Visitors to the National Trust for Scotland’s Drum Castle have chosen their favourite tote bag design created as part of a live project with fashion and textiles students at Gray’s School of Art.
The 36 first year students each produced their own unique design inspired by the historic building, before they were put to the public vote at the popular Aberdeenshire attraction.
Gerda Grigaliunaite’s design attracted the most public votes, while classmate Emily Burnel’s was selected as the favourite of National Trust for Scotland (NTS) staff. Both bags will now be produced for sale in the Castle shop.
20-year-old Gerda, whose design features a stag, squirrel and badger dressed in historical outfits, said: "I am ecstatic to have won the public vote. My design was inspired by fusing nature and human history in a quirky way."
Emily (18) said: “I am delighted that my design was selected by staff from NTS as their particular favourite. The design was inspired by all the iconic elements of Drum - the architecture, the famous Garden of Historic Roses and the library set within the ancient Tower of Drum."
As part of the project the students visited Drum Castle to gain insight into the attraction, which is the oldest intact National Trust for Scotland (NTS) property, and enable them to capture the spirit of the castle in their designs.
They were also required to produce sketchbooks and research analysis, showing the development of their ideas, as well as a presentation board visualising the theme of their design inspiration.
Property manager of Drum Castle, Dr Alison Burke, said she had very much enjoyed working with the students.
She said: “Many hundreds of votes were cast, but in the end it came down to a nail biting finish between two designs. Gerda's design won the overall public vote. Her intelligent and talented design enchanted our visitors with the concept of our wildlife wearing the costumes in our historical paintings.
“Emily's merging of the architecture of Drum into one of the library bookcases was a close second and was also picked by our retail department as potentially having the most commercial success.
“The closeness of the competition is reflected in the fact that we are now going to produce both bags for sale in Drum's shop. This is exciting initiative as essentially it puts our visitors in charge of what we sell."