Advanced Diploma in Jewellery Design and Entrepreneurship

Successful entrepreneurship requires distinctive, quality products as well as confidence, creativity and solid business sense. This advanced diploma course combines classes on advanced jewellery making with business topics and is designed for those wishing to establish their own jewellery business.

Students gain advanced skills and knowledge in thread and wire design, gold & silver metal clay fabrication and the most accessible and useful of the traditional and contemporary metal smithing techniques.

Students discover the many challenges facing a startup business and confront operational issues such as staffing, inventory and accounts. Individualized projects allow students to experience these challenges in a classroom setting, in effect giving them business experience before they graduate.

• become a jewellery entrepreneur
• establish themselves as a jewellery designer or design consultant
• position themselves in the jewellery marketing field

Diploma in modules in this programme include:

MS100 Fabrication: Metal-Smithing

This entry level course is best completed after gaining knowledge and experience with Metal Clay I and covers traditional uses of gold, silver, copper, bronze, and metal alloys. Traditional metalwork techniques used in jewellery are practiced, including repoussé, chasing, drilling, forging, fusing and soldering. Metal finishing techniques of various kinds are covered. Students also explore non-traditional materials suitable for jewellery-making.

JD200 Jewellery Design II

Building upon Jewellery Design I, this course begins with an introduction to the latest technologies in jewellery prototyping including equipment, techniques and services. Students then learn to use the most up-to-date jewellery CAD software on the market: Gemvision Matrix 6 to design and render jewellery, producing files ready for manufacture. Also covered are other popular jewellery software programs as well as prototypingmachines and their limitations.

TW200 Fabrication: Thread & Wire II

Expanding upon the techniques learned in Thread & Wire I, students learn the design principles and calculations used to create multiple-strand thread-based jewellery, as well as wire techniques to create customized findings, clasps and accessories. At the conclusion of TW100 and TW200 students have finished pieces and the skills to create a very wide variety of high quality thread and wire designs.

MC200 Fabrication: Metal Clay II (Silver, Gold and more)

This course builds upon Metal Clay I and covers combinations of materials including sterling silver findings, gold leaf and glass. Students also learn to work with both 22 karat gold metal clay and paste and how to integrate these materials into their fine silver designs. The fundamentals of glass fusing are covered together with a range of advanced stone-setting and finishing techniques.

LW200 International Jewellery Trade & Law

This module covers the local and international statutes and regulations that affect the jewellery industry as a whole. Import and export requirements, restrictions on precious metals and gemstones as well as the damaging effects of illegal trade practices are analyzed. Students also understand the legal requirements in various major countries pertaining to sale of gemstones and precious metals and how such laws can be ascertained and complied with in the student's home country.

RE200 Retail Management & Systems

This course covers day-to-day issues related to retail operations in the jewellery industry. Business management concepts such as staffing, security, inventory control, customer management and performance measurements are covered. Manual and automated retail point of sales and inventory systems are analyzed. Project work includes assessmentof retail processes & systems in use in local jewellery businesses.

AC200 Business Accounting

The processes used for creating accurate and comprehensive accounting and financial statements are covered, including journals, ledgers and entries. These processes and records are also presented as ways to analyze costs, inventory issues, profitable products and overall business performance. Methods for analysing and interpreting accounting and financial statements are covered including common counter checks to ensure accuracy.

EP200 Entrepreneurship

This course covers the theory and practice of starting a new business to produce, market and sell designer jewellery. Start-up finance and business planning are covered and students will be expected to produce detailed business and financial plans for their proposed new venture, addressing such issues as type of business,  location, store design, customer demographics and pricing.

Course Delivery and Assessment:

JDMIS diploma modules are delivered in face-to-face training sessions. Each student also receives assignments and project work that must be completed outside of trainnig hours and may be completed on school premises if desired. Such assignments are graded and combined with attendance data and examination results to provide a final grade on each student's transcript. All examinations require students' personal presence in the school during pre-determined examination periods.