Jewelry Business Guru by Cindy Edelstein

Vision Award jewelry design competition deadline coming up

You have till Jan. 15th to come up with an entry in the MJSA 18th annual Vision Awards design competition.

Entries must be postmarked by JAN. 15, 2009. For submission guidelines and further information, visit http://www.mjsa.org/about_ava.php.

In addition to the overall Professional and Student Awards, the competition features special Distinction Awards that allows recognition of designers using specific materials or technologies in new and creative ways. This year’s featured Distinction categories include:

Enamel Distinction, sponsored by Rio Grande
Laser Distinction, sponsored by Crafford–LaserStar Technologies Corp.
Mokumé-gane Distinction, sponsored by Shining Wave Metals and Reactive Metals Studio
Palladium Distinction, sponsored by Hoover & Strong
Platinum Distinction, sponsored by Platinum Guild International

New for 2009! The Reactive Metals Challenge
The first 10 professional entrants for this challenge will have their $50 entry fees waived, courtesy of Reactive Metals Studio, if their designs incorporate the use of reactive metals. The winner of this challenge will receive a $500 cash prize.

All first and second place winners in all categories will receive cash awards of up to $1,000. Their winning entries will be on display for thousands of buyers and exhibitors during the annual MJSA Expo New York.

Jewelry makers need recessionary plans to hold on in business

Jewelry makers "are providing more marketing assistance to create interest in their products, switching from 14k gold to mixed metals and sterling silver, and investing in internal systems to—as one put it—“position the company for success when the market turns,” said a report on JCKonline entitled "Recession has Already Hurt Half of the Jewelry Industry Businesses in U.S."

JCK polled retailers and manufacturers in November and December  and found  that about half say they've been affected by the economic crisis thus far. You can read the whole survey here  on JCK's website.

At this point we're all weary of the bad news and statistics; more importantly is what you decide to do about it. Reports keep saying an upturn won't happen for a while. Only you know whether you've got the stamina and stomach to see it through. What I know for sure, as Oprah says, is that complaining and being angry won't work. Retooling your ideas and plans is key.

Atittude is the biggest key to making what you want happen --  something I have to continually remind myself -- and flexibility. Success doesn't have one look any more. IF it ever did. So if you're very new in business maybe part-time is the way to go now. If you've been doing well for a while I'm sure you've already figured out ways to cut expenses but have you thought about a new, lowerpriced line or introducing less new items but with more style impact, upping your promotions, increasing PR and expanding prospecting to new types of customers?

What are you doing differently today? Share it here on the comments section, if you wlll.

Artistic Entrepreneurship considered now viable career path, said New York Times

“I am committed to destroying the myth of the starving artist,” stated Larry Thompson president of Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla., in a New York Times article recently. Thanks to Connie Mettler's blog, www.artfairinsiders.com,  that alerted me to this article.

Students at this school can now major or minor in a program called “The Business of Art and Design.”  Thompson, the school’s president, said he was inspired to create the program when he read about Dan Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind,” which popularized the notion that artists, especially those who can marry left and right brain skills, the analytical and the creative, will be in high demand in the coming years.

Rather than seeing art as something to pursue in the hours when they are not earning a living, these artists are developing businesses around their talents. These artists are part of a growing movement that has caught the attention of business experts and is being nudged along by both art and business schools.

Living in the Internet era has certainly helped. Read more of the article here...

How to find the best art fairs and craft shows for jewelry designers?

I get this question a lot -- and we go in to depth on the topic (plus dozens of others) on our website at www.jewelersresource.com.

But here's a quick primer:

ArtFairSourcebook.com is a great resource for finding detailed, ratings and information on events. 

The Harris List lists far fewer than ArtFair Sourcebook but they concentrate on the "top rated" events.

Some of the best craft fairs for fine jewelry are:
Smithsonian Craft Show
Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft
Crafts America shows
Paradise City fairs
The Long’s Park Art & Craft Festival
Sausalito Art Festival

But if you're work isn't of the "top 1% in the country level" then you should cast a wider net than those events. There are plenty more that are good. Search the web for your competitors and see where they exhibit.

On our site we have compiled lists of exhibitors for most of the top shows -- and in most cases we have a few years worth of data so you can compare and evaluate a show based on historical data. Not sure that exists anywhere else (just one of the many reasons why our subscription site has hundreds of members!).

The February 2009 Issue of AmericanSTYLE magazine (AmericanStyle magazine is the nation's premier arts lifestyle magazine for art lovers, collectors and travelers)  has a 2009 Guide to Fairs and Festivals -- so you can read about the year's worth of great fairs.

The magazines you should read are:
AmericanSTYLE
American Craft
Metalsmith (if you use metal)

If you work with beads then Ornament magazine is the tops of that market and then there is Jewelry Artist (was Lapidary Journal mag) and Art Jewelry magazines.

There are countless bead magazines -- but these seem to address more of the hobbyist than professional.

Most importantly you have to find craft fairs that match your work. If your work is middle-range then don't waste your time (and entry fees) applying to the premier shows -- unless that's the direction you want your business to grow in to in the future. You don't want to be the highest-end work at the show, either. You want a good match.

Lastly, Zapplication.org is a great online tool that many different art fairs and craft shows use to do their entry forms online. So you sign on and then upload your latest jurying images in your own account. Then you search their database of events and apply to as many as you'd like using the images you've uploaded. Makes it easy to keep applying to events since the first half of the work has already been done. And using Zapp you can discover new events to apply to and they keep emailing you deadline alerts for all the events in their system, too.

Again, knowing who does which shows is invaluable -- helps you quickly decide if a show is right for you if it has all -- or none -- of your peers.

All of these shows are retail events --- meaning you'll be selling to consumers. The only 3 wholesale craft trade shows to sell to craft retailers (galleries) are the Buyer's Market of American Craft in Philadelphia, the American Craft Show in Baltimore and our own, little precious event called globalDESIGN.

New Silver Promotion Campaign to Capture "Recessionistas"

Just in time to target the rising number of style-conscious "recessionistas," the Silver Institute is rolling out a marketing campaign to promote silver jewelry as a fashionable and affordable choice, reports NationalJeweler.com.

"The Silver Institute has marketed silver jewelry in the past, but the new Silver Marketing Initiative marks the first time since 2001 that there has been a full-scale effort in place for promoting sterling silver jewelry. It comes at a time when more designers--including some who haven't used the metal in the past--have been playing with the possibilities of sterling. With demand from consumers and retailers rising, according to the Silver Institute, some designers have been crafting edgier pieces with oxidized and blackened finishes, while others have combined gemstones and diamonds with silver for more glamorous evening looks.

Prominent designers whose silver jewelry will be featured in the campaign include Elle, Lagos, Leslie Green, Paz Collective, Robert Lee Morris, Robin Rotenier, Scott Kay, Slane and Slane, Thistle and Bee and Zina. The 10 designers are the first group to be featured on a consumer-focused Web site, SavorSilver.com, which will launch in mid December."

Yurman, Good, Munsteiner to Teach Master Jewelry Classes @ Revere Academy -- Scholarship Contest Offered

The Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts has announced the creation of a new all-expenses-paid scholarship for one recipient to attend a master class of their choice at the school's upcoming International Masters Symposium.

The April event will mark the Revere Academy's 30th anniversary and features an impressive celebrity lineup, including classes to be taught by David Yurman, Michael Good, Bernd Munsteiner and Kent Raible, among many other notable names.

The scholarship, dubbed the Mort Abelson Scholarship in honor of the founder of the JA Show's New Designer Gallery, will provide the recipient with tuition and fees, lodging and air travel expenses from anywhere in the United States to San Francisco.

A contest will be held to select one scholarship winner. The contest is open to anyone in the United States and Canada, and applications will be accepted until Jan. 2, 2009, through an online application posted on Callforentry.org. Designers are asked to submit five digital images of their jewelry, answer two essay questions and provide a $25 entry fee. A jury composed of Mort Abelson, Alan Revere and Cindy Edelstein of the Jewelers Resource Bureau will select the winner based on work that exemplifies original, innovative and high-quality jewelry design

For more information, visit the Revere Academy's Web site, RevereAcademy.com/Guide/Scholarship/Mort-Ableson-Scholarship/.

DeBeers Advertises Restraint -- evidence #1 of the New Era

Ever since that New Luxury Market webinar mentioned in my previous post I am finding evidence to support Pam Danizger's predictions in every publication I pick up.

Here, evidence #1 from Sunday's NY Times, a full page ad from DeBeers:

Here's to Less.

Our lives are filled with things. We're overwhelmed by possessions we own but do not treasure. Stuff we buy but never love. To be thrown away in weeks rather than passed down for generations.

Perhaps it will be different now. Perhaps now is an opportunity to reassess what really matters. After all, if everything you ever bought her disappeared overnight, what would she truly miss?

Brilliant, no? A marketing conversation you can adopt for your own treasured work???

Looking Ahead to 2009 and The Post-Recession Luxury Consumer

I attended a great webinar by Pam Danziger of Unity Marketing that covered a recap of the 3rd quarter '08 luxury consumer spending and, more importantly, some predictions for 2009. It was a fascinating report and one that I will be quoting frequently.

Unity Marketing "helps companies understand their customers -- their shopping behavior, their needs, designers and mindset." They do this by tracking spending and polling for opinions. And studying demographics and statistics.

The overarching commentary about Post-Recessionary luxury consumers is that they are a new breed of consumer who are unlike their predecessors.

What that means is: what you did to capture customers last year (or frankly for the last decade) will NOT work next year ... or ever again.

Not only has the economic crisis permanently changed our habits but there are changes in our demographics (Generation X is moving into its prime spending years while Boomers are shifting beyond them) and our social mores ("is there value to this beyond just having it?").

So, consumers will spend their money but it will be in a different way than ever before -- they will want value and meaning with their luxury. They can take it or leave it so if you want them to take yours you'd better imbue your jewelry with good value and good values.

It will no longer be chic to pay 10x the price for a luxury item just for it's name or because you can afford it. The new consumer will still spend more for a luxury item IF it comes with a good value-to-cost-of-goods ratio and a green or charitable component to it.

They'll want to know that they are spending their money for their own enjoyment while helping others or society or the planet or at the least.....not harming them.

So, at the end of this year is a great time to plan your strategy for next year (and beyond) by figuring out how you can add more value into your jewelry. As the saying goes, "there has to be more there there than ever before."