The Beijing 2008 Olympics emblem was finally
unveiled. It was showed to the public at the solemn ceremony held
at 8:30 p.m. August 3, 2003 in the park of Temple of Heaven,
Beijing. When a Chinese statesman and an official of the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) lifted the yellow wrapping
satin, unlocked the rosewood box, and took out a crystal-clear
Chinese seal carved with Hetian jade, the audience could no longer
hold their excitement. With eager eyes, they watched the two men
wet the seal with red inkpad and stamped a seal on a piece of
Xuan paper. So there it was, the emblem signaling the 2008
Beijing XXIX Olympic Games.
The main part of the official emblem, a red dancing figure,
resembles the Chinese character "Jing" (Beijing, capital), its
free-style strokes symbolizing the energetic and open city of
Beijing. The design well represents the spirit, characteristics and
verve of the Chinese culture. It also indicates the Chinese capital
city's determination to have a New Beijing and a Great Olympics,
and to make the 2008 games a Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and
People's Olympics. This is exactly the Olympic spirit --
friendship, peace and progress.
The creation of a wonderful Olympic emblem is the first step for
hosting a most successful Olympic Games. On July 2, 2002, the
Beijing 2008 Olympic Emblem Design Conference was held at the
Beijing International Convention Center. Participants included many
of the world's first-class designers.
The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) sent out
invitations to more than 1,500 professional designers to solicit a
design for the emblem of the Beijing Olympics.
At the conference, Liu Qi, chairman of the BOCOG, announced:
"Our goal is to create a unique image that is rich in oriental
wisdom and also demonstrates to the world the great appeal of the
Olympics. We hope the design will convey a new feeling for the
Olympic Games, the historic and humanistic spirit of Beijing and
China, the theme of 'New Beijing, Great Olympics' and the concept
of a Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and People's Olympics."
The conference was a mobilizing rally for the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games. Both the IOC officials and the Chinese organizers
believed that through this global mobilization, great works would
come into prominent.
In the following three months after the conference, the Emblem
Design Competition Office was busy with visitors and phone calls,
answering all kinds of inquiries. The office received over 100
calls from domestic and overseas designers everyday, the number of
inquiries totaling 10,000.
On October 8, 2002, the deadline of the emblem designing
competition, Dongsi Shitiao Post Office, which is located near the
BOCOG office, became unusually busy. Dozens of designers, from home
and overseas, visited the BOCOG for registration. However, the
contest regulated that all the works had to be well wrapped.
Therefore, brown paper was soon sold out in the post office. To get
all the works registered in time , BOCOG employees worked till next
morning.
Statistics showed that BOCOG received a total of 1,985 effective
entries, of which, 1,763 were from China, including Hong Kong and
Taiwan, and 222 from other countries. Among the bidders were famous
international designing companies whose tenders had been selected
by the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter
Games, the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic
Winter Games, and the 2002 ROK-Japan World Cup. There were also
designers for the Olympic centennial commemorative symbol, the
Sydney Olympic torch, and the bidding logo for the 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games.
Chinese and foreign experts and members of the review committee
conducted strict examinations, repeated comparisons, and careful
selection while going through the 1,985 entries. In the end, No.
1498 entry ranked first with the highest total score. Its designer
is the Beijing Armstrong International Corporate Identity.
Among the experts and members of the review committee are Chang
Shana and Chen Hanmin, professors of the School of Fine Arts of the
Tsinghua University; Lin Pansong, professor of the Department of
Fine Arts of the Taiwan Normal University; Tan Ping, professor of
the Central Conservancy of Fine Arts; and Lin Jiayang, professor of
the Tongji University. They all agreed that No. 1498, with a unique
artistic style and profound moral, gave people a wide imaginative
space and a multicultural thought. Chinese seal, with a history of
several thousand years, meant promise, credit, personality and
rights. As an Olympic emblem, it promises to the whole world that
Beijing will make the 2008 Olympic Games the most successful one in
the Olympic history.
Afterwards, BOCOG invited personalities of various circles for
criticisms and comments on the selected top 10 works. In order not
to miss any possible work, the top 11-30 works were also added to
the list of candidate works. The result was that again, all people
focused their attention on No. 1498.
BOCOG designated No. 1498 works as the best emblem plan, and the
other prize-winning works as the reserved plans. Meanwhile, by
searching on domestic industrial and commercial registration, BOCOG
found other works had too many repetitions while No. 1498
constituted a unique style. Afterwards, BOCOG asked IOC to entrust
a company especially to conduct an international search for
repetition. Again, No. 1498 passed the check.
During this process, the original work of No. 1498 entry was
revised. The first problem was that the work had no proper name.
After consulting several seal-cutting experts who confirmed that
the design was a graphic style of seal-cutting, BOCOG officially
named it "Chinese Seal."
The original pattern of the emblem absorbed the style of the
ancient mural figures, yet not stretching enough and lacking spirit
of times. The revised pattern has more-reaching-out opening arms
and the legs have been changed too. Revises were also made in other
details. The strokes of the figure became thicker, the picture
proportion slightly readjusted and seal-cutting skills more
professional. All together, there were eight or nine big
modifications in addition to the numerous small ones, according to
Zhang Wu, president of Beijing Armstrong International Corporate
Identity. Three designers with the company spent their seven-day
holiday of the Spring Festival in 2003 revising the original
logo.
The emblem consists of three parts: a Chinese seal, words of
"Beijing 2008," and the five Olympic rings. The calligraphic style
of "Beijing 2008" must match well with the seal that is imbued with
traditional Chinese culture. As neither block letters nor common
brush writing could match well with the seal, the designers turned
to children's handwritings which better embodied hope and future.
The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee collected handwritings
from 300 children at the Beijing Xinfu-Shiguang Preschool Education
Center and the Dengshikou Primary School, but the result was not
ideal either. Finally, the creators of the seal part suggested the
use of the traditional Chinese calligraphic style of
"Hanjian," a style often seen in bamboo strips of the Han
Dynasty (206 BC-AD220), and the draft came out. This idea was
unanimously acclaimed by all sides, including the BOCOG. They all
held that Hanjian matched best with the seal, reflected the
extensive and profound Chinese culture and added more cultural
content to the whole emblem.
On February 28, 2003, the emblem sample was taken to Zhongnanhai
for approval by the central government. After seeing the emblem
sample and listening to the related reports by BOCOG, Li Lanqing,
then vice premier of the State Council and head of the Leading
Group for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, highly commended the
emblem for the design, and wrote the comment of "approval."
This marked that the emblem of "Chinese Seal·Dancing Beijing"
had finally beaten the thousands of other entries and become the
emblem for the XXIX Olympiad. However, the final approval of the
emblem was to be set by the International Olympic Committee
(IOC).
March 28, 2003, in the meeting room of the IOC Headquarters
located in Lausanne, a Swiss town, when light from an overhead
projector cast a freeze frame of the planned design of the emblem
"Chinese Seal·Dancing Beijing," IOC President Jacques Rogge took
the lead in applauding, and he was followed by Hein Verbruggen,
chairman of the Coordination Commission at the IOC for the 2008
Beijing Olympic Games, and all the other participants.
According to related convention, IOC President is to endorse the
emblem sample. President Rogge, with a discreet personality, gave
all the people present a surprise. "I am going to endorse the
emblem in your distinctive Chinese way," he said. Rogge took his
seal out of the seal box, dipped it heavily in the red ink paste,
and affixed the seal uprightly on the right bottom of the emblem
sample. Then, he signed his name in handwriting under the seal
solemnly. Verbruggen also signed on another emblem sample.
"Elaborately, the emblem combines China, Beijing and Olympics
together by merging the historical heritage and the image of both
Beijing and China. It also can be viewed as a promise to the world,
the future and the Olympics," said Jin Shangxin, chairman of the
Association of Chinese Artists, who has participated in the whole
process of the emblem selection and revision.
"Baby!" was the first word uttered out of the mouths of the
foreign review committee members. Before they left Beijing, the
four famous designing experts told their Chinese counterparts that
they should take good care of their "baby." Scott Givens, one of
the international judges on the panel who previously served as the
Managing Director of the Creative Group for the Salt Lake
Organizing Committee, said that he was deeply impressed by the
emblem's vigor and spirit. The spreading arms reflect the kindness,
delight and enthusiasm of Chinese people, welcoming people from all
over the world. Representing the city of Beijing, the emblem is
rooted in China’s traditional cultural symbol, which can be
regarded as an embodiment of both the past and the future.
The twin emblem seals are carved out of Hetian jade by masters
from the Beijing Arts and Crafts Group. One of them will be
collected in a Chinese museum as a historical witness for the
Chinese people's participation in the Olympic movement, and the
other will be sent to the Olympic Museum located in Lausanne.
(China.org.cn August 6, 2003)??