On August 5, 2004, the collection of mascots for the Beijing Olympic Games was officially launched. By June 5438+February 1 day, BOCOG had received 662 valid entries. Among them, Chinese mainland has 6 1 1 works; 12 works from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan; Foreign works.
On June 5438+February 65438+February 07, 2004, the recommendation and selection committee composed of 10 Chinese and foreign experts decided that six works, panda, tiger, dragon, monkey king, rattle and lucky, should be the revised direction of mascots. From the end of 65438+February, Han Meilin wrote and finally completed the mascot scheme design. In addition, BOCOG conducted a questionnaire survey in a primary school and a kindergarten in Beijing. According to the survey, six works have a strong recognition among children.
On March 1 1, 2005, nine experts led by Han Meilin formed a mascot revision and creation team. On the one hand, the expert group takes panda, monkey, dragon, tiger, rattle and combination image as its basic creative direction. On the other hand, explore new ideas of combining China culture with Olympic spirit. On April 2, this year, Kloc-0, the selection committee agreed to submit the revised candidate scheme to BOCOG Executive Committee for consideration.
On April 29th this year, at the 53rd meeting of the Executive Committee, BOCOG Executive Committee members deliberated and passed the revised mascot scheme, thinking that the concept of "China Wa" (flame, panda, fish, Tibetan antelope and dragon) has China characteristics. Considering the differences in understanding the image of dragons in different countries, it is suggested to use the image of birds instead.
During May Day, Han Meilin further revised and improved the "China Baby" scheme, and put forward a revised scheme to replace the "Dragon" shape with the traditional Beijing kite "Jingyan" shape. So far, the image orientation of the mascot of the Beijing Olympic Games has been basically completed.
On June 9th this year, the 54th Executive Committee of BOCOG unanimously reviewed and approved the revised mascot scheme. On August 18, the mascot design was approved by the International Olympic Committee. At the end of 10, the domestic and international legal registration and protection of the mascots of the Beijing Olympic Games was completed. On June165438+1October1day, the mascot was officially released to the whole world 1000 days after the countdown to the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games. The mascot consists of five "China Fuwa" affectionately called "Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini", with the idea of "Fish, Panda, Olympic Flame, Tibetan Antelope and Jingyan". They are named after the homonym "Welcome to Beijing" and bring Beijing's blessings to the world.
Once cornered,
Han Meilin said that he was so tired that he could fall asleep standing and his eyes were almost "burnt", but his voice was still bright and clear, and he sounded in good spirits. The results were announced, and Han Meilin could freely tell the media about his "interesting stories" in this process.
The works based on the folk toy rattle became popular because the jury thought that the rattle would break the history that the mascots had only images but no sound, and the audience could enter the competition site with the rattle mascot to create a good competition atmosphere. "The modification of the rattle stumped me. This image is hard to associate with sports. In addition, it has two braids on its head, which is easy to hit people's faces and inconvenient, and it is also suspected of hitting its own face. So this pattern design is very difficult, and I simply feel cornered. China has collected more than 200 rattles. I drew thousands of design drawings of six design schemes. "
When talking about the modification of the mascot, Han Meilin said that there is a clear purpose: to cover the culture of China, implying 56 ethnic groups, a population of 65.438+300 million, thousands of years of cultural traditions, and also to reflect the cultural characteristics of building a harmonious society in the 265.438+0th century, in short, to embody one word: love.
From one breakthrough to five
"At that time, experts deeply felt that any single image could hardly bear the profoundness of China culture, vast expanse in China and the people's love for the centennial Olympic Games." At this time, a design scheme of five image combinations with China ancient ceramic culture as the background gave new inspiration to the expert group headed by Han Meilin. China's "Five Elements" represents the philosophical idea of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and the themes such as the five-ring symbol of the modern Olympic Games and the common events of five continents suddenly find a combination point.
On March 22nd, 2005, the idea of creating a group of five mascots was initially determined, and China's "Fuwa" took shape. At the same time, China's big-headed doll gave him great inspiration. "All five mascots can wear hats to highlight the overall image. In this way, five dolls came out, representing the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. "
Han Meilin said that he took two cold showers and two quick-acting drugs that morning to calm his excitement. After the five Fuwa were designed, we consulted a large number of sports graphic materials and designed suitable sports for each Fuwa. Giant pandas are suitable for weightlifting, Tibetan antelopes are suitable for running, fish are suitable for swimming and so on. But when they appear in groups, their movements are too dull and ugly. After repeated comparisons, we still found inspiration in the Tibetan antelope. The finally designed Tibetan antelope appears in a running posture, so the overall presentation will be good. The most important thing in creation is actually the details.
The whole family mobilized for work.
For the design of this mascot, Han Meilin had two heart attacks. Fortunately, he was able to re-create it after emergency surgery. And Han Meilin is the whole family mobilized to take part in the work. "My wife works in the Golden Rooster Award large-scale activity department of the Chinese Film Association. For me, she also put down all the work at hand and became the nanny of several of our designers, cooking noodles and stews for us and sending fruit cakes. The whole family became our logistics support personnel. "
"Is that paid for?" Han Meilin said with a smile, "I also offered more than 400,000 yuan for the design work. The Olympic Organizing Committee will reward 1 yuan as spiritual encouragement (hahaha smile). " However, as the leader of the creative revision group, Han Meilin still has regrets about the final plan. "The biggest regret is that China's great calligraphy art exhibition can't wear a mascot. We made thousands of attempts, and the results were not satisfactory. I also tried to use calligraphy on Fuwa's clothes, and the effect was not good. Finally, I reluctantly gave up love. "
Five mascots, like his five children, "I like all five." They all have different meanings and represent the history of China from ancient times to the present, so they have no preference. Speaking of which, the color of Jingyan matches well with the green in the Olympic rings, which makes our design team spend a lot of effort. It is said that the color of Jingyan is somewhat inferior. But the overall effect is still very good. "
60 small judges issued passes in advance.
In order to understand the public's acceptance of Olympic mascots, BOCOG commissioned Chen Ning, director of Beijing Happy Hour Kindergarten, to conduct a survey among children in April this year. 30 children in the big class of Happy Hour Kindergarten and 30 students in the third grade of Yucai School became "small judges" and saw the image of mascots for the first time.
"The children were immediately attracted." Chen Ning said that the Olympic Organizing Committee designed a set of questionnaires, and the questions mainly focused on "What patterns did you see" and "What do you think these patterns represent". Before giving the children the questionnaire, the teacher didn't give them any hints, and all the answers were the children's first feelings.
The test found that the children's answers were unified and could accurately express the images represented by the five mascots. "Kindergarten children say that these five mascots are a family, representing enthusiasm and joy. After seeing the images of pandas and Tibetan antelopes, the children in primary schools all said that these represent China. "