Text/Figure Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Zhu Shaojie Literature and Art Intern Yang Rui Correspondent Jiang Yuejun
Walk into the studio
◎This is the "delivery room" of the ice pier
At the 705 studio of the design building of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter met Liu Pingyun, the chief executive of the top "ice pier" design team of the Beijing Winter Olympics - bald, lean, wearing a black shirt.
The studio space is not large, and the decoration is very simple. Walking into the studio, the first thing you see is a sketch of an entire wall of "ice piers". "This is the 'delivery room' of the 'ice pier.'" Liu Pingyun said that from the very beginning of the design of the mascot "ice sugar gourd" for the Winter Olympics to the final confirmation of the "ice pier", it took 10 months, after 21 major modifications and thousands of minor modifications, tens of thousands of sketches. Only a fraction of it remains in the studio.
Participating in the design of the mascot of the Beijing Winter Olympics has become an important life experience for Liu Pingyun. In October 2018, Liu Pingyun, who was studying for a doctorate in Macau, was recalled to Guangzhou by Cao Xue, then dean of the School of Visual Arts and Design. Once again, the long-time duo has joined forces. They pulled up the teachers in the academy, and then brought their graduate students, and the day after the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee went to Guangzhou to preach, they formed the Guangmei "Shenji" design team.
The team consists of 14 people, 7 teachers, and 7 students. The age span is from the post-60s and post-70s to the post-80s and post-90s, and the division of labor is data group, two-dimensional group, three-dimensional group, and expression design group. Since then, the lights of the 705 studio have been bright all night... Members have studied the plan countless times, overturned it, and repeatedly modeled and sampled in two and three dimensions countless times.
For a while, the task of the data team was to collect all the existing panda patterns - only by looking at all the previous designs, the panda images created by the team could avoid similarities as much as possible. The 3D group, on the other hand, stayed up the night long: because every time a new look was designed, they had to modify the model and render overnight.
◎ From "Rock Sugar Gourd" to "Modern Version panda"
The walls of the studio are paved with various drafts of the mascot design of the Beijing Winter Olympics. From the "ice sugar gourd", to the images of elk, rabbits, tigers, etc., and finally to the "ice pier" with different looks, it can be seen that the evolution of this person's beloved "explosive model" can be seen.
Liu Pingyun told reporters that the "ice sugar gourd" is the earliest shortlisted version of the mascot of the Beijing Winter Olympics. In February 2019, on the second day of the Chinese New Year, the team began to modify the "Sugar Gourd" program. After three rounds of deepening and revision, it was gradually found that the bearing capacity of the national image of this image was still insufficient. According to the opinion of the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, the team began to try more Chinese elements on the basis of retaining the core elements of the "ice shell", including elk, tigers, rabbits, pandas and so on.
"For more than two months from February to April, we continued to try, and gradually felt that pandas can best represent China and the most loved by the people of the world, and if they are well designed, they will bring the best communication effect with the lowest communication cost." So the team began to focus on the design of the ice panda, while retaining the design of the ice deer.
In May, the Guangmei team gave the "ice ribbon" of the National Speed Skating Hall to the shell of the panda's head, making a qualitative leap in visual effects. After several major revisions, in early July, the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee decided to abandon the ice deer and keep the ice panda alone.
From July to the end of August, the Guangmei team focused on modifying and improving the image of the ice panda, and completed the deliberation of many details: for example, the heart-shaped pattern was added to the panda's palm, representing the host country's welcome to friends in the world; the addition of the "ice ribbon" of the Winter Olympic venue made the ice panda have color and warmth, and increased the sense of dynamics and technology.
On September 17, 2019, the mascot release ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games was held, and "Ice Pier" and "Snow Rongrong" officially debuted. The more uninitiated friends of "Ice Pier" have stayed in this 705 studio in Guangmei.
◎Engrave the name in the history of Hiromi
On the day of the debut of "Ice Pier", Liu Pingyun changed the design team's WeChat group name to "engrave your name in the history of Guangmei". Since then, Guangmei has set up the Winter Olympics Visual Culture Design Center, which is mainly responsible for the image design of the ice pier, the design of related derivatives and cultural research.
In the past two months, with the popularity of the mascot "Ice Pier" of the 2022 Winter Olympics, the number of guests visiting the studio has increased several times more than usual. "We thought the 'ice pier' would catch fire, but we didn't expect it to be so hot!" Liu Pingyun admitted.
In the view of Xie Changjing, secretary of the Guangmei Party Committee, the popularity of the "ice pier" is not accidental, behind it is the accumulation of Guangmei design and Guangdong design over the years. Guangdong design has repeatedly appeared on the national stage to show the beauty of China to the world. They have deeply participated in the design of major public projects such as the China National Pavilion and Theme Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the visual system design of the Guangzhou Asian Games and the Shenzhen World University Games, and have been well received.
This 705 studio is also the teaching studio and office of Liu Pingyun's mentor Hu Chuanni and the previous dean Cao Xue, and the desks, bookcases and other furnishings they have used are all there. On the wall to the right of the studio entrance, there are representative works of three generations of designers such as Hu Chuanni, Cao Xue, and Liu Pingyun, and it can be seen that different eras are imprinted, and one generation has a generation's design.
Art talk
Twenty years to grind a "pier"
1
Yangcheng Evening News: When did you start designing mascots?
Liu Pingyun: My interest, practice and research on mascot design originated from my postgraduate studies at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, I was still a young man, I liked anime, and I began to realize a certain future trend - the era of the development of the animation industry has arrived. The tutor Hu Chuanni is the direction of advertising research, so I wanted to find the combination of animation and advertising, and finally chose the mascot design.
In 2000, I began to observe and study the situation in Europe, the United States and Japan, and found that their attention to animation, mascots and even cultural and creative industries was very high, especially the psychological research of consumer audiences was more thorough. I learned from this that combining visual presentation to meet the needs of consumers, I believe that the mascot must have a market demand, and now it seems that this estimate is accurate.
Since studying for a Ph.D. in Macao in 2018, I have paid more attention to the humanistic spirit of "IP" design, and I hope to combine historical humanities and future technology to achieve the current design goals.
Yangcheng Evening News: The "ice pier" we see now does not actually have some fixed labels used in the design of mascots in the past, but is modern and has an international language foundation.
Liu Pingyun: In the design of the "ice pier", we did not use simple stacking of traditional elements, but achieved a very Chinese performance. The Winter Olympic Organizing Committee actually gave us a potential orientation, hoping that this mascot has the temperament of Guangzhou, the temperament of the Greater Bay Area, and should have a sense of future technology.
Under the gradual exploration, we resolutely abandon some inherent traditional imagery and seize the "panda" for contemporary design. Guangzhou, as well as the Greater Bay Area, are striving to build a smart city of the future and meet the future technology, and the design of the "ice pier" is closely related to this.
2
Yangcheng Evening News: From the "auspicious three treasures" of the 2010 Asian Games, to the "Asian Beauty" of the 2019 Guangzhou Asian Food Festival, and then to the "ice pier", what experience do you have in the design of the mascot?
Liu Pingyun: This is my strong point (laughs). This participation in the design of the ice pier can be said to be "twenty years of grinding a sword". Over the years, I have found that all mascot designs for government, enterprises, and national events revolve around three key words — relevance, locality, and the times.
Specific to the "ice pier", the ice crystal shell is a correlation embodiment, inspired by the ice sugar gourd, associated with winter and ice; in the geological, the first version of the "ice pier" ice sugar gourd is a snack in northern China, and the later panda image is a classic Chinese element; in addition, it is particularly necessary to emphasize the epochality of the design - it is now impossible to design with the visual symbols of twenty years ago, we must bring to today's "play". Today's consumers prefer blind box culture, cute culture, expression culture, our team in this design will set up a special expression design group, giving the mascot different expressions.
In terms of creative performance, the Fuwa of that year is undoubtedly relatively traditional, and the "ice pier" can more reflect new ideas and new technologies. For example, we moved it from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. I am a graphic designer personally, and the part of the three-dimensional design is implemented by other team members. Therefore, our team of 14 people can not be less, and everyone has played their own role.
3
Yangcheng Evening News: After the boom of "ice piers", have you made some cold thinking?
Liu Pingyun: Thinking mainly in two aspects: on the one hand, the "ice pier" has become an Internet celebrity and become a top stream, which is caused by a combination of internal and external reasons, and the internal factors can be proudly said to be because our team has completed a very expressive and textured design work, so that it has the possibility of becoming the top stream; the external factor is that it uses the characteristics of the self-media era, including the national leaders personally "bringing goods" and the "secondary creation" of the people of the whole country. The combination of the two has contributed to the popularity of today's "ice pier".
Another thought is, can the "ice pier" open up China's IP consumer market? This also triggered a phenomenon-level discussion, not only involving designers, but also literary scholars, economists, industry scholars, and so on. Everyone took the "ice pier" as an opportunity to explore the possibility of a new breakthrough in China's cultural and creative industries.
Yangcheng Evening News: Compared with Beijing, Shanghai and other cities, what is the level of design development in Guangdong?
Liu Pingyun: Beijing represents the atmosphere, Shanghai represents refinement, Shenzhen represents vitality, and Guangzhou emphasizes pragmatism. As a thousand-year-old commercial capital, Guangzhou is also one of the pioneer cities in the design industry. Founded in 1981, Guangdong Packaging Technology Association is one of the earliest associations established in China. Guangdong Advertising Association was established in 1984. These two established associations represent the profound heritage of Guangdong design. Guangdong design is definitely at the forefront, but also like people to middle age, need to re-energize, so learn from other excellent front-line areas to create a better future.