This weeks Designer Spotlight focuses on Thomas Mrokon, an architect whose jewelry collection just won the International Golden A´Design Award and was selected by British Vogue to be featured as new Designer in Jewelery in the June edition.

Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? Where are you located?

Our label is formed by a female goldsmith and a male architect. A perfect combination for modern jewelry and an exhaustless fountain of inspiration. Our headquarters are located close to Frankfurt in Germany.

What’s the story behind your designs? What inspires you?

The design of “odyssey” is inspired by fruit packaging. Many fragile fruits come with a net of foamed plastic which is flexible to fit different sizes. These plastic nets can be stretched, pressed and drilled. Usually this wrapper is used as a one layer tube where the fruit is just inserted, but we decided to close this tube to create amazing two-layered geometries.

What brought you to 3D printing with Shapeways?
Everyone who is interested in 3D printing will land at Shapeways sooner or later. For us, it was in the beginning when you started your business, because we loved the comfortable platform for uploading designs, the ability to get a direct quote and the possibility to start a printing job within a few seconds.
How did you learn how to design in 3D?

As an architect I am familiar with different CAD software and 3D modeling. The main job was to close the gap in these two extremly different dimensions. For architectural visualizations the geometry has just to look nice, but for complex and filigree jewelry you need to work with a precision of 1/10 mm. For us, software is a digital pencil, one that preserves our vision and enables it to be tangibly realized.

How do you promote your work?
We don´t do any advertising besides our Facebook page, our designs are spreading in a viral way. We love to get the personal feedback our customers. But we also love to be awarded with the Golden A´ Design Award or being invited by the British Vogue to present our designer profile!
Who are your favorite designers or artists?
In jewelry we like the designs from Niessing which are characterized by simplicity and eternalness. The Shapeways community has some very good designers and beautiful ideas, but I get my own personal inspiration in daily situations or while I’m running.

If you weren’t limited by current technologies, what would you want to make using 3D printing?

In the early days of rapid-prototyping there was a technology called LOM (Laminated Object Manufacturing), which I really found very interesting, because you could create very large objects with a material similar to wood. That was perfect for creating furniture. It would be great if someone like Shapeways could reinvent this technology to offer a new area of application in 3D printing.

Check out Polymer’s geometric designs on their Shapeways Shop or on their website. And if you would like to be our next featured designer, email [email protected]