Inspiration All Around, but Not in Plain Sight

As a creative individual and the chief jewellery designer maker at Alyssa Smith Jewellery, my main job is to come up with new and innovative jewellery designs on almost a daily basis. I often get asked what inspires me to make the wonderful pieces and collections I come up with and how I continue to dream up new ideas without running out of themes and designs to explore, so I thought it was about time I shared a little secret with you all!

Inspiration can strike at any moment!

A Window Into The Mind

Anyone creative will know that that little lightbulb moment of inspiration can strike at any time of day (or night!) and usually at the most inconvenient of times. I’ve been known to pull over on car journeys (safely!) into laybys or side streets so that I can get my spare sketchbook out of my glove box and jot random jewellery ideas down before the moment leaves me, and I’ve even used the box from my contact lenses and some black eye liner to scribble notes and diagrams down when inspiration strikes in the shower! If there’s one thing that is certain, it’s that if I don’t write down the idea at that exact moment, it will float away from my head and out of the window like a little puff of cloud and disperse into the air, never to be seen again!

Inspiration for new jewellery ideas can strike at every opportunity, day or night APART from when I really need it to! I know I am not alone here, and it’s really common for creatives to suffer a creative block when put under pressure or deadlines. You can guarantee if I put a week aside every month to just focus on our new designs, I would spend that week worrying that I wouldn’t be able to dream up any new ideas and the pressure of that alone will be enough to stop me from doing so.

From quite early on in my career I realised that putting deadlines and pressure on myself to come up with new ideas and designs wasn’t going to work. If only it was as easy as setting regular time aside to design and prototype, life would run like clockwork!

Alyssa’s wonderful mum even helps to design the pieces at Sparkle Towers

Sometimes I have a little bit of a panic and genuinely believe for a split second that I have run out of ideas and that I’ll never be able to create another masterpiece or innovative design in my entire life, but I know this passes, and inspiration strikes against when the pressure is off.

Now I have learned what does and doesn’t work for me as a designer, I am far more fluid in allowing my brain to take inspiration whenever it may decide to, and to always be prepared! This is the exact reason I carry a sketchbook in my glove box, my handbag, gym bag and of course in my suitcase.

But where do the ideas come from?

Sketchbooks don’t have to be anything fancy, and sometimes Alyssa just uses a biro to sketch. You don’t really need fancy pens and expensive books to bring your ideas to life!

Alyssa's Inspiration

So many artists and designers look to the beauty of nature for inspiration. Afterall, there isn’t anything as beautiful as the natural world surrounding us with its beautiful seasonal colour palettes, array of flowers in different shapes and geometrical patterns that you start to notice all around you.

I love to take inspiration from nature, but there are other things that really do help me to create and keep my creative cup ever filled. Things that you CAN’T see around you in plain sight… memories!

I am incredibly nostalgic! I can’t think of anything lovelier than taking inspiration from things I remember growing up. I always think jewellery should ‘mean something’ to the wearer.

And if you see something that pulls at your heart strings, reminds you of childhood or special memories or times in your life, then I always think that ‘piece’ is the one for you.

This is why I came up with our moto ‘wear the memories’. By creating special pieces which remind me of times-past, you really are collecting special memories to wear. I’ve been inspired by all sorts of lovely memories from my childhood, teenage years and even more recent times, too.

Lots of Alyssa’s inspiration comes from childhood memories (or even adult ones!)

Some of my most precious pieces I have designed are from direct memories of mine such as our gorgeous magical opening lamp, my Babushka opening Russian Doll and even some of our little 3D animals.

Our (now retired) Herbie the Hedgehog design was inspired by my fiancés childhood memories though-he had a favourite childhood toy, a cuddly Hedgehog called Herbie, who he still has to this day. I wanted to take his own childhood memories and turn Herbie into something that so many of us could love and relate to. Herbie was a gorgeous piece and was sold from 2016- 2018.

Memories play a huge part in things that inspire me, whether it’s wearable teeny tiny race tracks from Grand Prix that my customers have visited, or collecting those tracks they wish to visit in the future (I call these future memories!) right though to tiny automobiles such as classic minis and campervans.

I love it when our customers get in touch to tell me the wonderful stories about their first cars, quite often minis and VW beetles, and how our tiny miniature solid silver versions bring back wonderful memories for them. It really does mean I am creating special wearable pieces that really mean things to those who collect them.

Our solid silver Herbie was one of our favourite characters

How You Inspire Us!

Another thing that really inspires me as a designer maker is ultimately my customers. I feel so incredibly blessed to be surrounded by the most amazing online community of customers and followers who constantly contribute their own ideas and designs, hoping to have them form part of our future collections. It’s genuinely the inspiration from our incredible people that keeps me going day to day, and without these ideas constantly bouncing around I really do wonder if I would have started to run dry on ideas after over 15 years in the job now!

There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned yet, and that’s continuing to develop designs which I have already thought up. Never one for being satisfied, I love to continue to push the boundaries on what jewellery can be and to improve each and every design we make.

For example, way back in 2012 I designed a 2-dimensional silver helmet pendant. Everyone loved it, but as a designer I wanted to push my skills, learn new skills and take it further. By 2015 I had prototyped our first 3-dimensional helmet design!

Our very first editions of these solid sterling silver helmets had the wonderful (then) Formula 1 presenter Suzi Perry’s signature across the back. These were incredible and were known as our first editions.

A few years later I decided to see if I could push this clever little design further by making the visor open and close. Of course with a lot of trial and error this was absolutely possible, and the 4th version of our helmet was born!

Alyssa Smith Jewellery attending the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2019 where we met so many wonderful collectors and customers who inspire our collections

I love to continually develop our designs and whilst I have no idea what creative inspiration might strike over the coming years, it really does fill me with such pleasure to be able to design and make wonderful miniature masterpieces as a job every day.

If you’re looking for a bit of design inspiration in your own projects and you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed or suffering with a creative block, why not try taking it back to basics and taking the pressure off a little? Then go back to what you enjoy and know you love to create so that it feels less like a ‘job’ and more like a hobby.

Inspiration will soon come back and have you creating away again in no time!

I hope you have enjoyed this little behind the scenes insight into where my precious ideas come from and as always, please let me know if you would love to see your idea brought to life.

Learn about our bespoke jewellery service here!