Present an ice and snow event to carve a beautiful moment
——Explore the stamp printing process of "Commemoration of the Opening of the 24th Winter Olympic Games"
The stamp "Commemoration of the Opening of the 24th Winter Olympic Games" was printed by Henan Post and Telecommunications Technology Co., Ltd. After receiving the printing task in early October 2021, the company immediately set up a research and development team composed of 146 production backbones, held more than 20 process seminars and production communication meetings, and after repeated image processing, ink debugging, process testing, and proofing experiments, the exquisite and ingenious Beijing Winter Olympics opening commemorative stamp jumped above the square inch. The holographic cat's eye, cobalt blue ink, dynamic diffraction, screen snowflakes and other new processes and technologies used in stamp printing are the first time in the history of Stamp Printing in China.
Holographic cat's eye outlines a three-dimensional, flexible Winter Olympic emblem and silver five rings
"Commemoration of the Opening of the 24th Winter Olympic Games" is a set of 2 stamps, and the stamp designs are named "Common Future" and "Light of Hope".
According to Li Yanhong, general manager of Henan Post and Telecommunications Technology Co., Ltd., after receiving the stamp printing task, due to the need for confidentiality in the early stage of the opening ceremony, the R&D team learned about the stamp related information is extremely limited, and what is known is only the core concept of scientific and technological innovation, low-carbon environmental protection and sports health at the opening ceremony, which is very difficult to produce. Combining a series of limited information and cognition and understanding of the core concept of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the R&D team has fully analyzed and discussed the stamp printing process in the direction of high-tech and modernity.
For the first stamp "Common to the Future", the R&D team introduced holographic cat's eye technology to present it. The use of holographic positioning hot stamping technology to highlight the silver gray tone, through the plain holographic cat's eye technology with laser relief technology, the postage stamp spherical bulge and the Winter Olympic emblem of the platinum relief texture perfectly match, so that the main picture elements of the sense of hierarchy is prominent, the three-dimensional sense is very strong, the Winter Olympic emblem and silver five rings in the snowflake shape background, the sense of agility is vividly displayed. The R&D team also adopts laser color technology, and uses cold ironing technology and four-color printing for the "Chinese knot" line flowing on the face of the ticket, so that with the rotation of the face and the change of perspective, the colorful scene presented by the whole stamp is like the beautiful arc drawn by the "laser carving knife" at the opening ceremony, and the silver five rings on the ticket are full of light and ready to come out.
Ethereal, deep cobalt blue accentuates the beautiful snowflake terrace
The second stamp, "Light of Hope", focuses on the three-dimensional snowflake table and the throbbing flame, and the entire background is blue.
How to print a high-grade blue on the stamp without grabbing the aesthetic beauty of the main picture snowflake table is a great challenge for Henan Post and Telecommunications Technology Co., Ltd. When the R&D team conducted process tests, the first to use ordinary blue ink, but the debugged color was either dark or light, and the samples were not satisfactory, which could not reach the ethereal and deep realm required by the group company and the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee. In the case that ordinary blue ink can not achieve the ideal effect, in order to find the perfect blue, the R & D team went through a large number of documents, looked for blue pigments from ancient paintings, looked for ceramic blues from major museums, and tried to extract blue from mineral pigments under the inspiration of the famous work "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". After debugging more than 50 kinds of blue ink proofing, 8 blue effects were selected and submitted to the group company and the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee for approval, and finally, cobalt blue became the main color of the second stamp.
Cobalt blue special ink color is bright and pure, the color is bright and saturated, under the illumination of fluorescent lamps, the looming snowflakes are crystal clear, the cobalt blue is noble and elegant, the olive branches and snowflakes are more dazzling, and the "light of hope" is more colorful.
"It took us more than a month before we finally debugged this cobalt blue special ink, although the cost of mineral blue is dozens of times higher than that of ordinary blue, but in order to ensure the quality of stamp printing, we feel that it is still worth it." Yan Qiting, deputy general manager of Henan Post and Telecommunications Technology Co., Ltd., said proudly.
In order to increase the ornamental and interesting, the R & D team also deliberately made the slogan of the Winter Olympics "Together to the Future" and its English part into an anti-counterfeiting ink - colorless fluorescent blue. Under the violet light, the fluorescent blue and cobalt blue main colors are naturally integrated.
The dynamic diffraction "starlight effect" is highly in line with the opening ceremony "micro-fire" creativity
The second stamp, "Light of Hope", the main picture of the stamp snowflake table perfectly interprets the concept of "one snowflake" of the Winter Olympics. An olive branch weaves small snowflakes into a large snowflake to form a snowflake. In order to show the agility of snow and the theme concept of "the world is one, the world is one", the R&D team adopts laser holographic dynamic diffraction positioning and pressing technology with four-color printing, making the olive branch colorful and colorful. For the first time, the small snowflakes with a sense of touch on the face use the silk mesh snowflake technology, and the small snowflakes that reflect each other together form a human snowflake and a common snowflake. In order to make the winter Olympic torch in the stamp form a spark of fire, the R & D team boldly innovated, the holographic dynamic diffraction positioning scalding technology was applied to the center of the big snowflake, with the rotation of the stamp in the big snowflake center presented the effect of starlight flickering, and the "flame" on the torch and the dots of "starlight" in the cobalt blue sky echoed remotely, perfectly interpreted the green and low-carbon concept of the Winter Olympics, and the opening ceremony "micro-fire" has the same magic.
In order to ensure the research and development and production of stamps commemorating the opening of the Winter Olympic Games, Henan Post and Telecommunications Technology Co., Ltd. regards stamp printing as an important political task, specially establishes a leading group for the safety and confidentiality of stamp production for the Winter Olympics, signs confidentiality agreements with R&D personnel and suppliers, and formulates strict security and confidentiality control measures. After the official release of the stamp, online and offline firestorms were sold, and philatelic enthusiasts around the world lined up in a long line at postal outlets to buy and collect; at present, the stamp is being printed according to the issuance plan.
Source: China Post News Author: Jia Hongwei Zhang Lei Cui Zhenyu