Dec 25, 2015 | By Tess
As 3D printed wearables become more and more popular, the number of fashion and accessory designers turning to additive manufacturing technologies continues to grow as it facilitates their process and allows for a diversity of designs. For one design brand, however, the opposite occurred, as a group of architects and engineers well versed with 3D printing technologies put their technical and architectural design skills together to become jewelry designers.
Daniel Christian Tang (DCT), which was founded by two architects, Heng Tang and Mario Christian, and one structural engineer, Luca Daniel, all with little experience in women’s fashion or accessories, is now one of Canada’s leading design brands in 3D printed luxury jewelry, as it has been featured on The Shopping Channel and is being retailed at one of Canada’s leading high-end department stores, Holt Renfrew.
The group explains that they found their way into designing women’s jewelry by playing around with 3D design software and 3D printers in university, first by making little desk gadgets and paper weights and eventually realizing they could use their design skills and architectural knowledge to design complex and beautiful jewelry pieces.
The architectural skill and structural knowledge that the team possesses has allowed for them to create some truly remarkable and unique designs, and as Mario Christian explains, “The reason our stuff is so elaborate and sophisticated is because of 10 years of us working with these programs and really getting a handle on it. If you jumped on one of these programs and tried to recreate our designs, it would be near impossible.”
Essentially, their method of designing jewelry consists of putting mathematical plugins into an architectural 3D modelling program and creating unique and irreproducible jewelry designs. When the designing is complete, each of the jewelry models is additively manufactured using selective laser sintering.
As a luxury jewelry brand, DCT offer their pieces on their website in either sterling silver, rose gold, or gold. In order to make the jewelry out of the precious metals, the jewelry models are first 3D printed out of a wax using a high resolution SLS 3D printer. Then, using the lost-wax casting process, the models are used to make a plaster mold. Once the plaster molds are set, the liquid metals can be poured into them to create the fine pieces of jewelry we see today.
For the moment DCT has five collections featured on their website which are included in their line of jewelry called Morfologi. The collections, named Hive, Grid, Wavemaker, Flow, and Diamond were inspired by elements of nature and each includes necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings. Additionally, each piece of jewelry made by DCT has only been reproduced 50 times, ensuring that their designs remain special and that their wearer’s remain unique.
For the team behind the brand, their venture into jewelry design has been extremely fruitful and exciting. As they explain, “Coming from the world of architecture, you’re always looking to make things better, more functional, and more beautiful…We started DCT to re-invent the way jewelry was made and offer an experience like nothing people have seen before in the luxury jewelry market.”
They certainly have made an impact where technology and jewelry design are concerned, but for them, 3D printed jewelry is only the beginning. That is, DCT hopes to expand their talents and skills into other design realms, such as furniture and tablewear. “Jewelry is just one medium that interests us and our goal is to build a comprehensive design firm, not just a jewelry brand,” they say.
If this is only the beginning of design trio Daniel Christian Tang we are excited to see what follows, whether it is more stunning 3D printed jewelry or other 3D printed pieces.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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