Crafting Milestones Part 1

Designing Alexion’s Story in Silver

Last year, Ogilvy Health UK approached me with an exciting opportunity: to create a bespoke set of charms for their client, Alexion. As a PNH patient myself - I am all too aware of Alexion, their incredible work and their patient-centric approach. I was honoured to be asked.

The project was created to celebrate Alexion's milestones; their journey in rare disease management, specifically Atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome (aHUS) and Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH), alongside the journeys of the patients whose lives have been touched by their work. Each bespoke charm represented an individual milestone or symbolic chapter, together forming a bracelet that shares their collective journey with the world.

What better medium than jewellery? A powerful medium for story-telling, this was always going to be about far more than just adornment for adornments sake.

My first step was to create hand-carved wax models for around 14 charms. The models would later to be cast into silver.

The Angel of the North & a hiking boot

Yorkshire rose

This stage required a great deal of trust from the creative team. Wax carving can be difficult to visualise if you aren't familiar with traditional jewellery making techniques like lost wax casting; Those bright blue forms are far removed from their final, highly polished silver counterparts!

My role here was to guide the creative team, helping them understand the art of possible, while still being open to feedback - often what we visualise initially doesn't always translate as expected, so we go back and forth until it's right. Some charms took 4 or 5 models to get right, The Kidney was especially hard (surprisingly) - we went from an anatomical level of detail to more of an icon silhouette as its final form, for example.

The Angel of the North symbolised Alexion's deep roots in Newcastle where groundbreaking research in the 1900's uncovered how mutations in complement factor H caused aHUS. This discovery ultimately led to the development of Eculizumab.

Hiking boot wax model

Laylas' hiking boot represented a far more personal story. As a young child living with aHUS, Laylas' illness had impacted her ability to walk. Hers was a difficult journey, not only for her, but for her parents navigating the uncertainty and fear that comes with watching their child face such challenges. 

Following treatment, a simple family walk in Keswick became a defining milestone. While walking uphill with her parents, Layla suddenly broke into a run - sprinting ahead up the steepest part of the hill. A moment that wasn't just about recovery.

Once each piece was finished in wax, and signed off by the creative team, they were then cast in silver for the first time! This marked a significant turning point in the project, seeing these evolve from wax into silver was a big moment, no longer conceptual, this was really happening!

Now the charms had been cast - there was still work to do; each charm required extensive hands on refinement including sprue removal, stone-setting, adding patina and the final assembly before polishing & packing them up on their way.

Fresh casting (Kidney)	Fresh casting (Hiking boot)
Fresh casting (Angel of the North)

The next challenge was designing how they would form a bracelet. This stage involved a few revisions, with plenty of creative discussion around aesthetics and functionality. One key part of the brief was ensuring the bracelet remained adaptable - Alexion's journey is still ongoing and there will undoubtedly be many more milestones to celebrate in the future. The charms also needed to be removable so they  could be photographed to create a campaign from, making flexibility essential. Simply attaching the charms with a jump ring would encourage too much movement causing the charms to bunch together and lose visual clarity.

We explored several approaches, including traditional chain link styles with the charms spaced evenly across opposing sides, but that meant losing some of the flexibility. We even discussed not having jump rings and bails at all - rather a big hole through a charm so the chain could pass through it.

"Paper-clip" chain prototype	bail-less prototype
The final choice - custom bails to sit on a thick snake chain bracelet

Ultimately, we chose a snake chain design with custom bails; offering the ideal balance between flexibility, functionality and being the most visually appealing.

With the structure of the bracelet decided; the foundation was set for these individual milestones to become one cohesive piece.

In Part 2, I'll share how these individually crafted charms were refined into the final bracelet, the deeply personal story behind my own charm(s), what happened to that dandelion charm (in the photo above), the full collection of charms and how the bracelet became part of Alexion's wider campaign.