Retina
A beautiful pattern that is uniquely yours
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More InformationThe mysterious RETINA
The eye is the window to the soul – but what is the difference between the iris and the retina?
In the fascinating world of the eye, there are two crucial components that contribute to our visual experience—the iris and the retina. We have all heard of these terms, but do we really know how they work and what they do?
The retina at the back of the eye is often confused with the iris (rainbow membrane).
Iris: The curtain of the eye
The iris is the colored pigment layer around the pupil, visible at the front of the eye, and also known as the rainbow membrane. It defines our eye color and functions like a diaphragm in a camera, regulating the amount of light entering the retina. It narrows in bright light and widens in darkness. This mechanism helps control the amount of light that reaches the retina to ensure optimal vision.
Retina: The sensory network
The retina, also known as the retina, is home to the rods and cones that some of us remember from biology class: specialized nerve cells that transmit light impulses via the optic nerve to our brain, allowing us to perceive our visible environment. It is hidden at the back of the eye and can only be seen with a special camera, which makes it relatively unknown. The beautiful lines found on retinal images, which are decisive for our jewelry, are the vessels that are formed during pregnancy. They do not change for the rest of our lives—they are an inseparable part of us and therefore identify us. Even identical twins, who look exactly the same on the outside, have completely different retinal vessels.
Key features of the retina
The retina is extremely complex in its structure and function, but some of its most important features are crucial to our vision:
1. Macula:
This is the central area of the retina, which is responsible for sharp vision. It enables us to recognize details, such as reading text or recognizing faces.
2. Optic nerve:
This is where the nerve fibers of the retina converge and form the optic nerve. This transmits electrical signals from the eye to the brain, where they are converted into images. Arteries also enter the eye in this area, supplying it with oxygen-rich blood and nutrients. The oxygen-depleted veins leave the eye in this region. So, in terms of the vessels in the eye, the area around the optic nerve is the “wildest” area, which is usually the most interesting for the pattern we use for your jewelry.
3. Blind spot:
There are no light-sensitive cells at the location of the optic nerve, which results in a “blind spot.” However, the brain fills in this area unnoticed, so we do not perceive any gaps in our field of vision.
Conclusion: The interaction between the iris and retina
The iris and retina are both crucial elements for our vision. While the iris regulates the light that falls on the retina, the retina converts this light into electrical signals that our brain interprets. For me personally, sight is the most important sense of all. It allows me to perceive my environment in all its beauty and diversity.
Why do we use your retina for jewelry?
How did you come up with this idea? I hear this question almost every day, and it is more than justified, as it is anything but obvious to use such a medical detail for a jewelry design.
Let me elaborate on this and you will understand why we chose Retina:
I came to Switzerland from Austria in 2000 to do a PhD in neurobiology. The plan was that after three years and a doctorate under my belt, I would return to Vienna and take up a position in research. Well, life obviously had other plans for me. 🙂
I have always been fascinated by nature, enjoyed experimenting, and spent countless hours at the microscope analyzing nerve cells. I was fascinated by the magical complexity that keeps our nervous system, an incredibly beautiful machine, running.
After completing my doctorate, I started working for a large pharmaceutical company. Although it was interesting and challenging, I felt that something was missing: the aesthetics and magic of nature gave way to the pursuit of profitable results, and I no longer felt fulfilled. At that time, I had just gotten married and was helping my wife open her own goldsmith business in Basel, which gave me a perfect insight into this creative industry where aesthetics were at the forefront.
At that time, I discovered two new things that I enjoyed: creative jewelry design and entrepreneurship. We started this company from scratch, did almost everything ourselves, and grew quickly. Soon I quit my secure job in the pharmaceutical industry, which was a really difficult decision because I knew that if my new career failed, it would be impossible to return to my old job.
But I decided to take the risky path and do something completely different from what I had been trained to do for 15 years. I told myself that I only have one life. Why continue with something familiar that might be comfortable and pay the bills, but wouldn’t make me happy? Spoiler alert: I haven’t regretted it.
From the very beginning, both my wife and I had the goal of providing individual service to our customers and offered custom-made jewelry, which sold very well and showed clear growth curves. I attended many special courses, learned old goldsmithing techniques that significantly broadened our jewelry range and improved its quality, and was also trained in computer-aided (CAD) jewelry design.
When we started to focus more on wedding rings, we quickly realized that we weren’t interested in the standard designs that every jeweler offered in their collection. Mass-produced, run-of-the-mill designs just weren’t our thing.
We have enjoyed seeing the fascination and appreciation in our customers’ eyes when we have created something unique for them. That is why the highly personal touch of both our service and our products has proven to be a key ingredient in our success.
At that point, we were already quite successful and had a well-established range of wedding rings. But somehow, I wasn’t entirely satisfied again. I knew that our customers were happy, but somehow I always thought that, as unique as our handmade rings were, I could have sold them to anyone. Our wedding rings just weren’t individual ENOUGH. Something was missing.
I felt that I wanted to create something that would be worn by only one person and that would have a direct, distinctive, and unique meaning. Obviously, an engraved name was not enough. Fingerprints had already been used, but to me they always had a forensic connection, which was very unromantic. But I could understand where that came from. People wanted to express their individuality, to give this piece of jewelry a personal touch that would connect them to their partner forever. We even created lifelines from our customers’ palms on rings, but somehow there was still a lack of aesthetic structure. Sound waves are also an exciting modern idea, representing “I love you” in the exact frequency of your partner’s voice, for example. However, they did not meet my own aesthetic standards.
What I was looking for was a personal yet aesthetic signature style.
That’s when my biological side came to the fore and it suddenly became clear what we needed: the retina! Because the retina is ultra-personal, as unique as a fingerprint, and yet much more beautiful. When you see it for the first time, it reminds you of the roots or branches of a tree, and there can be interesting intersections of vessels that are wrapped around each other and resemble hugs, even hearts or other shapes.
I was really extremely excited and had the feeling right from the start that this could be it. What’s more, in most cultures, the eye is considered the window to the soul. And what could be more fitting for a wedding ring than a pattern of this beautiful structure, sitting right at the interface between our outer visible world and our inner world – truly appealing!
When I think about all these points, I still wonder why I am the first (and only) person in the world to discover that these two things—retinas and jewelry—would go together so wonderfully.
On the other hand, I was still in the early stages of the concept and we had to get actual retina images. I remember how excited I was that I even closed our shop during business hours and set off to find a large optician nearby. I spoke to the manager and he was fascinated by the idea, but didn’t have the right equipment to take these pictures. But he gave me the address of a specialist, whom I contacted immediately by email. He replied right away, and I’ll never forget his words (“a breathtakingly beautiful idea”) – he was totally on board to work with me, and we started taking pictures of my retina and my wife’s.
The design took longer than expected because, for various technical reasons, a lot of image editing was required to make the images suitable for use in jewelry. But it was fun, and I was used to experimenting from my first career, and after a few failures, we got the first results that made us confident that it could really work. It felt like an adventurous journey of discovery.
And so my special journey began. In 2019, I embarked on an international “tour” and presented our concept at a total of 15 trade fairs worldwide – in Zurich, Bern, Lucerne, Paris, London, Edinburgh, and even Abu Dhabi. It was probably the most exciting (but also the most exhausting) year of my career. I was on the road almost constantly, but the feedback from the public was phenomenal. No one had ever seen such symbolic jewelry before, and the power of the underlying idea fascinated almost everyone. But of course, I also encountered skeptics who only saw the physiological aspect and thought that veins on a wedding ring were creepy! And yes, I understood that for many people, the eye is naturally a very sensitive organ and that it is not easy for some to understand exactly where the aesthetic appeal lies. These are not just any blood vessels that appear unsightly in our eyes after a hangover (those are located on the cornea and have nothing to do with the retina). You have to go a little deeper (literally) and a) take a closer look at the retina and b) be able to abstract the concept and understand that the uniqueness and beauty of this hidden pattern has a powerful symbolic meaning that is far more complex than simple veins somewhere in our body.
The magic of eye contact
Our eyes are not only a marvel of nature, they are probably the organ that connects us most closely to our environment. Eyes can be incredibly expressive and convey emotions without words. We can communicate fear, joy, love, mistrust, amazement and much more to others with our gaze, without knowing their language. Eye contact is much more powerful than many people think.
This has been impressively proven in social experiments: Around 45,000 people in over 90 cities around the world held eye contact with a stranger for just one minute. What the participants reported was unexpected for many: after this very short time, many felt a special connection with each other. This experiment was repeated several times worldwide: in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 in Berlin.
Prior to this, the “eye contact exercise” had made headlines through a performance by artist Marina Abramovic, when she sat opposite strangers at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for three months and looked them in the eyes.
“During eye contact, you will notice that different things can happen. You may have thoughts, emotions, feelings, or whatever else. No matter what happens, just let it be. If you need to laugh, just laugh; if you need to cry, just cry.”
Eye Contact Munich Organization Marco van Bree
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the depths.”
William James
Eye contact seems to play a significant role in falling in love. Researchers investigated this phenomenon and asked a lecturer to conduct a self-experiment. One year after the experiment, she married the person she had been looking at.
Eye contact is something intimate, uncomfortable for many people, and sometimes interpreted as crossing a boundary. Through eye contact, we open our “window to the soul” to others and become vulnerable. When we dare to show our vulnerability to each other, a connection can develop. Looking deeply into someone’s eyes provides a projection screen for ourselves. Everything we see in other people often has something to do with ourselves. Unfortunately, it often seems easier and more pleasant to avoid eye contact, not to engage deeply with others or with ourselves, and thus avoid the risk of having to endure any unpleasant feelings that may arise. Therefore, such an experiment can be difficult for many, but also liberating.
Conscious eye contact as a sign of mindfulness could allow us humans to rediscover a sense of connection that we often thought was lost.
The window to the soul: The retina is located at the intersection of our visible (eye – window) and invisible worlds (sense of sight – soul).
