‘Top prizes’ secured for this year’s Make Your Mark Awards

This year’s winners of this year’s Make Your Mark Awards are set to receive ‘top prizes’ donated from different companies in the jewellery and silversmithing industry. Prizes secured to date include a coaching session with jewellery house Garrard, which will include a tour of its historic London workshop. Also, jewellery expert Joanna Hardy has donated an introductory course at her online jewellery school, worth £250. Cooksongold will award one of the winners vouchers worth £125 to help the designer bring their winning designs to life. As well as this, specialist jewellery communications agency FACETS PR will donate a business consultancy session covering elements including social media and branding. Another key supporter of this year’s event is Hatton Garden-based company Creative Awards, which is donating and engraving the two winners’ trophies. The judges for this year’s Make Your Mark Awards have been confirmed as silversmith Grant Macdonald, Gordon Hamme, founder and managing director of British Silver Week, Adam Phillips, account manager at the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office, jewellery journalist Rachael Taylor, retailer and jewellery designer Harriet Kelsall and Sarah Carpin, director of jewellery specialist communications agency FACETS PR. The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office’s Make Your Mark Awards invites students and young designers to design a piece of jewellery or silverware that celebrates the London hallmark, the iconic Leopard’s Head. Entries for the Awards close on Friday 29 September, with the event taking place at London’s Goldsmiths’ Hall on Tuesday 31 October. There are two Award categories to enter – Jewellery and Silversmithing – and the competition is open to current students, apprentices and recently graduated designers (within the last five years) of precious metal-related jewellery and silversmithing courses. Dr Robert Organ, deputy warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office, said: “We are delighted to offer the students and young designers who win the Make Your Mark Awards these valuable prizes. “We feel that while winning an award is both prestigious and beneficial, the process of taking part by entering a design or a finished article is equally rewarding and useful as a stepping stone for a future in the jewellery or silversmithing industry.”