Winners of The Make Your Mark Awards are Announced
The winners of the inaugural Make Your Mark Awards were announced at a glittering Reception at Goldsmiths’ Hall on Tuesday 1st November. The competition aimed to challenge students working in precious metal, with prizes awarded for the best design of a precious metal piece incorporating a UK hallmark within the design.
Make Your Mark is the UK’s biggest careers event for apprentices and students of jewellery and allied trades.
Dr Robert Organ, Deputy Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office, commented: “This is the first time that we have run the Make Your Mark Awards and I was delighted that we had such a large number of entries demonstrating a wide range of creativity and approaches to tackling the brief.”
Grant Macdonald who spoke on behalf of the Judging Panel: “It has been a difficult task for us to come to a unanimous decision on tonight's winners. We were all very impressed by the quality, ingenuity and the thought process that has gone into these entries. The Awards were about incorporating a series of small punch marks that we normally hide inside or underneath a piece, making them part of the design, out in the open, and looking good. Well you did it.”
Prizes were donated by Stephen Webster, Stewart Hersey, Richard Fox, Just Castings, Retail Jeweller, Argentium Silver International, Cooksongold, HS Walsh, and the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office.
Jewellery Category Winner
Roxanne Gilbert was announced winner for her silver Five Facets Ring.
Silversmithing Category Winner
Annabel Hood was announced winner for her beaker design London’s Leopard.
Five Facets Ring, Roxanne Gilbert
Annabel's design entry
Roxanne Gilbert winner Jewellery Category with Richard Fox
Annabel Hood winner Silversmithing Category with Richard Fox accepting her trophy
All the information on the winners and their awards can be found here.
We will run the Awards again in 2017 so watch this space. Deputy Warden Dr Robert Organ says “we hope to build on this next year and will be particularly keen to see more entrants from Silversmiths who were not quite as well represented as Jewellery designers.” One of the most interesting things we found was that the Hereford College of Art incorporated the competition into its curriculum as a Live Project for its students, two of whom won prizes,” he continued. “This was an unexpected, but very welcome and novel approach, which we would encourage in future years. I am very proud of all of our staff, judges, prize sponsors and speakers who took part and contributed to making the inaugural Make Your Mark Awards such a huge success.”