Custom design diary: Leslie's SUPER GREEN engagement ring!
Welcome to a new edition of TYTIN’s custom design diary! Where we share a more in depth, behind the scenes look into one of our custom design projects.
This month, I’m highlighting Leslie’s extraordinary, emerald and yellow gold engagement ring.
Leslie reached out to me last summer about wanting to custom create her engagement ring. During our consultation, we bonded immediately over running our own small businesses; being a woman and running a business; being a woman of color and running a business; and the best part, our mutual love for the best movie ever, The Fifth Element. I knew this project was meant to be and it was gonna be SUPER GREEN! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, do yourself a favor and go watch The Fifth Element.
Movie-aside, Leslie knew all along she wanted to use an emerald for her engagement ring, and I was not going to argue. I loved the idea of taking something traditional like an emerald and really breaking down the barriers of what ‘traditional’ can mean; which I felt was important to do for this project as the concept fit so well with Leslie as a person. She’s super passionate about all things vintage and co-owns a local vintage shop here in Chicago called Her and Ziba. So the very idea of taking something old and recontextualizing it into something new seemed like the perfect jumping off point for her project. And once I saw her mood board, I knew exactly how to bring it all together.
Continue on to see the journey of Leslie’s epic emerald engagement ring!
Mood Board
I wanted her ring to feel festive, glamourous, textured, geometric, and bold — words I became inspired with after seeing her board.
Stone Sourcing
I showed Leslie a few emerald options & eventually we chose this beautiful 1.92ct natural Ethiopian, emerald cut, emerald.
Sketches
Here are just a few really rough sketches during my ideating phase. During this stage, I sketch out anything and everything; almost like a brain-dump of possibilities until a strong concept forms. Once formed, I then hash it out in the 3D renders.
3D Renders
The all green renders show what design is used for production while the more realistic renders (below) is what I showed Leslie. You can see in the more technical one that elements like the prongs are left taller so that once the piece is in metal, my production team and I have the necessary parts to realistically finish it.
And Ta Daa!
After a tedious process of 3D printing, casting, sanding, polishing, and stone setting, we have the final piece!
And here is a 360 view of Leslie’s ring!
Congrats, Leslie!