On March 2nd, Cao Xue and Qian Lei, professors of the Beijing Winter Olympics mascot "Ice Pier", came to the Affiliated Middle School of South China Normal University to tell the students of the Chinese Affiliated School about the journey behind the design of the "Ice Pier", and to exchange and share with the students of the Chinese Academy on how to do a good job in Chinese design in the new era. Among them, Cao Xue mentioned the concept of "humanistic care" that designers should have, emphasizing that designers should have a creative posture with high vision and low body. Although the team has been interviewed by many media outlets and has repeated the same story every time, they still did not refuse. "Behind the warm, loving expression of the ice pier, its creator cannot be a 'cold face'."
Cao Xue told the students about the creation process of the ice pier
When they received the design task, Cao Xue and Qian Lei contacted Liu Yunping, who was still in Macau, for the first time, and the three of them hit it off. On October 11, 2018, with the mentality of "focusing on participation, not holding hope", the team officially began this journey of "only asking about cultivation, not asking about harvest".
In the teamwork, Cao Xue mentioned the "EMU concept", the traditional steam train with the old saying "the train runs fast, all rely on the headband" to interpret the traditional team model, and now if the subjective initiative of the whole team is exerted, that is, each car can have the power to drive the speed of the entire EMU.
Before the "Ice Ribbon" element appeared, the team encountered a creative bottleneck and saw that the members had lost confidence, and Cao Xue said to them, "Hope is not in the eyes of others, but in our respective hands." To this day, Cao Xue still remembers this sentence he said.
Qian Lei told the students the story behind the creation
Curiously, there are no other traditional Chinese visual elements on the "ice pier" except for the "ice ribbon" on the ice shell. Cao Xue believes that the highest level of Chinese design does not necessarily need to have traditional Chinese visual elements. Nowadays, the national tide is everywhere, a large number of cultural and creative products are homogeneous, and if you want to tell the Chinese story well, you need to use the language of the current era to deduce it and create the future through the past. "This is not superficial element thinking, but systems thinking." Cao Xue said, "We hope that when our children are doing learning, they will not be superficial, but go deep into it, and master it in its theory and lifeline."
When talking about the popularity of "ice piers", Cao Xue said that the success of ice piers is a combination of cultural elements, artistic means and commercial results. How to make the work pleasing visually and tactilely, and produce communication and sales power, is the key proposition of the mascot "telling the Chinese story well", and the team has made sufficient efforts in the design around this issue.
Cao Xue said that the creative team hopes that outside the circle can summarize the cultural phenomenon of "ice pier" through forums and academic seminars, and sort out the "ice pier" as a theory, so that it is possible to produce more content methods that tell Chinese stories well. "The ice pier is already a historical node, and we need to use it as a new starting point to create more things."
Huafu students love the ice piers
Through this lecture, the students of Huafu have a deeper understanding of the integration of traditional culture and modern culture. A first-year high school student said excitedly, "I think the concept of ice piers will be used as a new benchmark for design in the industry in the future, and it will lead and change the aesthetic trend of the national tide to a certain extent." ”
Huafu students asked questions to the creative team
Cao Xue responded: "Civilization is not literature and art, with design as the beauty to show the Chinese story, we hope that more people through this profound, subtle art form to understand Chinese design." ”
Written by: Nandu reporter Liang Yanyan Intern Kong Zhiling Yao Jiameng Correspondent Li Yun