Balancing chemistry homework with creative decisions. And why good design is mostly about what you remove.
Here is what nobody tells you about running a jewelry brand as a teenager: the hardest part is not the actual designing. It is the constant context switching.
One minute, I am studying for a calculus test. Next, I am sketching concepts in the margins of my notebook. Then I am back to molecular structures, then suddenly I am problem solving why a clasp mechanism is not working on a prototype, then it is essay writing, then it is evaluating how different chain lengths work with various necklines.
My brain lives in two completely different worlds simultaneously. And honestly? That tension makes the design work better.
Let me show you what I mean.
The Design Process Nobody Sees
When people browse Émeriene's collection, they see the finished pieces. Clean lines, thoughtful proportions and jewelry that looks effortless.
What they don't see are the seventeen sketches that came before the final design. The failed prototypes. The 2 AM realizations about weight distribution. Pieces that looked perfect on paper but felt completely wrong when someone actually wore them.
Good design is not about getting it right the first time. It is about being willing to scrap what does not work even when you have already invested hours into it.
Here is what my actual process looks like.
Where Everything Starts
Every piece begins with a question usually while I am doing something completely unrelated.
Last month, I was walking to school and noticed how the morning light caught on a neighbor's wrought iron gate. The way the curves created negative space, how the simplicity made the shadows more interesting than the metal itself. By the time I got to class, I had sketched three rough concepts for a delicate chain design based on those curves.
This is how design thinking works for me. Inspiration is not sitting down and forcing creativity. It is staying observant, noticing patterns and proportions the way materials interact with light and space then translating those observations into wearable forms.
My sketchbook is chaotic. Rough drawings next to geometry notes. Proportion calculations next to history timelines. Half finished concepts scattered across pages, some dated weeks apart as I return to ideas with a fresh perspective. But that chaos is where the magic happens. Because I am not designing in a vacuum. I am designing while living a full, messy and overscheduled teenage life. And that actually makes the work more grounded.
The Questions That Guide Everything
Once I have a concept I am excited about I run it through what I call the reality check. Three questions that every piece has to answer before it goes any further.
Does this actually solve a real problem or am I just making something that looks cool? Not every piece of jewelry needs to reinvent the wheel but it should fill a gap. Maybe it is a necklace delicate enough for layering but substantial enough to wear alone. Maybe it is earrings light enough to wear all day without ear fatigue. There has to be a reason this piece deserves to exist.
Will someone want to wear this in five years or just five months? If the design relies on a trend that will be over by next year, it fails. I am not interested in creating jewelry for 2025. I want to create jewelry that could work in 2025, 2030 or 2040.
Is this actually wearable or just pretty on paper? This is the question that kills most of my early concepts. A design can be gorgeous in my sketchbook and completely impractical on a human body. Too heavy. Catches on clothing. Uncomfortable clasp placement. Proportions that only work on one body type. If it can't pass the "wear it for eight hours straight" test it does not move forward.
The Design That Taught Me Everything
Let me tell you about a spectacular failure.
Two months ago I spent an entire weekend designing what I thought was the perfect pendant. Delicate, geometric and balanced. I sketched it from every angle. Calculated the proportions. Worked out how the chain would attach. It looked flawless on paper.
I made the prototype. Put it on. Walked around my room.
It flipped backwards. Every. Single. Time. I moved.
The weight distribution was completely off. What looked balanced in a flat sketch had no structural integrity in three dimensions. The attachment point was wrong. The pendant shape fought gravity instead of working with it.
Six hours of work straight into the scrap pile.
But here is what I learned - you cannot design jewelry in two dimensions. You have to think about how it moves, how it sits, how gravity affects it and how it interacts with the human body in motion. Now, before I finalize any design, I mock up a rough 3D version, even if it is just bent wire and cardboard. If the basic form does not work physically, no amount of beautiful detailing will save it.
That failed pendant taught me more than a dozen successful designs ever could.
From Concept to Reality
Here is where being a student run brand gets interesting. I can sketch anything. I can imagine elaborate designs with intricate details and complex construction. But I also have to work within real constraints: my skills, available manufacturing capabilities, material sourcing and budget limitations.
When I started Émeriene, I was learning everything from scratch. How to properly sketch jewelry from multiple angles. How to calculate proportions that look balanced on the body. How to communicate technical specifications clearly.
Some pieces I develop completely from concept to final product working closely with manufacturers to bring a specific vision to life, iterating on prototypes until we get the proportions exactly right. Other times, I find pieces that already embody everything Émeriene stands for and my role becomes ensuring they meet our quality standards.
Either way, the design thinking is the same. What problem does this solve? Will it last? Is it truly wearable? Those questions guide every decision, whether I am sketching something new or evaluating an existing piece for the collection.
Material Decisions Matter More Than You Think
Let us talk about materials because this is where design theory crashes into the real world. Every material choice affects three things- how the piece looks, how it wears and how long it lasts.
Weight matters more than aesthetics. I learned this the hard way with my first earring designs. They looked perfect in my sketches, delicate, elegant and exactly what I envisioned. But when I wore them for more than an hour my ears hurt. The proportions were fine visually but I had not calculated the weight distribution properly. Now, before finalizing any design, I test it. I wear it while doing homework, while walking around and while having conversations. If I am constantly adjusting it or aware of its presence, the design needs work.
Metal quality determines longevity. This is non-negotiable at Émeriene. We use materials that won't tarnish after two weeks of wear. That means higher-grade metals, better plating techniques, and proper finishing. When I'm evaluating options for the collection, I test everything. I wear pieces for weeks. I note how finishes hold up. I check clasps after repeated use. I expose samples to different conditions, humidity, sweat and daily wear. If something does not hold up, it does not matter how beautiful it looks fresh out of the box.
Sustainability starts at the sketch stage. When I am drawing a new concept, I am already thinking: can this be made from recycled materials? Every design decision is also an environmental decision. Where does this metal come from? How is it processed? Can it be recycled at the end of its life? At Émeriene, we prioritize recycled metals and responsible sourcing. Sometimes that means higher costs. But it also means I can stand behind every piece in the collection.
The Reality of Balancing School and Business
Let me be honest about what running Émeriene actually looks like day-to-day.
School takes up 7 AM to 3 PM but my notebook margins tell a different story. Half geometry notes, half jewelry sketches. Quick proportion calculations squeezed between chemistry formulas. Design problems I am working through while supposedly taking notes on World War II.
Then I am home. Homework until 5 PM, usually. Then it is Émeriene time until 7 PM, responding to customer inquiries, evaluating new samples from suppliers, updating the website, sketching new concepts and testing pieces. More homework happens between 7 PM and 9 PM sometimes with dinner squeezed in.
If there is a design problem I am stuck on, late nights between 9 PM and 10:30 PM are when I work through it. That is when my brain does its best problem solving, when the house is quiet and I can focus completely on why that clasp mechanism isn't working or how to adjust a proportion that is slightly off.
It is exhausting. But it also taught me time management in ways no productivity course ever could. When you have two hours to make meaningful progress on a design problem before you need to finish a history essay, you learn to work efficiently. No wasted time scrolling for inspiration. No getting precious about failed concepts. Constraints force clarity.
Three Years of Hard Earned Lessons
Simplicity is harder than complexity. It is easy to keep adding details, embellishments and design elements. It is much harder to strip everything down to only what is essential and trust that what remains is enough. Every time I am tempted to add "just one more curve" or "a small decorative element" I stop and ask does this make the design better or just busier?
Proportions make or break a piece. You can have perfect materials and flawless construction but if the proportions are off, the pendant is too large for chain thickness, the earring is too wide for its height, the design fails. I have learned to sketch pieces at actual size not just conceptually, because what looks balanced on paper at a small scale can look completely wrong at wearable size.
Comfort determines wearability. No one cares how beautiful something is if it is uncomfortable. Clasps that dig into skin, chains that tangle and earrings that pull these are not minor issues. They are deal breakers. I wear every prototype extensively before deciding whether it belongs in the collection. If I find myself constantly aware of wearing it, adjusting it or counting down the hours until I can take it off as it needs redesign.
Design thinking applies everywhere. The same process I use for designing jewelry applies to how I structure customer emails, design packaging, even how I organize my homework schedule. Good design is about solving problems elegantly, whether that is "how should this necklace sit on the collarbone" or "how should this information be presented clearly."
When Design Meets Real People
Our personalized name necklaces presented a design challenge I was not expecting.
The brief seemed simple: create something personal without looking juvenile or overly trendy. But the execution was complicated. How do you make custom text look elegant at different lengths? How do you ensure "Emma" looks as balanced as "Alexandria"? What chain length works for both layering and wearing alone?
I spent weeks testing different lettering styles at various sizes. Some fonts looked beautiful at large scale but became illegible when reduced. Others looked too formal, too casual or too obviously trendy. The breakthrough came when I stopped thinking about it as "adding a name to a necklace" and started thinking about it as "creating negative space that happens to form letters."
That shift changed everything. Suddenly the design was not about the text it was about the elegant space around the text, how the letters interacted with the chain, how the whole piece balanced as a composition rather than just customized words on metal.
That is what I mean about design thinking. It is not about the obvious solution. It is about reframing the problem until you find what actually works.
The Real Lesson
Here is what three years of designing jewelry while balancing school has taught me.
Good design is not about having unlimited time or resources. It is about working thoughtfully within constraints.
It is about being willing to scrap ideas that do not work even when you have invested hours. It is about testing rigorously before committing. It is about learning from every failure and letting them shape better decisions. And most importantly it is about remembering that jewelry is not just decoration. It is the finishing touch that makes someone feel more like themselves.
That is the standard every piece in Émeriene's collection has to meet whether I sketched it from scratch or carefully selected it to represent our values.
Because at the end of the day design is not just about making things look beautiful. It is about making things that work that last that mean something.
And if I can do that while balancing Chemistry homework? Then the sleepless nights are worth it.
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