professors was my key role due to this was an international project between China and Ghana. I have gained more practical knowledge in the process of extracting gold from the land. And I was able to help to secure the contract before the end of my intern.
Evaluator (Volunteer) ‘Going Public’ Museums Sheffield, UK 2015 I have gained valuable insight into how public respond to the experience of art exhibitions through research role experience. I am enthusiastic about art and confident in talking people. Sale Assistant Yin Xin Jewellery Co.Ltd, China,Jan - April, 2013 I have gained more good teamwork and communication skills, and become more confident to reach the monthly sales target. This experience helped me to be become a confident and independent worker too.
Professional skills • Jewellery Design • Hand Sketching
• Graphics Design • Model Making
Proficient with Adobe Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDraw and Microsoft Office. Familiar with Jewel CAD and knowledge of gemology.
Language skills • English: Fluent (speaking, listening and writing) • Cantonese: intermediate (listening), basic (speaking)
• Chinese: Native speaker
Award • Third Class Academic Scholarship 2012, China • Excellent Prize, The 4th ‘Imagine Cup’ College Scientific Research Project, China
Exhibition • In Transit | Sheffield Institute of Art | Sheffield Hallam University, 1st - 11th March, 2016 • The Contemporary Jewellery Exchange 2015
01. Conversation With Objects - communication of cultural folklores through Contemporary jewellery
Context
This project is a way of saluting to Chinese culture heritage, and as celebration of my masters’ studies. The ‘Nian beast’ story has been selected as the story to tell. This story explains the unique traditions in China trough a mystic way , such as the use of red color, bright light and pasting paper on the door during important celebrations in China.
Key issue
• Value of myself as a contemporary jeweller (Self-exploraon) • Storytelling folklores through a series of wearable objects • How could jewellery be defined by audiences?
Value of the project This project examines the preciousness of jewellery beyond its material and decorative value. And to what extend, jewellery could be read ‘visually’. Storytelling the Chinese folktale is not only aimed to symbolise or present Chinese culture but also to provide a basic layer of stories in order to allow audience from various cultural background continually add layers of meaning as new information is forthcoming and as our circumstances shed new light on the old stories.
Material used fine silver hard drawn rod, cold enamel (red), gold leaf.
“ Because beauty is about familiarity... is constructed by family, friends, education, nationality, race, religion, politics, all these things make our idea of beauty." - Garyson Perry
福(fú) = fortune, blessing, happiness Dao = Upside down = Arrive “Fu” Upside Down = Fortune arrives
Now: Pronouns similar to ‘FU’ – Fortune
Old: Clothes one bite farmland ‘福’was understood as having one bite of food, having place to leave and land to farm is the best blessing from the god for human beings.
Due to the similar pronunciation that ‘福’(f uˇ) with ‘富’(fuˋ) which is the meaning of fortune, people believe that ‘fu’ contains fortune.
Initial concept Instead of doing more paper research, I decided to do a quick paper model of ‘Fu’. The intention of the rst paper cut testing aims to get to know more about the shape of ‘fu’ by making it into a real object or even wearable piece. The shadow of the paper cut resembles ‘The transformer’ to me. This inspired me to use the outline of ‘福’ to represent the monster in the story of ‘Nian Beast’.
Creating the visual interaction is the main purpose of this model, which I think it did its job in terms of the animal-like look, but it seems too flat because of the shape. And that is what needs to be considered if this idea will be developed further.
-Bigger size -Three-dimensional
Evaluation After finished all these test models, I had some discussed it with my fellow classmates and tutors. It started to trigger some interesting discussion and story sharing, but I suppose it could be more detailed designed. These pieces made me question that: 1.Is it too ambitious trying to tell a story within a piece of jewellery?’ 2.What if the whole story of breaks down to be small components? 3.Less could be more?
Concept 2 After constructed the visual cartoon story of ‘nian beast’, the next step that I took was photo etching the image on a copper plate,so that I could deconstruct it into small pieces. ‘nian beast’, ‘man’ and ‘houses are pieced out of the whole plate. They are also the key characters in this story. When looking at these small piece, it inspired me of making a series of rings that could represent each important characters in the story.
万紫千永开花
新春 喜迎
福 一年四季春常在
福
• Working as magnifier • Already Started to trigger exchanges of different folktales across different
In order to get rid of the flatness I tried few techniques in making, such as hammering and press forming, 3D shapes,cold enameling and etc.. The volume of the shape has helped to improve the design in terms of the dimension. The test models has leaded me to create the very first piece for the ‘old man’ character. The inspiration of the shape came from the Mongolian yurt, it represent the idea of a man protecting his home.
Final Outcomes
‘The wisdom’ Represents the man character. I suppose the role of the man in this story is more like humans wisdom. And the inspiration name is as ‘the wisdom’ is because he was the one who spread the idea of using ‘colour red’, ‘bright light’ and ‘loud sound’ to scare ‘the monster’. The use of red is to highlight the character and to imply the important red colour in the Chinese culture.
>> ‘The Wisdom’
Fine sliver, Hard drawn rod, Cold enamel (red)
‘Go Away Monster!’ In most of the folktales, monsters are descriptive as evil, powerful, giant comparing to human beings. My memory about the ‘Nian Beast’ is a giant animal that is half-dragon, half unicorn with very scary sharp teeth that eats children. In order to present the comparison of ‘giant monster’ and ‘small human being’, I used sizes to show the differences. Instead of using the round shape, the oval shape seems more sensible, not only because its size but also to avoid the repetition of designs. But it also should not be too big in terms of the design aesthetics.
>> ‘Go Away, Monster!’
Oxidised Fine sliver, Hard drawn rod
‘Lighten it up’ Is the representation of ‘bright light’. It is consisted by three parts, ring, opened box and candlewick. My initial idea was using the traditional lantern shape, but the shape of all the tests seem either too obvious or too prison alike. The new inspiration of the final design comes from the used candle. The pasting of gold leaf resembles the brightness of light. And the twisted silver wire represents the candle wick.
>> ‘Lighten It Up’
Fine sliver, Hard drawn rod, silver wire,23 ct gold leaf
‘Future Comes’ Continuing with the idea of ‘fu’, I choose to use the Chinese word of ‘福’ instead of just the outline of it. Reasons of using the minimized paper cutting ‘Fu’ gives a certain free space for wearer to chose how to wearer it instead of soldering it altogether. It also helped to avoid too much soldering and keep the ring clean.
>> ‘Fortune Comes’
Fine sliver, Hard drawn rod, Cold enamel (red)
Project Evaluation 73% of responses were commenting that the project is about Chinese culture or some specific cultural festivals. What is most interesting is the conversations that happened during the evaluation. People came and ask what is this ring about? Is this about….? The perception that they gave me was very inspiring. Such as ‘fortune comes’, one of them asked that if this design concept is from the alcohol vessels, and in their culture about drinking all the alcohol until you see the lucky sign at the bottom is a way to wish the dream coming true. That was a very interesting conversation that I had, even though he didn’t understand Chinese word ‘Fu’, but it was still identified as a symbol of luck in particular rituals. Another interesting phenomenon happened during the activity was that 12 out of 19 thought the design of ‘Lighten it up’ resembles firecrackers or Christmas crackers which I haven’t even thought about until they asked me.
19 Responses (30 copies printed) 13 Chinese cultural background, 6 from other cultures.
73%
Chinese folktale or specific cultural festival
27%
Other Fair tales: The little Match girl, man beating monsters
02. Pressure Visualisation data project
a. Least vs Most hardworking
LEAST working country!
Hardest working country!
b. Working Hours By Countries
Average Annual Hours Actually Worked by Worker, by OECD
• Longest: Mexico, 2236.6 hours • Middle: Ireland, 1815 hours • Shortest: Netherlands, 1380 hours
Average Actual Weekly Hours of work by industry sectors in United Kingdom
Fig 16 By ONS statistics
The table illustrates that Agriculture, forestry & fishing has the longest working hours from 41.5~46.2 every week while Education works from 23.9~29.3 hours per week. Although the survey by other organisations indicates that teacher is one of the most stressful jobs in UK due to its big workload, but the statistics shows that it is the least working hours sector which I do not indicate that teacher is not a stressful job.
Design Concept The inspiration of the design concept is from the data ‘Average Annual Hours Actually Worked by Worker, by OECD’. The design concept will be mainly focused on the visualisation of the working pressure through the statistics. The outcome of this design concept will be several pieces of wearable objects.
How does stress feel like and look like? Headache
Dark eye circle
Tiredness
Endless doc
Nightmare
Messy Hair
Driving Force
Beard ......
......
FEEL
Look like
The research about the length of working hours and the most stressful/ satisfying job, make me start to think that ‘how does stress feel like?’ and ‘ how does it look like?’ Does it have a shape? If yes, is it 2D or 3D?
IDEA 1
Pressure Box
Fig 17
The is the line chart of the ‘Average annual hours actually worked by per work’ statistic. It is where the inspiration of the pressure box comes from.
Material consideration: Nylon Wires(various colors represents different countries) Acrylic sheet (transparent)
The aim of pressure box is using a dramatic way to present the working hours through a transparent box and the line chart . The short edge of the box with 37 holes represents 37 countries on the data table, and the long edge with 60 holes is the least (1,400 hours) to the most (2,600 hours) working hours.
COUNTRIES
COUNTRIES
But the math was wrong, moreover to finish even one box is complex and the design intention is to make a serial of wearable object. So that, this idea will not be taken further.
NO! HOURS
HOURS
IDEA 2
Data Sculpture
Fig 18
The image of outdoor fountain is where the inspiration of ‘Data sculpture’ is from. The hight of each component represents the working hours of each country which I thought would be a good way to visualise the comparison of different countries.
NO! However, this idea is also not going to be continued. The sculpture will not be possible to be finished due to the time limitation, and the ideas of bracelet and necklace tends to more like high street jewellery to me so that I decided not to take it further because they are not best representation of the my design intention.
17
IDEA 3
Pressure Rings Pressure Ball The pressure ball represents the invisible but sensible pressure which it is not real touchable, but you could feel it in your daily life.
The design idea started with the ‘Pressure necklace’, but it changed to be a serial of rings because if connecting all the pressure balls together into a piece will make the necklace too heavy to wear, as well as enhance the possibilities of breaking the whole piece. In this case, the data that used to visualise will be 3 countries’ working hours (Mexico, Ireland, Netherlands) rather then focusing on individuals, which is also a way to avoid being too narrow.
Outer: Crafted plastic ball
The pressure Ball ( golden color metal) Radius = Annual working hours
How the pressure ball works?
MEXICO: 2, 236 hours = 22.36mm
R = 22mm
IRELAND: 1, 815 hours = 18.15mm
R= 18mm
NETHELANDS: 1,380 hours = 13.80mm
R = 13mm
MEXICO
IRELAND
NETHERLANDS
Longest Mexico, 2236 hours
Middle Ireland, 1815 hours
Shortest Netherlands, 1380 hours
In order to see the difference, all the rings will have the same size of outer plastic ring but different pressure ball inside which depends on the workload of the countries.
Design Development The design development section is the recorder of stage of the concept development, as well as the making process and technique learning which takes majority of the design time. The final outcomes that are finished at this stage will still be taken forward from this stage.
Ring in Plastic Form
Pressure Rings
Pressure Ball in Metal Form
Hammering Punch
Annealing the letter plate
Spinning metal balls
Engraving Machine
Lock the two parts (pre-apply borax)
Soldering completed
Lock two half balls
Result (after oxidized)
Conclusion Pressure is never a new but alway popular topic to most of the world. It has two sides, one side of it could be the encouragement that encourage people to move forward, but at the same time I could also be desperation. The purpose of visualising pressure is not only making numbers into tangible objects, but also to look outside of the world in order not to be stereotyped. The wearable objects intend to trigger discussions between viewer and wearers. The project has been focused on the universal phenomenon that are happening around the world and visualisation of data, but
finding a specific focus and useful data were the biggest dilemmas of the project. I was being a little subjective at the beginning so that I struggled to find the useful date, but it is important to be more objective due to the design concepts should be based on the data sets. Using jewellery as a way of communication will still be future focus of my future projects which I found it is very fascinating when the big issue is represented by the small scale of jewellery. In this case, jewellery has become more like a sculpture rather than a piece of decoration.
03.Natural Changes This project is based on what I have learnt before, also all the inspirations that I got from every exhibition that I saw, Visits to Botanic Garden are where my inspiration comes from.
Inspiration
Drawn in Apr 2014 These are the photos that i took in Botanic Garden in Cambridge. They are the sources of my inspiration.
The pine cones that I picked from Botanic Garden gives me more chance to do experiments and many inspiration as well
Life-cycle of Pine cone
The drawing is different stages of female a pine cone. I am interested in how the seed comes out and what will happen next. And finally the seed will turn out to be a pine tree, which we use as a Christmas tree.
Species and Life Cycle
Cactus
Rose
Five of the most ferocious spiky trees on Earth
Floss Silk Tree
Kapok
Sandbox Tree
Honey Locust
Pejibaye Palm
Reflection
Design Ideals
I love the idea of the picture inside of the picture. And I used this idea combines to the natural forms that I saw in botanic garden.
Test Models After all the research above, I start to do some experiments for the final pieces. during the time I am doing the experiments, I had some problems. The first problem is how to simplify the shape of the natural beauties. Secondly, the selection of materials has to be explored, so that I have tried many different materials. More importantly, The experiments can help me to develop my ideas to be a real piece of jewellery rather than only drawings.
Metal Model
Using different stages of pine cone to produce a set of rings. I used metal at the beginning. Then I realised why I don’t try wood, wood is the material, which is from nature. Using the material from nature produce the natural rings. It is reproduction.
3D Model of Pine cone
I have got a lot of Inspiration from the spiky trees. From all Researches that I did, I got to know that most of them can use to produce cotton, paper, furniture even food, so I chose paper to develop this set of ring
YING ZHAN LifeCycle Rings, 2014 Copper Wires.
More Projects
There are more projects that i have finished during my undergraduate and postgraduate studies. This section includes my personal projects and team project, as well as other practices.
The Contemporary Jewelry Exchange 2015 'Friendship Plaster' brooch was made for Valeria Rossini who is a jeweler designer from Italy. The inspiration of the design comes from one of most powerful relationships in the world -- 'friendship'. Friends are those people we laugh together, cry together, doing silly things together or even get punishment together...and whenever we need encouragement they stand behind. This brooch is a way to celebrate friendship, to cherish our friends and remember our old friends even when they are far away from us.
25TH Anniversary of Material & Engineering Research Institute (MERI) This was a competitive team project to design a souvenir for guests came to MERI's 25th Anniversary ceremony. Our team was consisted with two graphic designers, one interior designer and me as a jewellery designer. The requirements were to design an sustainable object that could allow the guests to keep for a long time, also represents the spirit of MERI. Our final design was a 5 toothed cog napkin holder that would both represent the five departments of the institute and it's history as well as incite discussion and networking opportunities. For more info: https://vimeo.com/138812130
Special thanks to my teammate: Elena (Yang Liu) Khue Ho Paddy Berin
Picture by Paddy Berin
Photos during the ceremony by Paddy Berin
Blooming, 2013 Recycled aluminum, Swarovski crystal, Chinese oil paint (water proof)
'Childhood Construction' Necklace, 2014 Lego bricks, old toys
Hand sketches (selection)
ying.zhan@hotmail.com 15927681601 Š2016yingzhan