Deakin & Francis® designs and makes the world’s finest cufflinks, signet rings, gentlemen’s accessories, ladies jewellery and bespoke commissions. Deakin & Francis is England's oldest family jewellers, founded in 1786 and across seven generations D&F continue to build on the heritage, brand and family values that have been created over the past two centuries.
Deakin & Francis produce fine quality, hand-made jewellery in precious metal, vitreous enamel and gemstones. Through world wars and recessions, changing fashions, seasons and trends, the brand has adapted to the demands of their clients. Today, D&F’s team of highly skilled craftsmen (and women!) continue to deliver beautifully designed products of the highest quality.
I’ve been working with D&F for nearly a year (I know guys, seems like yesterday when we first met) and I have been fortunate to witness the whole process of the creation of their pieces over this time. I am constantly impressed by the level of detail that goes into their pieces and I have seen some incredible items.
The GIF I made of the moving jaw
I was once tasked with the job of making a GIF showing the moving jaw element of a skull on an umbrella. The result perfectly shows how it all looks, including the hidden surprise of a pair of red eyes dropping down at the same time. It was a huge test of my problem solving (something that I love to do), as I needed to make up the image with individual edited stills, and the GIF was made up of about 10 individual photos in total - which were then reversed so that the jaw closed again.
And yes, you read it right above, this is at the bottom of an umbrella, just one of the many surprising items you would find at D&F. They look amazing in both silver and in matte black, personally I would go for the matte black one though. Just personal preference if anyone is looking for a present for me ever!
These skulls can be found on corkscrews too. Imagine having one of these to open a bottle of wine with! It definitely wouldn’t be a corkscrew that would be thrown in a drawer somewhere , it would probably be on display more than the bottle of wine you’re about to drink was…
I also made GIFs of some cycle cufflinks made by D&F. I’d say these GIFs were actually a little bit more tricky for me to make as they were much smaller and they move by twisting the outside of the cufflink, so I had to do this millimeter by millimeter without moving the cufflink too much so that I could use the parts that moved in the editing process. I worked hard on starting/ending the gif seamlessly so that they would loop indefinitely and the viewer would not be able to see the cut in it. The final results can be seen above, both featuring the landmarks from London and New York, with the UK/American flag featured too. How cool are they?
On top of these pieces, I also photographed the most expensive calculator in the world with D&F. It was made with 18ct gold - just like many items you can find at D&F. Feel free to go and find it on their website for a price. The relationship I have built up with D&F over the past year though allows them to trust me to handle such a piece to shoot.
18ct gold calculator
Over the past year though, I have photographed lots of products with D&F for their website. I pride myself in consistency with the e-com work I do for them. Each job can be weeks apart, but I will provide images in exactly the same look and style as the previous job - all lighting powers are the same, camera settings, height of the camera in comparison to the products, everything. This means that D&F know that they will be receiving images that consistent with the rest of their website - something that is key for brand image and, in my eyes, makes browsing a website much more pleasurable. If you scroll through a website and all photos are at a different angle, different brightness, some are blurry, the colours are off, etc., then it is really noticeable when they are next to each other. My work and attention to detail means that D&F will never have this problem.
I can’t wait to see what else I see come out of their workshop over the next year.
https://www.deakinandfrancis.co.uk/
PS. We have an advert coming out soon, keep your eyes open for updates!
Just some of the e-com photos I have done with D&F over the past year.