Jorge Rojas is a Spanish jeweler and designer based in Hamburg, Germany. Rojas has developed his passion and craft over the years as a jewelry maker, training in the workshops of master jewelers in New York and teaching as a professor of Jewelry Design at the Centro de Estudios Joyeros de Madrid for more than 10 years before opening his own atelier. Rojas still collaborates with the school, and is an active contributor to the jewelry magazine Gold & Time as a columnist and to the design magazine Experimenta as a blogger. His work has been exhibited at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona, Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Málaga, the German Gemstone Museum in Idar-Oberstein, and the Cervantes Institute in Hamburg.
Now, with 4 years of 3D design experience under his belt, Rojas is utilizing the state-of-the-art 3D printing services offered by Shapeways to create a new, ultramodern collection which marries organic forms, shapes and elements with cutting-edge technologies to create unique, evocative pieces of wearable art.
The New Collection
In his new collection, Rojas utilizes strategic void space in his designs to create sculptural “containers of emotion” within each piece. To Rojas, a piece of jewelry’s true value lies in the emotion it is imbued with, both by the creator during the design process, and by the wearer when it becomes a part of their life story. According to Rojas, when a jewel is gifted, it then takes on an emotion, which becomes a memory, and is rendered an intrinsic part of the jewel.
The dynamic forms and fundamental structures which comprise each piece of this collection echo the essential building blocks of our universe, and indeed, through this collection Rojas is recreating and refining his own creative universe, with a series of offerings which hold space for the emotions of those who would use his pieces to celebrate and commemorate life.
Why Rojas Uses 3D Printing
Using 3D printing as a means of production offers many benefits to Rojas, including the opportunity to create realistic visual renderings of ideas quickly and effectively, before producing the designs in more precious and costly materials. As a designer and project manager who offers customized design services to clients from all over the world to help them realize their creative visions, this is very helpful to ensure structural quality and customer satisfaction. With 3D printing as their production method, Rojas and his clients also have the freedom to create jewelry from more novel materials, such as splintered black steel and laser-welded polymers.
“For the creative, it is a tool that multiplies the development options, making possible designs and production of pieces that before were technically impossible, or that they required an impossible investment of time,” explains Rojas. “I think there is a new way to enjoy jewelry, more personal and free, and that’s why I’m using the new technologies of 3D design and printing, applying all my knowledge of the trade and my creative freedom to offer original, fresh and very current [pieces].”