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Daisy the cat mascot with scarab beetle
Daisy the cat mascot with cat's head exhibit
The Ure Museum, situated in the Edith Morley building on Whiteknights campus, displays a small collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts as well as being a space for students, the public and school children to look around and learn more about the history of ancient Egypt.
As part of a project at Reading College, a student named Daisy worked alongside staff in the Ure museum to create a sensory trail for children and neurodivergent people to encourage engagement throughout the museum. The trail focusses on the theme of animals and highlights a different artifact in each display case which has a connection to Egyptian mythology. Daisy created a collection of sketches for the trail and designed a mascot who would be shown throughout the cases. The final items produced was a collection of crocheted animal toys with various sensory features, made by Daisy’s mother, for people to hold while walking around the museum. Daisy named her trail ‘Daisy’s animal kingdom’.
The exploration of different design styles for the mascots was quite limited because I felt it was wrong to negate the style which Daisy had originally come up with. Designing something that was cartoon-like, instead of retaining the raw, hand drawn, childlike aesthetic would have felt insulting to the original drawing and would not have fit with the rest of the images.
This project tested new levels of organisation skills. Designing and making something to this proportion, on my own, was quite scary, but it was all a learning curb which was exciting to experience for the first time. I had to adapt and overcome a few challenges in the process which I never expected would happen. I am thrilled to be a part of this project, and it will always be a pleasure to have worked with such amazing people to make it happen.