During the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, Zhangjiakou Awards Plaza will hold award ceremonies for 44 projects. In addition to awarding medals to the champions and runners-up, the awards plaza is also responsible for producing award certificates for the athletes who won the top 8 in the competition. Unlike the general printing, the production process of the athlete's award certificate is very strict, requiring that the athlete's information must be in the middle, and the error exceeds 1 mm to be invalidated.
After several days of rehearsals and equipment commissioning, Zhangjiakou Awards Plaza has completed the preparation of making athletes' award certificates. It is understood that during the Winter Paralympic Games, Zhangjiakou Awards Plaza will run for 7 days, and 6 to 10 award ceremonies will be held every day. "Compared with the Winter Olympics, there are fewer awards projects, but due to the shortened running period, our daily workload has increased." Li Shuo, director of the award certificate and podium at Zhangjiakou Awards Plaza, said that during the Winter Olympics, they produced 72 award certificates in a day, and by the Winter Paralympic Games, this number will become 96.
Making 96 certificates a day doesn't seem like a difficult task. But what is different is that the production of the award certificates of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games has a strict process, and the requirements for word spacing error are even strict to the millimeter level. When printing the award information, the athlete information is required to be strictly aligned with the middle line of the certificate, and the error cannot exceed 1 mm.
Certificate test paper, in the style of the Winter Olympics
"At first, I didn't think it was difficult, but when I really started to operate it, I found that it wasn't so easy." Li Shuo said that when he was training in Beijing, the certificate manufacturer taught him a lesson. Originally, the athlete's award certificate should be printed with a special printer, starting from the loading of the paper, it is required to "close the seam", and the difference is not a single cent. "Making an award certificate is a very ceremonial thing, and in order to show respect for athletes, it can't be too strict."
Li Shuo introduced that the athletes' award certificates are printed on rice paper, and the certificates of the champions and runners-up are also wrapped in silk silk, which can be said to be full of ceremony. During the training, the manufacturer also specially reminded that the number of spare papers for making certificates is limited, and there is not much opportunity for "trial and error". Moreover, the certificate must be delivered to the athletes within 24 hours of the end of the competition.
The mounting is made of silk, which is the style of the Winter Olympics
In order to ensure the quality and quantity of the certificate and deliver it to the athletes on time, Zhangjiakou Awards Plaza set up a certificate printing team composed of 6 people. Li Shuo and his colleagues have a fine division of labor, some are responsible for typesetting, some are responsible for proofreading, and some are responsible for printing labels and loading certificates into special paper tubes. In order to reduce mistakes, Li Shuo taught himself French and even taught himself typography software.
Li Shuo said that the award certificates for the Winter Olympics are in three languages: Chinese, English and French, and no word can go wrong. Some French words were so difficult to remember, he memorized them by rote. It is gratifying that under the strict control of the certificate printing team, during the Winter Olympics, Zhangjiakou Awards Square printed a total of 634 award certificates, none of which was wrong, and the distribution process was safe and smooth, achieving "zero mistakes".
Li Shuo proudly said that during the entire Winter Olympics, they only used spare paper once. That's because the certificate is made of rice paper, and on one of the papers of the certificate, a piece of plant fiber the size of a grain of rice affects the overall aesthetics. During the inspection, they discovered the situation in time and remade the certificate. "Every certificate we make has to be perfect."
At the upcoming Winter Paralympic Games, the award certificate will be available only in Chinese and English. Although the production is less difficult, the staff responsible for producing the certificate is still meticulous. Li Shuo said that they want to make the award certificate worthy of the tenacious struggle of every athlete.
Source: Beijing Daily client (reporter Wang Qipeng Wang Yaxian), Zhejiang news client
Producer: Liu Hao
Editor: Qian Qian
Process Editor Wu Yue