A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
MANU
“I love the architecture of small forms. When confident, strong women wear MANU jewellery as the icing on the cake – that makes me happy”
Ilse Ebert
A family group of artists MANU are taking their designs very seriously and live up to the meaning of the company’s name – “made with your hands”. It is all about clean cut lines, but sometimes they’re allowing themselves to go “wild” with unusual lines and impossible angles you just don’t see anywhere else.
.
Established by Ilse and Horst Ebert, the company was taken over by Johannes Weege in 1998. Based in Hameln, Germany, in grade 2 listed barracks dating back to 1896, MANU create handmade mini-collections in outstanding quality and design, working with materials such as silver, gold, precious and semi-precious stones and rubber. Simple, slick, elegant and dynamic shapes with stylish, matt and textured surfaces are MANU’s signature.
In addition to that, for 17 years MANU have been working together with Edinburgh College of Art , offering 2 students in their final year to not only visit and experience their company, but to create a set of jewellery to fit in with a MANU collection. They have a wonderful play with the word “Ich” (meaning “I” in German) in their beautiful brochures, which again highlights their nod to the personality and individuality of both their work and their customers.
MANU’s slogan – “the icing on your cake – handcrafted, individual and varied, “ says it all. Finding the right packaging and presentation for jewellery can be difficult – but Johannes Weege doesn’t have to look far – there is Susanne Weege, his wife.
Although MANU and PICA are two individual businesses, it is a perfect combination and working together allows them to present both products to their clients at trade fairs at the same time.
PICA Design
Pica means “spicy, tingling or tickling” in Spanish, not surprising that Susanne chose this as her company’s name.
Working together with a highly motivated female team, in the last 20 years Susanne Weege has developed over 150 distinct unusual designs for jewellery packaging and display in materials such as paper, wood, metal, acrylic and recently also ceramic, many of them award-winning.
PICA – Susanne Weege and her team
PICA’s creations such as Smarty and Egg, made of hand-drawn paper, are colourful, fresh and a bit cheeky.
In contrast, Black- and Red Box are clean cut and understated.
A fairly new addition are funky and inventive “fasteners”. Printing service is available too, and in line with their almost entirely hand-made packaging is still done using a manually operated old printing machine. To keep it fresh and exciting, twice a year PICA add up to 3 new pieces.
“Talking about design is a bit like singing about football” says Susanne Weege and invites you to rather look at her designs than talk about them.
Check out more of the designs here.
Credits With Thanks:
Images courtesy of,
MANU Schmuck www.manuschmuck.de
PICA Design www.pica-design.de
