De Beers Group
Designers Initiative

Our De Beers Group Designers Initiative (DBGDI) is open to young and aspiring designers from our producer countries, providing an opportunity to showcase their talents, and through the prestigious Shining Light Awards, win world-class training opportunities to develop their jewellery design skills.

Through a two-year process, road shows are held to engage students from universities and technikons across Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Canada, raising awareness of the initiative and the design approach. The process culminates in the Shining Light awards finale, where the very best talent is selected from each country.

All Shining Light award finalists receive opportunities to further their design skills, with the winners each receiving a one year post graduate scholarship at one of the world’s leading jewellery design schools- the Polytechnic di Milano in Milan, Italy. Runners up receive a three-month internship at the Forevermark Design and Innovation Centre in Milan or a one-year scholarship to attend training at a jewellery design school in South Africa.

For over 20 years, the DBGDI has been changing lives for those involved. By providing skills development opportunities, the initiative provides a platform for diversification beyond mining and propels the evolution of the jewellery industry, developing the next generation of designers whose skills, ideas and designs can talk directly to a new market of Millennial consumers.

What do you enjoy about the jewellery design work that you do?

I enjoy the sketching part, in combination with the research around advancing useful tools and equipment, such as software. Currently I’m still working on the digital work.

Why you decided to get involved with the Shining Lights Awards?

As a visual art student it was compulsory for us to join the De Beers Group Designers Initiative as part of our course, to showcase our experience in creativity and design. I just thought it would be a great chance to explore more in the design world and have opportunities to grow new skills and knowledge. Ultimately, it is all about knowledge and representing myself as a designer. De Beers Group exposes youth to the universe for recognition as designers, which has a positive impact in a young person’s life.

What you have been doing since you won the award?

After the awards I landed in Italy to attend the scholarship offered by De Beers Group, where I learnt a lot in the field of jewellery and accessory studies. Currently I’m busy working on projects online from the university doing presentations and explaining project proposals in an innovative way.

What you have got out of the programme?

It changed a lot about my design perspectives, and in the process I gained new skills and knowledge to utilise in the future. It has made me more enthusiastic and eager, and more interested in jewellery and accessory designs. Personally speaking, it has had a positive impact in my life because of the exposure to the world and the increase in living standards.

What do you hope to achieve in the longer term?

My dreams are as simple as being a professional designer for a special company such as De Beers Group and others in the future. I want to be one of the best designers the De Beers Group ever discovered.

What does working with natural diamonds mean to you?

It’s about aesthetics to me, because they are beautiful and unique objects with a high value, which sort of describes me as a person, for I believe in being unique and special like natural diamonds.

What do you enjoy about the jewellery design work that you do?

I like to design traditional and cultural articles. I like to read and get inspiration and I like to be inspired and make collections, which can have a meaning and a strong emotional feeling for someone that needs it a particular time, or something that you can remind yourself about in later years. So that’s what inspires me to design, because when you design, you capture emotion.

Why you decided to get involved with the Shining Lights Awards?

Basically, I have to tell the truth, I had to fight with my fears. I was scared that maybe I couldn’t do it. So, I told myself, Mbako, you are a designer and you are the best at designing. I told myself that I was going to do it. Something that made me join, was to be able to brand myself, to plan new ideas and to see how De Beers do it. I was very fortunate that they took me to the best design school in the world, where I could learn different things in terms of designing. So that was my main inspiration, just to brand myself. 

What you have been doing since you won the award?

When I won the award in 2017, I had a jewellery business with a tagline ‘Inspiration and Creativity’. I didn’t do anything much with that brand because I didn’t have any experience, I didn’t see what is around the world or what is needed. Since I won the award, I went to school and learnt CAD, and that meant I could have experience on doing my designs. Going to Italy pushed me more. Since coming back from Italy, I set up a little workshop at home. Now I am designing for people and designing collections.

What you have got out of the programme?

I have to say to De Beers, every day I put my hands together for you guys because you have developed me into another person, who I am today. So, I give thanks to the company and the Shining Lights team.

Before I joined Shining Lights I didn’t understand a lot of things. I have seen the world because of Shining Lights Awards. It’s given me a lot of confidence, I can see I am capable of making a good presentation, I am capable of making a good design, I am capable of doing a lot of things.

I joined Shining Lights without knowing anything about CAD. You know when you go to study CAD it’s too expensive. But with De Beers they made it all possible for me. So I am capable of doing a lot of things, for which I can just say- thanks to De Beers and their management.

What do you hope to achieve in the longer term?

I want to see myself as a brand, to be well known as a designer. I want to make something that will bring me out of the box. I want to make a name that I can brand for the long term. Not just to brand myself, but to bring up designers who are up and coming and to also teach them how to do it. I want to see the world, through the jewellery industry, that’s my main dream.

What does working with natural diamonds mean to you?

I like to work with diamonds because of their quality. Normally the pieces I do with them are for ladies, I like to work with diamonds to give hope to that person, to respect them, and to give them the beautiful diamond. So that’s what makes me like to work with diamonds - to give people that most beautiful, most precious and respected stone.

What do you enjoy about the jewellery design work that you do?

I enjoy expanding on design ideas and working on concepts that can appear elaborate at first but then need to be shrunk down to the size of a piece of jewellery. It challenges me to get to the very essence of an idea and to express it accordingly. Working with clients and being able to create their dream jewellery for them is extremely rewarding, and of course I get to look at beautiful things all day!

Please could you describe the impact that the DBGDI programme has had for you so far?

It was through De Beers and the Shining Lights competition that I was able to travel to Milan and work and learn from the Forevermark team there for three months. The knowledge that I accumulated there is invaluable, not just in terms of design principles and international jewellery trends, but how to compete on a global level and what the international standards for jewellery design are.

What have you been up to since the force of nature work?

I am currently running two of my own jewellery brands – Andromeda by Louise is more contemporary and alternative, while Athena by Louise is more commercial and classic. I work from my home studio where I design and make my own pieces.

What are your dreams for what you hope to achieve long-term?

I hope to grow my own jewellery into an internationally recognisable brand, and to bring joy and love to anyone who wears a piece of my jewellery. I want to make people feel beautiful.

What does working with natural diamonds mean to you?

Natural diamonds are from the very earth beneath our feet and represent thousands of years of growth. There is nothing more special than having something so old, strong and beautiful in a piece of jewellery.

While working with Forevermark in Milan Louise Kriek created a striking masterpiece design for the Forevermark Red Carpet Collection. The resulting design, known as Force of Nature, comprises a ring featuring the two millionth Forevermark diamond and a brooch. Discover more here:
https://www.forevermark.com/en/now-forever/protecting-forever/louise-kriek-the-ideas-and-inspiration-behind-force-of-nature/.

Could you tell us a bit more about when and why you got involved with the DBGDI, and your journey and experiences to date with the programme as both a participant and judge?

During my second year of my diploma, it was compulsory for us to enter competitions- it was part of our exams. I submitted a couple of designs and the following year the judging happened (2009). I’ve always been somebody who enjoys entering competitions, because you have an opportunity to do something out of the norm, that you ordinarily you would not be exposed to at school or in the corporate world.

Fortunately, I became the overall winner, which I’m still so grateful for. After entering the competition, I realised that there was a lot of opportunities from being overall winner, that the competition opens for you. Especially the Shining Lights Awards, it’s one of the best competitions because it exposes you to a lot of things. A lot of the corporates are aware of the competition, so if you have that backing, you stand a better chance of anything in the jewellery corporate sector. I got a lot of offers as a result of wining the competition.

Could you tell us of your experiences of becoming a judge?

So, that was also a mind-blowing experience for me. I am one of the very fortunate Shining Lights Awards winners, because I’ve experienced the 360 degree side of the competition, from being a student entering the competition, to travelling the world as a result of the competition, to getting into the market and then at a later stage  making networks who have become friends. I’m very fortunate because when I won the competition, it was like I was ordained to become a De Beers child. It’s sort of like I became part of the family. It’s not like one of those competitions where you win, you get the mileage and then years later everyone has forgotten about you.

I was very fortunate to be selected as one of the judges because I got to understand how I channelled my thinking in terms of design when I was a student. Now I look at students and understand how they think when they design, and how they actually speak to their designs. It’s one of those amazing moments that’s difficult for me to put in words- I was very very fortunate. It opened up my thinking in terms of how I look at the industry.

Here’s a young man, student, winner, I got into business and then later on I became a judge in one of the biggest competitions in South Africa, that I won. That was just mind blowing. It still is today, just mind blowing. It’s just something amazing.

Please could you describe what you’ve got out of the programme, both as a participant and a judge, and its impact for you so far?

More than anything you get a lot of mileage. When I won, I started becoming part of the De Beers family and things started opening up. There’s a lot of mileage and a lot cred and respect from the industry as a whole to be part of such a big group, and on top of that to become an overall winner. Being part of the programme has just put me 10 steps ahead of my peers. I feel that’s exactly what I needed in my journey in the jewellery industry. I needed that platform that can just open up doors that I could not even imagine that I could tap into. It’s been a great and amazing journey.

What have you been doing since the programme?

After I won the competition, I became the Head of Design for a company, working there for 5 years, I was just polishing my skills and getting all my knowledge. I’ve always wanted to become a businessperson in the industry. In 2012, I started my own company, I’ve been working from home from 2013 until 2016 when I first opened my retail store in Pretoria. So, I choose to go into the retail and design side of things. It’s been an amazing journey so far.

What does working with natural diamonds mean to you?

For me it’s such an amazing thing- the fact that here’s a piece of rock that has been given so much value over a long period of time. This is something I can’t put it in words, but it’s always something that happens- when I work with diamonds, I see the reaction of my clients wearing a diamond ring, something that I’ve designed, something that I’ve created, it’s the most amazing, priceless experience. It’s so beautiful to look at someone that will wear something on a daily basis that you have created.

So, working for diamonds for me - I kid you not - it’s just something magical, because each and every diamond has its own story. Working with diamonds is one of the greatest experiences ever. I still get Goosebumps at times when I look at some diamonds. I’ve been in the industry long enough now, but I still get Goosebumps, and I still get rare moments when I look at something and realise how magic it is to work with. So, working with diamonds, for me, it’s one of the best things I could ever ask for.

I believe design is an essential discipline to help improve everyone’s lives. I think today designers are very important for improving the world that we are living in and that education in design is essential

DBG’s Shining Lights Awards are dedicated to young talents in the jewellery field and are one of the best I have ever seen. Generally speaking, all of the awards and talent competitions out there are just theoretical, they are related to the submission of some drawings, but they do not affect the lives of the people submitting the ideas. On the other side your awards are very real. Giving the winners the possibility to study at the Milan Polytechnic, to find a job and to improve their education is really the best thing you could do for our young talents and for the future.

I think the jewellery industry of today really needs these kinds of initiatives. It is an industry that is divided between theory and practice, between craftmanship and the industry. I really appreciate DBG’s efforts in connecting and linking the two. Education is also the key for our future and all of this is coming from the awards. This is why I have been very happy and honoured to be one of the members of the jury, and this is the reason why I sincerely promote the awards, in the world jewellery field in which I belong.

I am very proud also of how the winners respond to the awards. All the students we’ve had in the Masters at the polytechnic were very good, very talented and very motivated. For some of them they have started very bright careers. I think as educators this is very important.

How have you found watching the winners evolve over the course of their scholarships at the Polytechnic?

This is one of the most emotional experiences of my life. Your students come from very different realities, from very different worlds. When they arrive in Milan, first of all- it is very cold for them, so they are a bit scared, of course. They don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. So, they tend to stay altogether, always sitting close to the others. Then, since the master class is a small class with 20 students, after the first weeks they start to open. I love to think that their talents start blooming. And so it is so amazing to see these guys and girls, they arrive, they are shy, they are scared, and then they trust themselves, they find their talents, they trust in their talents and they bloom. It’s one of the best professional experiences of my life.

Do you have any particular memories from the SLA that stand out?

I have very happy memories about the Shining Lights Awards. The first memory I have was when I met the jury. It has been a fantastic experience for me to share the judging process with other colleagues of the jury. It was also my first time in Botswana, and I enjoyed the country a lot. After being in Botswana, I understood what I loved so much about the awards, because the awards are like the spirit of Botswana. It’s a spirit of a country that truly believes in education. I can find exactly the same ideas and same values of progress and of faith in education in the awards. My second moment of happiness was when this high jewellery company from Paris selected one of our students [from the SLAs] for an internship. Of course, it was a very competitive process, so when she won, and the person said we want her, I stood up from the chair and said “YES!” It was a very emotional moment for me.

What do the awards mean for the industry?

There are different kinds of jewellery awards, the majority of them are very theoretical- you submit a drawing, many of the drawings are not real because you cannot transform them into products, so they are quite useless for the industry. I have been very happy to be part of the jury for SLA- because you provide not just the ideas, but also the opportunity to transform those ideas into something real. So, we select the winners, starting from how good their ideas are and if they can become real or not. Then you provide them with a high education- the masters. This is the biggest the award you can give them, even bigger than giving money as it happens in other competitions.

I also think that jewellery industry today has not fully understood the importance of education, with the exclusion of the big Maisons and the big jewellery brands, the middle companies are not aware of the importance of education, and this is such a pity. I fight a lot for this. So, I am very happy that the DBG has fully understood how important education is for the young generation coming from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

Now, from a beneficiation point of view it was great to be able to show what you can do with diamonds, as a red carpet piece. The sad thing was that because so many diamonds were being used, the pieces had to be dismantled afterwards and the diamonds given back.

It was an opportunity to say, should we not be taking these young graduates and teaching them about commerciality of design. So, what we encourage is an understanding of a storyboard that could be used in a commercial piece, preparing them for real work, whether as a designer or in retail.

So, we went down the path of now looking at how can we change the SLA to allow for a post graduate scholarship to be able to go and learn more about diamond jewellery design, whether at the design or artisan level. We came up with this whole new programme that now sits under the De Beers Group Designer Initiative (DBGDI), and the SLA is the process through which we select the best from our producing countries from the universities and Technikons where we do our road shows.

How have you found being involved with the DBGDI?

I was really excited to participate because I love design - it’s the light in my life. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed based on my background in advertising for many years.

What I really loved, was that you could see the potential in our producer countries, regardless of whether they’d gone through formal training or not. In Africa in particular, design is a very big part of our culture - it is embedded within stories, music, clothes, food and just the whole cultural element of how you adorn yourself.

So, the excitement to be able to take that to the ethos of where I come from as an African and bring it into a contemporary opportunity of commerciality, with a product that I’m totally in love with – diamonds - was just a story made in heaven for me.

Personally, I’m glad I came in when I did, because I could influence the path. It is something that I love doing, and to see these students get so excited about the opportunity to participate and to see it grow from where it was, 6-7 years ago to where it is now, is just a wonderful experience to know that I have been part of that.

Why do you think this initiative matters?

There is no doubt that millennials are into creativity, whether in music, innovation or technology. Any social platform is about creativity and design, whether in clothes, music, lifestyle.

I think the opportunity with young people in our space, means that it needs to constantly evolve, we need to work and bring them with us as they become early adopters and early buyers of high end jewellery, whether it’s for an engagement, high school graduation or the first baby or just for a self-purchase.

But it’s important that the design works for them. So, what I think is important is to take young designers, who are designing for young consumers, because without having to think about what it is, they are it. And that translates into the way they design or think about themes. So, it’s a great connect for us as De Beers Group, to bring in the new talent that relates to the new market, and work with them to understand what the offering could be.

What impact do you think this initiative has on the lives and careers of our designers?

Our contribution to new designers is something that I have seen in our four countries. The participation as we do the roadshows and listening to the excitement of the students at the opportunity of winning and going to Milan, or winning and doing a further artisanship or training in something that they enjoy doing - because if you are in design, you do it for the love – is very fulfilling.

Our alumni is significant and to see those who have gone on to do exceptional work and are employed or running their own businesses in the space, and then to see some of the alumni now become judges, it’s really interesting. They see the potential as they judge, because they were in that exact same position and some of them are now very successful and many are now training others. So, our contribution from a beneficiation point of view is that we’ve taken the best of those that applied in our producing countries and given them a journey of further development to share and impact on others.

So, the ripple effect of that is real beneficiation and its tangible, it’s not something that’s up there in the air, because they actually exist. You can meet with them, talk with them and see their work and how they are mentoring. It’s a significant contribution I believe, to the future of millennial designers.

What are your hopes for the future of the initiative?

I really believe there is an opportunity to bring the best of our designers that have come through the system, winning, going to school, coming out the other side as an apprentices, to target millennials consumers and to bring them into, not necessarily just De Beers, but the diamond ecosystem, opening doors with our Sightholders who are focussed on creating jewellery for our markets. That to me is a practical and sustainable strategy, to invest in somebody and see the outcome, because they can attract consumers to the product they are creating.