NIRVANA BEADS

CLIENT
Nirvana Beads, NY USA
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & WEB DESIGN
Beads & Buttons Design and Web Design

DESCRIPTION

Nirvana Beads is an online wholesale bead and button store based in New York. They customize their own productions to create more imaginative choices for their customers. They deliver “artist to artist” merchandise while supporting traditional Czech bead craftsmanship. Their specialties are Czech Beads and Buttons.

Photography of beads & buttons by Anne Kurz

I design all the glass beads and buttons. I select the shape, the color of the glass, and the cuts and coatings that will be applied to these beads or buttons. These designs are sent to factories in the Czech Republic for manufacturing. Once produced, they are shipped to the United States for sale. Dozens of designs are submitted for production annually.

The images above depict button molds (left) and glass bead molds (right). Dozens upon dozens of molds have been used since the 1800s! When designing a button, I select the mold, the glass color (see below), and the coatings or paint that will be applied to the button. A specialist then manually presses the glass rods into it. If I am designing beads, I first choose the glass color (see below). The mold is placed into a machine that presses the glass rods automatically. After the bead is pressed, the selected cuts and coatings are applied.

The image below represents one of the glass color sample cards that I utilize, with each color having its own unique code. Glass can exhibit a variety of appearances, such as transparent, opaque, opal, or combined. Some of the most sophisticated glass colors are even made with gold! Over time, I’ve learned how colors interact with different chemical coatings and how they behave when combined with other colors.