A senior designer at Norwich jewellers Sonkai has won a Fairtrade award.

Eastern Daily Press: Parched Earth, by Susan Blackler. PICTURE: Sonkai.Parched Earth, by Susan Blackler. PICTURE: Sonkai. (Image: Sonkai)

Susan Blackler entered a ring design in the Goldsmiths Craft and Design Council and won a gold for the Fairtrade Jewellery Award, which was sponsored by Ingle & Rhode.

The brief was to design a piece of ethical fine jewellery that is 'sympathetic, symbolic and supportive to the natural world and global preservation issues'.

Ms Blackler's ring represents water conservation and is called 'Parched Earth'.

She said: 'At a time when we are constantly bombarded with media images of flooding and extreme storms it would be easy to forget that drought and desertification are problems of global dimensions.

'The appearance of arid land is particularly visually striking and I hoped to capture this in the 'parched' matte finished texture that I have applied in this ring design.'