FOUNDER & DESIGNER
MALCOLM NORMAN
FOUNDER & DESIGNER
Malcolm Norman has never taken a conventional path to jewelry.
Long before founding Bloodline Design, he was making things - tying Atlantic salmon flies as a boy in New Brunswick, designing apparel, shaping windsurf boards and eventually working in design and brand management in the action-sports industry.
Travel through Europe introduced him to antique jewelry, architecture and centuries-old metalwork. But it was a visit to a Vancouver jeweller in the early 1990s that changed his direction. Surrounded by anvils, torches and hand tools, Malcolm became fascinated not just by jewelry, but by how it was made.
He left his corporate career and apprenticed at a Vancouver casting house, honing his skills in wax carving and metal fabrication as he worked toward putting together his first jewelry line.
In 1994, Malcolm and Andrea founded Bloodline Design.
the way he works
More than three decades later, Malcolm still approaches design much as he did at the beginning.
Many Bloodline pieces start with an idea and a block of wax rather than a computer. Malcolm carves directly into the wax by hand, working through proportion, weight and detail until the piece feels right.
That process leaves evidence of the hand behind it. Rather than chasing absolute uniformity, Malcolm is interested in character - the small details and decisions that give a piece its identity.
OLD WORLD INFLUENCE. MODERN POINT OF VIEW.
Malcolm's work draws from a lifetime of references: architecture, nature, historical metalwork, old tools and objects, books, travel and the things he has collected along the way.
The past is an influence, not a template.
He takes those references and works them through his own point of view, creating jewelry that feels familiar without simply reproducing what came before.
That tension between old and new has become part of Bloodline's design language - Old World traditions interpreted with a distinctly modern attitude.
DESIGNED TO HAVE PRESENCE
Weight matters to Malcolm.
So does proportion.
A chain should feel substantial in the hand. A ring should have presence on the finger. Details should be considered from every angle, not simply from the one photographed for the website.
It's an approach that has given Bloodline jewelry its recognizable character - substantial, detailed and distinctly its own.
STILL AT THE BENCH
Bloodline has changed considerably since the beginning.
The studio is bigger. The tools are better. A second generation of the family is now becoming a part of the business.
But some things haven't changed.
Malcolm is still designing.
Still carving.
Still working from Bloodline's Vancouver Studios.
Past. Present. Bloodline.