BEST IN SHOW: Shinya Takahashi Wins Again
As Green Lake’s Technical Director, Shinya Takahashi keeps our considerable online gallery of work neatly indexed and organized, a purpose-built collaborative design platform serving our friends out-of-state, and an internal production tracking system – as well as a proprietary client resource management strategy – all buzzing with reliable efficiency and regular updates. Shinya is a very busy guy. That’s why he’s the envy of the shop, because in addition to all these plates in the air, he carves out time to be one of the nation’s most proficient CAD modelers – even though he’s not a regular modeler jewelry for Green Lake!
This April, Shinya was awarded the best virtual design at Gemvision’s annual Matrix Design Contest at the company’s HQ in Davenport, Iowa, and it wasn’t the first time (he also won it in 2012). Gemvision is the world’s leading provider of technology products to the jewelry industry, pioneering the adoption of 3D CAD software and fueling a CAD/CAM revolution that defines modern jewelry production today. In its ever-growing design contest, there are over 300 entries from top designers worldwide that display the immense creativity, talent and innovation burgeoning throughout the jewelry industry. Shinya, uniquely, now holds the distinction of being the only designer to be awarded the top prize twice since the completion first started. It’s the acknowledgement of his clever ingenuity from his peers that must be the real prize, but it’s his new Waccom Cintique interactive display he also won as a consolation that’s caught the eye of fellow creatives within the shop.
ABOUT THE DESIGNS
To ensure a place at the top, this year Shinya submitted 2 designs for consideration in hopes at least one would get him amongst the final few. He actually considered this first design the ‘better,’ more technically challenging entry, costing a painstaking 18 hours to render upon its final save. It’s an elaborately formed ring, full of over-and-under twists and turns, featuring a champagne diamond center and is positioned with an imaginary champagne bottle for greater thematic effect (don’t forget, nothing in the image physically exists as pictured; it’s all completely virtual).
Shinya’s second entry at its face may appear simpler, with less detail than his other design, and yet this is the ring that took best in show. Upon a closer look, however, there is an ornate motif of filigree inside the ring and this is arguably the most inventive part of the piece. For most, this would appear to be an element almost entirely fashioned by hand and added later (delicate work like this is seldom achieved with models grown or milled from CAD files alone). But with Shinya modeling a rather deep albeit narrow strip of patterned gold, it would resemble filigree to the eye and run deep into the ring and out of sight, making it equally producible as to separate parts.
Shinya Takahashi’s designs are truly stunning, yet for some may lack a romance or inspirational story you’d expect to discover. There are no genres that inform his pieces, and no artist’s statement to further define them. His approach is pragmatism at work: If it looks good then its good, if looks bad then its bad, and it should feel good on the hand. That’s it. To learn more about Shinya, visit his bio page – and if you’d like one of his designs made just for you, drop us a line at info@greenlakejewelry.com
About the author:
Eric Robertson is a writer, illustrator and creative lead for Green Lake Jewelry Works.