The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are world-renowned international events and major landmark events at important historical nodes in the mainland. On the evening of February 4, 2022, the opening ceremony of the 24th Winter Olympic Games in Beijing (hereinafter referred to as the Beijing Winter Olympic Games) was held at the National Stadium. The Chinese civilization and the Olympic Movement have once again joined hands to play a magnificent movement of unity, peace and friendship for all mankind.
Chinese culture has a long history, and Chinese characters are the most representative cultural symbols. In August 2019, the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Chinese Character Design and Research Center of Peking University jointly sent a letter to the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee to volunteer to design and develop a set of special fonts for the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The Winter Olympic Organizing Committee replied to the formal entrustment of the work tasks and expressed strong support for the design work. The special font for the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is the first initiative in the history of the World Olympic Games to design special Chinese characters and derive them into a font library, highlighting China's emphasis on its own national culture, highlighting China's cultural characteristics, cultural self-confidence and open and friendly feelings.
On September 17, 2021, the theme slogan of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games was officially released to the public - "Together for a Shared Future", and the special font for the Design of the Winter Olympics was also unveiled for the first time at the press conference. The Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee said that this is a sincere invitation from China to the world, conveying the beautiful expectations of 1.4 billion Chinese people: under the inspiration of the Olympic spirit, we will work together with the people of the world, watch over each other and create a better future. The special Chinese character design represented by the slogan of the Winter Olympics - "Together to the Future" has become an important element in creating the atmosphere of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and has become one of the characteristics of the visual image landscape of the Winter Olympics.
Some members of the School of Design of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the designer team of Founder Font Library attended the Winter Olympic slogan conference
Make concerted efforts to advance carefully
After the launch of the special font design project for the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Design made the special font design creation task an important course for visual communication, and established Professor HangHai, Professor Wang Ziyuan, Associate Professor Liu Zhao, and Qiu Yin, Wang Wen, a founder of the Chinese Character Design and Research Center of Peking University, and José Scaglione and Veronika, directors of TypeTogether Font Design Company Burian is the core of the special scientific research and teaching group, and at the same time invited Professor Lin Cunzhen, Professor Liu Yanhu, Associate Professor Zhou Bo and Lecturer Peng Xiaoxian of the Cultural Activities Department of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee to give special knowledge lectures. After the course, students Yang Tao, Tang Chao, Jiang Tianzhu, Zhang Chaobin, Ye Angfei, Hu Arti Wulan, Li Ruoyi, Luo Gan, Chen Yiwei, Ju Wenyue, Hao Yixuan, etc. continued to participate in the deepening creation of Olympic Chinese characters and Latin.
Group photo of all teachers and students after the completion of the special font course conducted at the Design School of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, 2019
The project began in September 2019, and the creative cycle lasted nearly 2 years, mainly going through two stages:
The first stage is the Chinese character research and program design stage, the teaching team in accordance with the "pro writing to design" font design method, invited relevant experts and scholars to do traditional calligraphy and modern font design academic lectures, and then arranged students to carry out the classic inscription writing training, and began to design the special Chinese character font for the Winter Olympics. Experts from the Founder Font Library of the Chinese Character Design and Research Center of Peking University also participated in the specific teaching guidance; At the same time, it undertakes the preparation, adjustment and production of the chinese character library for Chinese characters.
Font course invited experts to teach lectures and instructors to teach the scene, 2019
In the second stage of the course, the team was divided into two working groups of Chinese characters and Latin: in order to make the Latin design reflect the international professional standard, the project team specially invited José Scaglione, the design director of the internationally renowned type design public TypeTogether and the former president of the International Font Association, to China to guide the Latin script design, and then regularly communicate remotely with the experts of TypeTogether to initially establish the Special Latin Script Style for the Winter Olympics. Founder Font Library's mentors are also involved in the guidance and revision work.
Beijing Winter Olympics special font Latin teaching site, 2019
Sincerely presented with words
In the School of Design of cabo academy of fine arts, the teaching and scientific research of research-driven projects have opened a new model of special font design for the Winter Olympics. The team recognized that the "Winter" character designed by the visual main body of the emblem of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games for the style of the emblem has received widespread attention and praise, and according to the unified principle of the Olympic image landscape design, the project team carefully experienced the penmanship of the emblem style, and traced the origin from Chinese calligraphy to study and refine, combined with the emblem graphic structure, in the overall concept of the continuation of the calligraphy of the line structure, with Wang Xizhi's calligraphy characteristics as the design inspiration and structural basis, thus forming a variety of new artistic font design schemes. At the same time, it is designed in Latin to reflect the unique sport, passion, speed and rhythm of the Winter Olympic Games.
Chinese characters are also the art of the whole, the new design scheme in the Chinese character dot painting, structure, line of the efforts to let the ancient Chinese characters in a new contemporary style to convey the Chinese character culture and aesthetics, focus on creating a Winter Olympic sports image landscape with Chinese characteristics, for the world Olympic culture to increase the cultural heritage of Chinese character art. After a year, the design team communicated with the Cultural Activities Department of the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee for many times and deepened the design according to the feedback and the actual needs of the event, and finally confirmed two sets of fonts for review by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee.
Dream Ice and Snow Excellence
The Winter Olympic Organizing Committee strongly supported the design of special fonts, and in July 2021, it solicited the opinions of many experts to confirm the overall direction of the design plan to continue the emblem and calligraphy style of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. At the same time, in the final revision stage of the design plan, Professor Liu Yanhu of the Central Academy of Fine Arts was also invited to guide and modify the details such as the stroke direction of the text and the beginning and closing of the pen. After that, he also asked Professor Ye Peigui, vice chairman of the Chinese Calligraphers Association and Capital Normal University, to give guidance, and there were further adjustments in style, tending to combine Xingkai and Wei Stele, and the strokes were sharper, thicker, and presented a sense of strength. In the process of starting, closing and moving the pen, it also integrates the style of Wei Bei, highlighting the feeling of knife carving and the change of yin and yang of the stroke to the back. The font is full of waist, skimming and stretching, the center of gravity is slightly higher, and it is more full of strength and spirit.
At the same time, the Latin font entered the final revision stage, under the guidance of Wang Wen, an expert in the Founder Font Library, the Latin script design added writing characteristics, emphasizing the contrast of the thickness of the strokes, so that the strokes have a smooth handwriting feeling; The stroke details of this font are more concise, the fluency and flatness are more prominent, the overall sense is stronger, and it is more intimate and international.
Professor Liu Yanhu of the Central Academy of Fine Arts provided font guidance suggestions
Professor Ye Peigui of Capital Normal University provided font guidance suggestions
Some members of the special font expert group for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and experts from the Cultural Activities Department of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee discussed the revision of the final font design plan
Flowers bloom and trees walk with one heart
The special font design of the Beijing Winter Olympics allows the ancient Chinese character art to be active in the forest of national culture with a modern appearance; Deeply rooted in the lives of the people, the Winter Olympics culture has become an important medium for people to communicate with each other and connect with the world; By creating a visual image landscape of the Winter Olympics with Chinese characteristics, it will once again add Chinese cultural characteristics to the world Olympic culture and reflect China's cultural self-confidence. Every stroke is a gift from the Chinese character writers to the Beijing Winter Olympics. The snowflakes of the Winter Olympics are scattered in Beijing, Zhangjiakou and other competition venues, and the special fonts are also widely used in the image dissemination of the Winter Olympics, such as venues, torch relays, posters and various media.
Help the Winter Olympics to move towards the future
In the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the admission of delegations is a necessary part, and the details such as the guide board in this link often highlight the cultural characteristics of the host country. The entrance guide board for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games adopts the snowflake shape composed of Chinese knot streamlines, and the font of the name of the delegation lit up on the guide board is tested by the font experts of the Chinese Character Design and Research Center, and the effect is reported to director Zhang Yimou, and finally chooses to redesign on the basis of the Founder Wei Monument font. Since the guide plate is a light-emitting device, which will form a halo during shooting and television broadcasting, the font requirements are thinner than the traditional Weibei font. Through repeated experiments by font experts and prop production units of the Chinese Character Design and Research Center, it was finally set to reduce the thinning by 20%.
Chinese font on the guide plate size is between 6-10 cm, due to the technical requirements of the light-emitting tube, the finest place of the glyph can not be less than 3 mm. Type designers are constantly adjusting the thickness of the font strokes, thickening the fine parts and reducing the extra thick parts. The final font is well structured, with more uniform stroke thickness. It reflects the dignified and thick Chinese calligraphy style of weibei font and full of strength.
At the end of the main torch lighting session, the text guidance boards of all the participating delegations converged into the large snowflake shape of the main torch. Let the words carry the wishes of all Olympic athletes, and fully reflect the Olympic concept of higher, faster, stronger and more united.
Chinese characters are the cultural representative of the Chinese nation and the common spiritual wealth of the human world. The special font of the Beijing Winter Olympics aims to inherit the excellent traditional Chinese culture, carry forward the spirit of Chinese character writing, and interpret the understanding of the spiritual connotation of the Winter Olympics with Chinese character writing by integrating the art of Chinese characters with the aesthetic characteristics such as strength and momentum in sports, and show the world the spirit of Chinese sports and cultural charm, and show the beauty of nature, the beauty of humanities and the beauty of sports.
Beijing Winter Olympics special font design team
School of Design, Central Academy of Fine Arts
Research Center for Chinese Character Design and Design, Peking University
The Central Academy of Fine Arts is the only higher art school directly under the Ministry of Education, which now has eight professional branches: the School of Chinese Painting, the School of Modeling, the School of Design, the School of Architecture, the School of Humanities, the School of Urban Design, the College of Experimental Art, the College of Art Management and Education, and the Institute of Plastic Arts, the College of Continuing Education and the Affiliated Secondary Art School. The college has participated in the landscape design related work of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games bid and preparation, and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games bid, and has rich Olympic work experience.
Peking University Chinese Character Font Design and Research Center is a scientific research institution of the State Language Commission, founded in 2005, is a professional institution for the research, design and production of Chinese characters (including Chinese characters and ethnic minority characters), jointly built by the Department of Language and Character Information Management of the Ministry of Education and Peking University, jointly undertakes specific work by the Wang Xuan Computer Research Institute of Peking University and Beijing Peking University Founder Electronics Co., Ltd., of which the Wang Xuan Computer Research Institute of Peking University is responsible for the research of the basic technology of the font library. Beijing Peking University Founder Electronics Co., Ltd. is responsible for the research of font design and font library application technology. The center has rich experience in font research and development, and has undertaken important projects such as Chinese textbook standard italics, Chinese fine font library project (100 models of calligraphy and calligraphy library of past dynasties), Special font of China Navy hull number, China UnionPay special font, Microsoft Yahei series font, Xiaomi mobile phone series font, VIVO brand series font and other important projects.