Ayrshire College students impress with Dumfries House designs
HNC Art and Design students at Ayrshire College have excelled in a live brief working in partnership with Dumfries House and The Prince’s Foundation.
The students were tasked with creating an original design based on drawings from Dumfries House, which will be manufactured by Prince’s Foundation trainees into products and sold at the Estate’s Visitor Centre.
This incredible opportunity involved students going on a private tour of the 18th century stately home and the gardens, taking their own photographs and using them to inspire completely original designs based on repeat patterns.
After sketching from source, the students used the design software package Kaledo to produce design solutions. These were then printed onto fabric and exhibited at the Ayr Campus for Jacqueline Farrell, Director of Education at Dumfries House, and Christian Harvey, Education Coordinator at The Prince’s Foundation, to select the winners best suited for the house style.
Two designs, created by Louise Batton and Eilidh Keating, were chosen as joint winners. Two more entries, submitted by Kirsty Shaw and Katherine MacDiarmid, were highly commended by the judges.
Louise, 30 from Ayr, said: “I am ecstatic about winning the competition! The whole design process from start to finish was a great learning experience. I had never thought of textiles as a possible avenue for my work before, however with the use of Kaledo it has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me.
“I am so excited to see my design come to life. Thank you to Dumfries House and The Prince’s Foundation for the opportunity and for choosing my design.”
Eilidh, 17 from Ayr, said: “I really enjoyed visiting Dumfries House – I hadn’t been there before, the scenery and architecture really inspired me. I’m excited to have won and look forward to seeing what my fabric is made into.”
Kirsty, 18 from Prestwick, said: “I was surprised and happy to be highly commended, it was so unexpected. Kaledo made it easy for me to test out different colours and patterns.”
Katherine, 26 from Kilmarnock, said: “Dumfries House is a great place to be inspired. I could see the potential in the mushrooms that were growing in the gardens, and Kaledo gave me so many choices with my design.”
Elaine Watson, the lecturer at Ayrshire College who co-ordinated the competition, said: “The standard of entry was high, our students took on board the design brief requirements and learned new skills using Kaledo software very successfully in a short period of time. We were all really pleased with the result; the judges had a very difficult decision to make.
“This competition gave our students the opportunity to work with clients creating design work from source to a professional conclusion, culminating with products sold locally in the marketplace.”
The team at Dumfries House will now decide what those products will be, and have invited the winners to return to Dumfries House to enjoy lunch and discuss their ideas.
4 February 2020
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