The Soul Engraver creates beautiful and unique gold and silver jewellery, hand-cut in the tradition of the Master Engraver. These creations involve metal and blade, but also people, stories and meaning. It’s about deeper connections, about marking moments in the stream of time. Into metal, the Soul Engraver carves love. 

The real Soul Engraver is Brian Dunne, Master Engraver, formerly of Weir’s, and he’s wonderful – warm and personable. Mark Sobczyk of Brand Engine brought me in to help craft the Soul Engraver narrative and create marketing material ahead of the brand’s launch and first big outing, at Showcase, Ireland’s Creative Expo, 2018. With Brian, we dug deep to uncover what the Soul Engraver offering is really all about; the pieces are beautiful, but ‘pretty’ is not enough. Every Soul Engraver piece comes with more. There are bespoke pieces that mark personal moments, while the Sacred Tree ‘ready to wear’ range, takes the meaning of the trees revered by  ancient Irish culture and brings it to life – when you gift a beautifully hand-carved leaf, you also mark an important connection or attribute. An ivy leaf speaks of the intertwining of lives as people grow together. The willow that bends but doesn’t break is a symbol of resilience. In every piece there is more history, more sense of place, more personal resonance, more love. Hence the brand position, and the endline, ‘Love is in the detail’. We created a tone of voice that was allusive and poetic rather rather than romantic or sentimental; a voice that simply carries stories. 

And together, we made a decision. As wonderful and personable as Brian is, the Soul Engraver brand is bigger than any one person, and deserves room to grow. So Brian stepped back and the stories came forward. The Soul Engraver is merely an invisible hand, a channel for other people’s stories. 

The Soul Engraver won Best New Product at Showcase 2018. And the brand now retails at Ireland’s premiere jewellers, Weir and Sons of Grafton Street, where Brian served his long apprenticeship and spent many years as a Master Engraver. 

From The Soul Engraver website:

Click on images to enlarge

Highlights from the Soul Engraver brochure:

Birch / B Beith

Betula pendula

27^th December – 23^rd January

 

The Gaelic name for the birch tree is Beith (pron. ‘beh’)

Beith is a symbol of new beginnings. 

Beautiful and bright, this tree grows abundant in the harshest terrain. It is first to take root even after fires. Beith honours birth, renewal and fresh adventures. 

Salmon leaping at Oughterard, Galway
A body meant for water flies through air. A body lands hard, tries and flies again, upstream, up a gushing waterfall. This is the sound of courage, of life on an elemental journey to create itself.