Cameron and Rebecca Stern, co-founders of Stern Design Works, are combining innovative methods of traditional jewelry manufacturing with Ultimaker professional desktop 3D printers.
Each year, Stern Design Works ships thousands of original fashion jewelry pieces to online customers and local boutiques across North America, unfazed by the high demand from the retail jewelry boutique trade.
Stern Design Works is a multidisciplinary design studio that incorporates STEM concepts into the creation of fashion jewelry and accessories.
Their work celebrates the intersection of science, technology, and art using various techniques, including traditional metal fabrication and 3D printing.
Their customers are not only influenced by the quality and complexity of the finished products but also by Cameron and Rebecca Stern's passion for science and natural history, evident in their most popular collections which are filled with clever and interesting themes and categories.
Fashion Jewelry Meets Science, Technology, and Art
"Our love of science and quirky history continues to inspire our collections," says Cameron Stern.
In their design lab, they experiment with 3D-printed and nylon micro-animals, magnified proteins, HeLa cells, flea circus props, and other unique subjects to determine which new pieces will be added to current seasonal collections or the studio's archives.
Ultimaker 3 printing in the Stern Design Works studio
Visitors to their retail stores, boutiques, and online shops quickly discover that if you love science, natural history, and imagination, Stern Design Works offers something interesting for you.
One popular design started as a custom project for an organic chemist – a 3D-printed molecular lattice structure necklace, made with diamond components to represent "real diamonds" for his wife.
Other orders include anatomically (sweet) heart pendants with T-Rex brooches, sine wave curved rings, and thumb-sized giraffe dioramas placed inside 20ml glass beakers.
“The range of themes we design covers protein folding, museum dioramas, architecture, industrial design, art history, chaos theory, and the universe that inspires us.”
However, maintaining such a broad and diverse collection of works is a difficult challenge in itself. To keep distributors and retail stores adequately stocked to meet unpredictable customer demand, Stern Design Works had to commit to production lines so that the team could begin new batches of hundreds of actively selling items at their production site.
Rebecca Stern working in their studio
Once produced, these parts must be shipped within days to locations far from the West Coast of California, such as New York City's own high-traffic areas, which might see thousands of tourists daily during peak travel seasons.
This inventory demand can contend with many custom and handmade fashion jewelry pieces in the retail boutique market, and it has proven to be an inspiration for the Stern Design team.
"We sell about 500 pieces of jewelry a month, but when it comes to our big wholesale seasons and our major clients, it can increase to over 2000 pieces in a month," says Cameron.
Desktop 3D Printers: The Jewelry Designer's Secret Weapon
One key secret to Stern Design's ability to maintain its diverse and rapidly expanding collection is a set of Ultimaker desktop 3D printers, used for producing jigs, molds, and metal casting production advantages, as well as an increasing number of ready-to-use 3D-printed wearable art pieces.
Rings created by Stern Design Works
Cameron and Rebecca have been experimenting with desktop 3D printers in their jewelry practice for some time, and they say Ultimaker printers became Stern Design Works' production solution years ago.
Every generation of Ultimaker printers they've tested has proven to be reliable, high-performance, and high-resolution FDM printers, perfect for every stage of their work and pipeline.
Ultimakers have started working for us because they reliably complete print jobs and are ready to use right out of the box.
Rebecca explains: "With 3D printing, you can do one or ten repetitions, and you have ten times the time to try to get the perfect piece from the foundry. Using 3D prints and wax sheets takes only a quarter of the time."
That time, Cameron adds, "is best spent drawing models or taking orders for our wholesalers. This not only saves us time but also time we can actually use, which is the biggest saving."
Stern Design Works with their Ultimaker 2 Extended + at an event
In addition to using them in their production studio, they have found that using desktop 3D printers at large retail event venues can be a great conversation starter.
At their regular retail locations in New York City's Chelsea Market and the Artists & Fleas market in Williamsburg, thousands of visitors see their work and their workflow every day.
They have even found that they can produce parts directly at the retail point, making the final product on-site for sale, or taking it back to the studio for casting and post-processing.
Working with Manufacturing Partners
While many jewelry designers have struggled with experiments to make use of desktop 3D printers and replace prohibitively expensive traditional metal 3D printers, Stern Design Works has put in the necessary research and testing to master the process and production opportunities for their Ultimaker printers.They have done so by working closely with their foundries and casting partners, to educate them on approaches to working with desktop 3D printing-friendly print materials such as PLA.
Putting the astronaut necklace on a chain
3D printers aren't just for metal parts. They not only optimize the casting production steps but also consider how to simplify the subsequent grinding, polishing, and streamlining of metal objects. As a result, they can fully utilize all functions of desktop equipment, integrating new tools with traditional handmade jewelry methods to produce truly combined metalwork and metal casting techniques.
Ultimaker 3: The Newest Tool in the Studio
Recently, the Stern Design Works team added an Ultimaker 3 to their studio to enable printing with two materials.
Cameron states, "Adding PVA support has greatly enhanced our 3D printing capabilities."
"We are thrilled to now be able to produce our own designs in-house."
Original link: https://ultimaker.com/en/stories/52477-3d-printing-and-the-jewelry-boutique-a-model-for-small-business-success