Beijing 2022 unveils seal-carving style pictograms

30 pictograms are designed for Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo courtesy of BOCOG)

Beijing 2022 sends New Year greetings to global sports fans with 30 sport pictograms for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which are inspired by Chinese calligraphy and seal carving.

The Beijing 2022 organizing committee BOCOG on Thursday released on a New Year's Eve gala 30 pictograms for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, which are inspired by Chinese calligraphy and seal carving.

The pictograms will also have a kinetic form to attract the younger generation to Beijing 2022 and the millennium-old craft, a historic first for an Olympic Winter Games.

"Our earnest hope is to present China's cultural system through these tiny sports logos. The Olympics is a platform for China to express itself, and these pictograms encompass its tradition and modernity," said Lin Cunzhen, chief designer of the pictograms.

When the graver carves into the surface of a seal, chips are presented as ice and snow splashes when the "athletes" move in the animated pictograms.

Zhang Mingguan, an engraver and professor with China's Central Academy of Fine Arts, who was in charge of carving out the designs, believes kinetic pictograms add vigor into the traditional art.

"Some young people may feel calligraphy and carving are distant, so we want to deconstruct the art form and let them understand the craft," he said.

The style also brings back the memory of the 2008 Summer Games in the Chinese capital. The emblem for the city's first-ever Olympics was a red Chinese seal enclosing a lively dancing figure that resembles the Chinese character "Jing," which means capital.

According to Lin, the seal carving style demonstrates winter sports' speed and strength and echoes the 2008 Games. This time the design captures the style of the Han Dynasty some 2,000 years ago, which was a golden age in Chinese seal carving. Although the sports logos resemble Chinese characters, they do not have a reference to any specific ones.

"These two designs will imprint on Olympic history the cultural mark of Beijing, which is the first city to host both Summer and Winter Games, and constitute a vivid example of how Olympic legacies are carried on," said Lin, who is also the chief designer for Beijing 2022 emblems.

The 30 pictograms, 24 for the Winter Olympics and six for the Paralympics, were finalized with the work of half a year before the final appreciation of the International Olympic Committee, International Paralympic Committee and every International Winter Sports Federations.

"You cannot catch the sense of the sport without drawing one hundred sketches, and some take even a thousand," recalled Lin, who repeatedly consulted experts in each sport.

Each pictogram has two renderings in Zhuwen and Baiwen. Zhuwen, which literally means red characters, are imprinted by cameo carved seals while Baiwen, or white characters, are left by intaglio carved seals.

The Baiwen version of the pictograms (Photo courtesy of BOCOG)

Moreover, the color red is the 'Glowing Red' from the Games' color system, which represents the ink paste and goes with the seals, to stay consistent with the look of the Games as well as add a festive vibe to the Games, which will overlap with the Chinese New Year in 2022.

"It's another example of presenting time-honored Chinese art in a modern way while integrating the quintessence of Chinese culture into sports presentation on the Olympic stage," said Gao Tian, vice director of the culture and ceremonies department.

According to the organizers, the pictograms will be applied in various formats, including event signposting, advertising, communications, TV broadcasting and souvenir design.