Jewellery & Silversmithing - BA (Hons)

Jewellery and Silversmithing (J&S) is an exciting, practical, studio-based programme that teaches you to design and make thoughtful, well-made and considered work. The J&S department is small and friendly with a big international reputation as one of the UK's leading courses in the field.

Our philosophy is to combine material and technical innovation with traditional craft techniques and concepts long associated with this historic discipline. Our objective is to enable you to design and create personal, individual pieces of work that push the boundaries of our subject. We want you to create the heirlooms of the future and sensory objects that enrich people’s lives, successfully reflecting both ‘thought’ and ‘practice’.

We will teach you to work with, and explore the use of, a broad variety of materials, including precious metal, plastic, textile, enamel and stone. We have a reputation for maintaining a high standard of hand skills and original design work, with a commitment to helping you to develop a clear and original creative voice through your drawing and making. Unique to other craft and design courses in this area, all four years of the programme incorporate life drawing, painting and printing elements.

Throughout their time with us, Jewellery and Silversmithing students are encouraged to showcase their talents through awards and bursary schemes, with excellent results. For example, we have had multiple successes in the Goldsmiths’ Craftsmanship & Design Awards, Contemporary British Silversmiths Awards, Kirk Inches Jewellery Prize and Goldsmiths’ Company’s Precious Metal Bursaries and Silver Grants.

International exhibitions, events and award schemes - such as New Designers, where we have won four major awards in the last five years - help our graduating students quickly establish themselves as emerging designer/makers.