Kiskery Design: 3D printing your ideas into jewelries

Kiskery Design combines science and engineering with jewelry art to create a compelling line of wearable design objects. Mixing technology and craft, Kiskery's first jewel - the Spira bracelet - was inspired by the growth of plants and crystals, designed using parametric algorithms and made with 3D printing.

The creator of the brand, Kiskery Dániel started to experiment with parametric design and jewellery because he met 3D printing and found it a really exciting field. The form of his new jewelry collection was inspired by a university project called Hexubi. Hexubi is a wearable sculpture, each element is algorithmically generated and 3d printed.

When he first started to design his jewellery, he was working in a Hungarian Fablab where there were multiple 3d printers around, some of them FDM printers. He decided to choose FDM printing for his first collection because that way he had full control over the process from design to product.

"I just loved that I can print my own jewellery at an arm’s length and I don’t need to send my pieces to a company for manufacturing." – said Dániel

He first met with the Craftbot printers at Fablab Budapest. More precisely he learnt the principles of 3d printing and slicing a model on those Craftbot printers and Craftware slicer, so naturally he has really fond memories of that time. During those years, he completed a lot of university and personal projects on the Craftbots.
So when he started his own business it was a natural choice to use a printer that he have plenty of experience with. Right now he is using a Craftbot Plus Pro 3D printer to create the portfolio of his jewels.

Dániel produces his own designs, mostly jewelry. When he had the idea of starting his own brand Kiskery Design it was one of the core pillars to do an FDM printed collection. He wanted to have products that he has total control over. Also, he loves the process of 3d printing, as it is always super exciting how a new color or material will turn out or when he tweaks the design a bit it is good to see immediately and not waiting for another company for weeks. Other than that, experimenting is a really important part of Kiskery’s process, and printing prototypes with an FDM machine is easy and cost effective.

"Compared to direct metal printing the FDM printed jewelry by me is like 5-10 times cheaper. I also have to mention prototyping as it is super cheap to do that on an FDM printer compared to CNC milling or casting or any other technology to be fair. I never have to abandon an idea because it would be expensive to produce even the first prototype."

Kiskery Design’s has 4 different jewelry collections: Unda, Spira, Salio and Lacuane. Daniel has an exclusive collection for FDM printing called the Spira collection, meanwhile the other three collections are made with direct metal printing.

The Spira jewels are entirely based on 3d printing and they started from three bracelet designs. Now Dániel is expanding it with three earrings, three brooches and three necklaces. The different shapes are made with generative algorithms and 3D printing. Their base material is PLA, which is a compostable plastic. During their manufacture, no waste is generated making it an extremely environmentally friendly jewelry. Sometimes Dániel experiments with casting PLA directly to metal, which can give a really interesting rough texture.

Dániel uses a lot of filaments for the jewelry as he positions it as a festival or party jewelry for young adults. His aim is to have a wide variety of colors and effects so everybody can find the perfect piece. Probably one of his favourite manufacturers is Fillamentum as they produce the most amazing colors.

As Kiskery Design mostly prints jewelry, Dániel needs a steady well-built machine that is not resonating while printing. Naturally he does not want some flicker waves to show up in his prints. Fortunately, because of the jewelry size he can keep the build plate at small to medium. Another really important feature is the sound the machine makes while printing, as he is around it a lot on the work day. If the fans or the drive are too loud, he tends to change those parts.

Using a Craftbot Plus Pro 3d printer is the compact size of the printer as Dániel is working from home at the moment. He told us that he does not feel like the machine is invading his personal living space in his flat.

Having a 3D printer gives endless opportunities to small business owners to bring their ideas live. As the Kiskery Design example shows, utilizing 3D printers in businesses can be a great step for the owners, but it could also result in having a huge effect on the industries in long term.