Interview Van Cleef & Arpels x Hapticmedia : Maxime Orlandi

We asked, Maxime our 3D graphic designer, 4 questions about the project of personalized rings for Van Cleef & Arpels:

Van Cleef & Arpels is a luxury french house founded in 1906. Today Van Cleef & Arpels sells timepieces, high jewelry and perfumes. With nature-inspired pieces, the brand has been able to differentiate itself and reserve a place of choice in jewelry creation.

1/ What was the goal, the mission ?

The mission is to integrate a 3D configurator on their website allowing the personalization and the detailed visualization of the 6 rings of the collection “Your Poetic Settings”. But also , to make online personnalisation available for these rings, by giving the consumer the choice among 13 different carat sizes and several colors for the band and the diamond.

2/ Who did you work with on this project ?

First, with the marketing team of Van Cleef & Arpels and their Jewelry technical expert. Internally I worked a lot with Pauline and Hugo for the modeling and Loïc took the global rendering in charge.

3/ What is the process ?

We worked the rendering with our validation UI, which is a technical tool allowing the brand to implement the 3d configurator on their website by having aesthetic freedom during integration.

So for that there has been important work on modeling in order to obtain a very precise, qualitative and realistic rendering.

This is why we made a deep research work on the understanding of the collection. In Van Cleef & Arpels’ workshops we were able to have an introduction to their rules, a technical presentation of the collection and its history, to visit their workshop, to meet the craftsmen and to really soak up the essence of the collection.

It is also where we realized really detailed photography of the rings, in order to use these for modeling purposes and stay as close as possible to the real product.

After the modeling of the rings, we worked on the different materials and their finish. We also added personalization modules : 13 carat sizes from 0.3 to 3 carat and the gold colors.

To that we add real time personalized engraving. Indeed the customer has the possibility to engrave a chosen message inside the ring. In order to get better visualization of this message we made a close up view inside the ring.

4/ What was the most challenging part and what are you proud of, on this project ?

What really motivates me on this project is to learn more about their craft, to discover their universe. It is really stimulating to see how much their high level of detail and precision requirements meet ours. It reinforces my conviction that technology is at the heart of high precision business.

One of the biggest challenges was purely technical. We had an emphasis on fluidity, speed and quality of the 360 ° rendering. Thus, it was important to ensure the weight of the 3D models, but also their optimization in order to facilitate the speed on the visualization module and guarantee a pleasant digital experience without any latencies or load time slowdowns.

And what makes me really proud is when the client is satisfied and we succeed in meeting his expectations.