Treasured exhibits at local museums have been designed into creative merchandise in a design competition to cash in on rising demand.

Dozens of products, including pillows, cups, spoons, chopsticks, handbags, clothes and jewelry, have been selected as winners at the 2019 Museum and Culture Shanghai Creative Design Contest that wrapped up over the weekend.

Nearly 2,000 designers submitted 1,329 works during the annual contest launched in March. Over 15 young designers were rewarded for their innovative designs at the closing ceremony at the Liu Haisu Art Museum in Changning District on Friday.

Products developed from cultural relics have become popular souvenirs at domestic museums. The city’s museums had released about 11,000 such products by 2018 with annual sales exceeding 30 million yuan (US$4.4 million) last year. Half were sold at the Shanghai Museum.

The contest themed on heritage skills fromJiangnan culture — the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River — invited designers to transform elements on cultural relics into children’s garments, travel souvenirs and household commodities.

For instance, the DaKe Ding, a bronze tripod caldron dating from the late Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century-770 BC) and a significant piece in the Shanghai Museum collection, has been designed into a cup cover.

The ritual vessel, 93.1 centimeters tall and weighing 201.5 kilograms, was discovered in 1890 in an underground vault in Famen Town in Shaanxi Province’s Fufeng County. The tripod bronze vessels were widely used in ancient China for ritual ceremonies and continue to be used as official gifts.

Designer Ren Tianlin incorporated the animal-face decoration of the tripod’s legs in the rubber cup cover. Another contestant from Shanghai University of Engineering Science printed patterns on the tripod on plates and chopsticks.

A female terracotta rider, part of the treasured collection at the Shanghai Museum, has been recreated as a lamp.

Users can assemble the lamp themselves to learn the details and culture of the piece.

Prehistoric totems feature prominently. The Jade God Figure, a totem dating back to the late Neolithic Age, has been designed into a bottle opener, while the pig totem from the Hemudu Neolithic site in eastern Zhejiang Province is printed on pillows, aprons and spoons.

Seals of Bada Shanren (1626-1705), originally named Zhu Da, a leading artist in the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), were developed into a portable night lamp. Designer Li Yilin said she was inspired by paintings of Zhu when visiting the Liu Haisu Art Museum.

Many intangible cultural heritages are also involved.

Yang Miaomiao, a young local designer, used Shanghai’s Xijiao farmers’ painting, a listed heritage skill in Xinjing Town in Changning District, to create a ball and stirrer.

“I hope such designs can help promote the traditional painting that has authentic Shanghai style,” Yang said.

She spent a month studying classic figures from the paintings and designed them into the products.

Other winning designs include a suitcase, blindfolds, a facial mask and slippers inspired by shadow puppetry and Peking Opera.

The winning products will be recommended as authorized Shanghai tourism souvenirs, according to the Changning District culture and tourism bureau.

The designs will be certified for copyright and quality. The annual contest aims to develop cultural and innovative products to bring traditional Chinese culture into the mainstream and people’s lives, said Tang Wenhua, Party secretary of the bureau.