Mascot for Commonwealth Games produced in Cheltenham

GLASGOW might be holding the Commonwealth Games 2014, but its mascot hails from Cheltenham.

This new character, named Clyde, is modelled after a thistle, the national flower of Scotland.

And it is the work of creative design company, Nerv from Cheltenham.

Cynan Clucas, managing director of Nerv, said: "I am thrilled to have finished this project.

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"We are immensely delighted with what we have done, and I feel we have delivered it well.

"It has everything we were asked for."

The mascot is based on a winning design from a nationwide competition last year for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The contest invited children aged from six to 15 to create the official mascot.

The winning design came from Beth Gilmour, 12, from Glasgow, and was given to Nerv to further develop the character.

The agency developed a seven-minute animated film, narrated by Glaswegian actor Billy Connolly to the music of Scottish musician Paolo Nutini.

Ringo Moss, Nerv's production director, said the main task was to engage the Commonwealth, but stay rooted to Glasgow at the same time.

He said: "It was massively important to us that the whole project was grounded in Glaswegian integrity.

"Our main task was to create a mascot that reaches out to people across the Commonwealth, but we were mindful that the people of Glasgow had to embrace him at the same time.

"Getting Billy and Paolo on board meant a great deal to us."

The contract was first awarded to them in February, after their pitch to commercialise Beth's drawing beat their competitors.

They were only allowed to change the design of the mascot by 30 per cent, and had to come up with 17 different poses for the various sports.

Cynan said: "We've really thrown everything into designing it, and everything was done in-house.

"We hope children would want Clyde to be their friend, and it was made more challenging because the thistle is already the symbol for so many things in Scotland. We had to work really hard to make Clyde an individual in his own right to achieve that goal."

Robin Fisher, creative director at Nerv, explained the name Clyde came from a ship, the SS Cameronia, built in 1911. "The ship was a passenger liner, a troop carrier and a transport ship which carried emigrating Scots," Robin said.

"This was a ship that embodied the fearlessness, resilience and spirit of adventure we wanted in our mascot.

"When we found out she was renamed Empire Clyde after the war, we knew we had a great story to tell, and a name the people of Glasgow will be proud of."