Originality and creative overlap

What do you do when you discover that something you've come up with on your own resembles something that someone else is making?  (Let's just say that it happened to me recently.  And it's not the heart studs, which are not at all unique, I know.)

I find this question really difficult.  I certainly do not want to copy anyone—though there is an entire industry devoted to making cheap knockoffs (and now I can recognize the specific inspiration for jewelry knockoffs at Target and DSW), there's a sort of honor code among designers that precludes copying.  I like this honor code and have no intention of breaking it.

But unlike painting, where there are no constraints on what you put on the canvas, there are standard materials and techniques in jewelry making that can lead to overlap.  Stones come in a certain array of shapes and sizes (most people do not cut their own stones).  Chains do too (most people do not make their own chain).  For threading stones, there are a handful of options—metal wire, nylon-wrapped wire, nylon cord, silk cord, linen cord, leather, fake leather, ribbon, and fishing-line-thin thread.  You can attach a stone to a necklace by setting it, threading it with wire, or threading it with thread. 

 Bezel-set (necklace given to my mom!); wire wrapped; threaded

Of course, there is incredible scope for variation and invention with these materials and techniques, and I am frequently impressed by the unexpected ways people manage to combine them.  But a lot of jewelry is quite simple.  Strands of beads.  Clusters of things.  Circles, squares, and teardrops.  Lots of circles.  And this simplicity isn't a bad thing; many simple shapes are lovely and easily wearable and understandably popular.

Add to this the fact that, as in any field, ideas do not generally come out of thin air—they arise because people see other people's work and are inspired by it in various ways.  Sometimes this inspiration is even unconscious.  (Once I was trying to make up a name—I wanted to remain anonymous for some survey, I think—and, intending to be as random and fictional as possible,  I came up with "Alice Munro."  It seemed incredibly random to me.  Only much later was I startled to find Ms. Munro on a bookshelf, and realized that my brain had registered her name without my being remotely aware of it.  I hadn't invented it at all!)

It's a given, then, that multiple people will independently come up with *extremely similar* jewelry designs.  How do you create an original business given all of this overlap?  Originality is important for the sake of integrity (you don't want to copy anyone) and for the sake of marketing (you want to stand out).

One option, of course, is to embrace more complex designs, even if your customers would like and buy the simpler things.  I want to head more in this direction.  But I don't think I'll ever get to the point of being immune to overlap, partly because I like many simple shapes and common materials.  (It's also easier to be completely unique when your designs are incredibly involved and hence at the high end of things.)

I think there are at least two answers to this very important question.

1.  Originality of a piece vs. originality of a business.  I'm of the opinion that hardly any particular jewelry design or process is strictly original.  But jewelry businesses are often original, and that is ultimately what's important.  The key is getting together a collection that stands apart from every other collection.  For example, it's pretty likely that a variety of people at different points in time have made necklaces out of ceramic shards—but The Broken Plate Company, as a whole, manages to be unique.  (It's a great idea!)

2.  Details matter.  Finding a way to make standard features (clasps, earwires, etc.) a bit unusual goes a long way in setting one's jewelry apart.  Melissa Joy Manning uses a beautifully simple and relatively unusual way of fastening hoops, which makes her version of a very common piece (the hammered hoop) distinctively hers.  Although she surely wasn't the first person (and isn't the only person) to use this technique, she's made it such a part of her brand that it is, in a real sense, distinctive of her work.  And her single briolette earrings are distinctive because of the way of attaching the stone (threading it onto a lightly hammered metal loop) and the relatively unusual soldered-loop earwires.  The combination is instantly recognizable as hers, for those who pay attention to these things, even though single briolette earrings are very, very common.  I'm also quite impressed with the Giles & Brother clasp—they came up a clasp that I haven't seen anywhere else.  That's hard to do!

Since you may be wondering which of my pieces have discovered a surprise half-sister, like Oprah, I'll go ahead and spill:

My Iolite Earrings are on the left; Kate Hines' Long Aquamarine Earrings are on the right.

My Green Grapes Earrings are on the left; Kate Hines' Tiny Grape Cluster Earrings in White are on the right.

What do you think?  I don't feel that there's any problem, for at least four reasons: (a) there was no copying—I didn't come across her website until months after I first made mine; (b) the designs aren't very unique—they're just clusters of commonly-shaped stones or pearls; (c) my collection overall is very different from Kate Hines'—see point #1 above; and (d) they differ quite a bit in the details—see point #2 above.

My strands of faceted stones are longer than Kate's and currently come in twelve different color combinations; as a group they feature prominently in my current collection.  My grape earrings are constructed somewhat differently from Kate's, are a slightly different size, and made out of different materials—instead of using pearls, I make green, blue, and purple versions out of semi-precious stones.  (In both cases I like my own version better—what a surprise, right?  All of those decisions about size, length, color, and construction are very deliberately made.)

So I don't think there's any issue here, but it did make me think more carefully about this inevitable creative overlap.  Which is a good thing, because it's an important and juicy topic!