Design Your Engagement Ring Online: Inside the New Engagement Ring Studio

Last Updated: October 24, 2026

Most people looking for an engagement ring are choosing between two things: a showroom appointment, or a website full of photographs of rings that are already sold. The Engagement Ring Studio sits between them. It is a builder on our own site, and it lets you make the ring yourself: choose a setting, choose the metal, choose the diamond, then turn it over in three dimensions before anything is made.

It is another way to buy a ring from us rather than a different shop. This post explains what the studio does, why it asks for decisions in the order it does, and where its edges are — because a builder is good at some rings and not at others, and it is worth knowing which is which before you start.

What the Engagement Ring Studio is

The studio is one page on griffinfinejewellery.com, The Engagement Ring Studio, and it does one job: engagement rings. Every design behind it is a finished setting — a ring with its band, its shoulders, its prongs and its side stones already worked out — waiting for a centre stone and a size. Each is made to order in the metal you choose.

That is the difference between the studio and a product page. A product page shows you one ring in one metal with one stone. The studio treats the ring as a set of decisions you make in sequence, and shows you the result of each combination as you go.

The four decisions the studio asks for

The setting. The starting point is the design itself: a plain cathedral solitaire, a bezel, a hidden halo with pavé running the shank, a three-stone, a band with stones set all the way round the shoulders. Each setting page sets out what you are choosing — the band width in millimetres, the number and total weight of the side stones, their colour and clarity, and how the head holds the stone.

The metal. Nine and eighteen carat gold in white, yellow or rose, or 950 platinum. This is not a cosmetic choice. It changes the price noticeably, and it changes how the ring will wear over years, which is why it is worth deciding before you look at stones rather than after.

The diamond. A lab-grown or a natural diamond, independently certified, from half a carat to five carats, in ten cuts: round brilliant, oval, emerald, pear, princess, cushion, radiant, marquise, heart and Asscher. The price moves with the stone you pick.

The size. Ring size, which you can take from an existing ring or have measured. Our sizing guide covers measuring at home with an existing ring or a strip of paper, and how to do it without giving the surprise away.

Why the setting comes first

It sounds back to front. Most people arrive with a stone in mind — a shape they have seen, or a carat weight someone mentioned — and expect that to be the beginning.

But a setting is the architecture of the ring, and everything else has to fit it. The head is built for a particular shape. The shoulders are set to a particular band width. The side stones are already specified, so the only diamond left to choose is the one in the middle. Starting with the setting makes the diamond decision smaller and more concrete: instead of “what diamond should I buy”, it becomes “which stone do I want in this ring”.

It also prevents the most common expensive mistake, which is falling for a stone and then discovering that the design it suits is not the design you wanted, or that setting it means rebuilding the ring around it.

If you are weighing up shapes, our comparison of halo and solitaire settings looks at how each one reads on the hand, and our guide to lab-grown diamond engagement ring prices sets out how the stone budget moves with size and specification.

What the price is doing

The figure changes as you build. Settings start at £760 in 9ct gold, before the centre stone; the metal you choose moves that, and the diamond moves it most of all.

What you are looking at, then, is not a headline “from” price attached to a photograph. It is the ring you have actually assembled, priced at each step. That matters more than it sounds: most of the anxiety in buying an engagement ring comes from not knowing which decision just added four figures, and the studio shows you which one did.

Seeing the ring before it exists

The 3D view is the part people spend longest on. The model is built from the setting, the metal and the stone you have chosen, so you are looking at that combination rather than a generic ring — a one carat oval in a thin bezel looks nothing like the same stone in a double-row pavé shank, and the point of the render is to let you see that for yourself before you commit.

You can turn it, look at it from the side, and go back and change the setting, the metal or the stone. Nothing is made until you are settled.

Where the studio stops

A builder is a good tool for the rings it was built for, and the wrong tool for everything else. It cannot design something that does not exist yet, and it cannot work from a stone you already own.

Those are real limits, and they are worth naming:

• A design of your own. Something you have sketched, or seen and cannot find. That is a conversation with a designer, not a set of options.
• An inherited stone. A diamond or gemstone from a family ring has to be assessed before anyone can design around it.
• Matching an existing ring. A shaped or contour wedding band is cut to the specific engagement ring it will sit against, which means measuring that ring first.
• Anything that is not a ring, from a pendant to a signet.

For the first three, our bespoke design service is the route, and the first step is a conversation in the Chichester showroom, by video, or at home.

Everything that is not an engagement ring

The studio is engagement rings only, deliberately. Wedding bands, eternity rings, earrings, pendants, signets and bracelets are built in our other online tool, The 3D Design Studio, which works the same way: choose the piece, shape it, see it in three dimensions.

Two studios, two jobs. If you are not sure which one you want, the engagement ring is the one with a centre stone.

If you would rather build it with someone

The studio is self-service, not self-service only. If you would rather have the setting shortlist narrowed for you, or you want to see two metals side by side under the light, the showroom team will sit with you and do it — in Chichester, on a video call, or at home if travelling is awkward. There is a person on the other end of it either way.

Frequently asked questions

Can I design a real engagement ring online, or is this just a preview?

It is the ring. You choose the setting, the metal, the diamond and the size, and the finished piece is made to that specification. The 3D view is there so you can see it before it is made, not instead of making it.

Do I have to choose a lab-grown diamond?

No. The studio offers natural and lab-grown stones. Both are independently certified, and both are priced as you build.

What if the setting I like is not in the studio?

Then it is a bespoke design. The studio holds a catalogue of settings rather than every ring we can make, and a designer can work from a sketch or a photograph for anything outside it.

Can I use a diamond I already own?

Yes, through the bespoke service rather than the builder. The stone needs to be assessed first, because the design has to be built around its actual measurements.

Start with the setting

The studio is open at The Engagement Ring Studio. Start with the design you keep coming back to, then work outwards from there — metal, stone, size. If you get stuck at any point, the showroom team will pick it up from wherever you are.