Well, it is the dawn of a new era for the Jewellery quarter here in Birmingham. After many months of work and years of planning and strategising we find ourselves, online, as a group standing together and saying loudly – Halloo, we are over here, yes, the Jewellery Quarter is over here – just beside Birmingham’s city centre, just over the bridge.

Now we have the fantastic opportunity to say to the world – Bonjour, Ola, Salam a leikham, – we are over here, yes in the midlands, in England – next to Wales, south of Scotland, not far from France and pretty near my own native land – Ireland – yes we are here and want to show you our wares, our heritage and our friendship.

In this blog post I will avoid covering the specifics of the Jewellery Quarter (Or at least try), I will leave you to explore the new web site launched by Andy Munro and his team at the Jewellery Quarter Regeneration Partnership and over the coming posts hope to up date the readers on perhaps the heritage aspect of the Quarter, which has long been a passion of mine – ever since I came to Birmingham to study at the School of Jewellery in approx. 1993, I realised if you are going to own a Jewellery or Product design business then this is the absolutely perfect, unique, vibrant, hub of creativity and hot bed of entrepreneurship that one could find in the world (And I may be proved right in this as the Jewellery Quarter is about to apply for World Heritage Status) so I stayed.

Or perhaps in the blog I might talk about the various communities springing up, The Jewellery Quarter association or Design Space or Association of Jewellery Practitioners (AJP). Or even move on to the fab bars that are now up and running and more importantly staying giving us a vibrant nightlife.

Or perhaps I will simply say hello, we The Jeweller Quarter and the Jewellery Quarter Web site are here to show you the culmination of 150 years of product design and manufacture peaking in about 4 square miles.

I say to you the reader, don’t simply look at the web site, visit the Jewellery Quarter, go to the information point near the clock, outside the Big Peg, ask some questions and get more for your money than absolutely fantastic hand crafted, expertly made, bespoke, locally made 22ct, 18ct, 9ct, Sterling Silver, fashion jewellery and products, excellent customer service, tonnes of fab buildings, great museums, heritage trails, delicious food and most of all nice people interested in you as a local dropping in or as a travelling tourist coming from afar to see in the flesh what the Jewellery Quarter is all about.

I will also be mentioning other people in the Jewellery Quarter that are blogging about their new products, both new and established businesses that are taking technology and applying it to there own businesses sharing their ideas with all who are interested, there are 4 blogs ongoing from the Jewellery Quarter that I know of and I invite any one in the Jewellery Quarter that is blogging to send me a link and I will do my best to get you a mention here.

The four blogs is question are, Design Space ‘09, a group of 18 new and emerging makers based in the jewellery quarter, Clare Victoria Pardoe, a maker from the Design Space Gorup that is blogging about her own elegant range of products, Centerpiece a A group of Birmingham’s finest contemporary jewellery designers, providing the public with a superb opportunity to seek out the perfect gift or individual commission at this year’s Centrepiece selling exhibition, held in two prestigous locations in Birmingham city centre, they also have an ongoing blog and of course my own blog, David-Louis from Gifts of Distinction, blogging about creative enterprise and the Jewellery Quarter along with exciting projects we work on here in the Jewellery Quarter.

So enjoy the wealth of creativity and I hope you come back time and again.

David-louis.