The current hot-selling ice piers "have nowhere to grab",
Recently, someone grabbed the Winter Olympic snowflakes.
Speaking of Winter Olympic snowflakes,
What many people remember most must be
The one at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
96 pieces of "small snowflakes" make up "big snowflakes",
The olive branch is surrounded by a "silver ribbon",
Between "Big Snowflakes" and "Silver Ribbon"
Non-uniform bi-directional concentric rotation.
In the interview,
Designer Li Min told the Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter,
This "snowflake" has lasted for nearly three years,
Repeatedly revised more than three hundred drafts,
It is amazing to present itself to the world.
How was the Chinese knot shape "big snowflake" born?
At the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the Olympic flame was lit in the center of the main torch "Big Snowflake". Subsequently, the torch platform located in the National Stadium (Olympic Central Area), beijing Yanqing Division, Hebei Zhangjiakou Division was lit in turn, and will continue to burn until the end of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and will become a permanent sculpture of the three places, in the future the public can go to punch cards.
Do you know the story behind "Big Snowflake"?
In 2019, under the recommendation of the teachers of the School of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, Li Min, who graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, entered the design team of the director of the Winter Olympics. "At that time, I said that I would help realize the director's creativity through design, so I promised to try it, and later I learned that it was the art design work for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics." A team of about ten people and a team of five later drew more than 300 drafts in three years.
Li Min said that according to the director's requirements, each person designed snowflakes from 24 countries, a total of 100 countries were designed, and at the beginning, if you design a hundred snowflakes that are completely different, representing different countries. At the beginning, everyone let go of the creation, and the design elements considered landmark architectural patterns of various countries and traditional Chinese auspicious patterns, such as Chinese knots, cranes, peony flowers, plum blossoms, bauhinia flowers, lotus flowers, koi, swallows, Chinese architectural roofs, Chinese bridges, etc. "Collecting information in the early stage, collecting a lot of information and pictures related to snowflakes, for me is not a reference, to create a unique snowflake shape, you must first understand, and then jump out of these designs."
After repeated revisions and arguments, the final draft adopts the shape of "Chinese knot". "In the end, everyone invariably thought of the Chinese knot, and at the beginning this plan was aimed at the host China. After reunification, everyone will take the lead in improving the China knot plan at hand. In the end, Li Min's plan was selected by the director as one of the alternatives, and the later stage still faced several months of revision, and finally formed a version that condensed everyone's wisdom, and the black bow team did the visual effect design and detail adjustment.
The Chinese knot shape better shows the Chinese aesthetics, expressing Chinese romance with simple lines, and the crystallization of traditional art expressed with contemporary aesthetics. Li Min revealed that the design also underwent a relatively large deletion. The beauty of the Chinese pattern requires a certain density to be well reflected, but from the perspective of the lighting effect, the lines are too complicated, resulting in the snowflake pattern being too dense, and the snowflake theme modeling creativity cannot be seen clearly. "The director asked us to overturn the plan and make drastic cuts, cutting out more than half of the lines." In the process of doing subtraction, it was also found that the shape pattern of the Chinese knot can not only maintain the sense of beauty, but also represent a good cultural connotation and meaning. ”
Find an effective way to export Chinese culture
"Director Zhang Yimou's control of aesthetics and details is extreme, and his requirements for us are particularly strict, so every time I go to the studio before a meeting, I will be mentally prepared to redesign the plan." The director will have new ideas every time he meets, will constantly subvert the ideas that he thinks are not good enough, and pursue the ultimate visual effects, and his extraordinary imagination and profound artistic skills make it difficult for you to say no to his revision opinions. "What impressed Li Min was that the director was really energetic, sleeping for three hours a day, and most of the time was busy for the opening ceremony." The meeting with the director ended at eleven or twelve o'clock, I thought he would go to rest, but I didn't expect that in fact, he would have two or three more to open after this, basically in the state of rotation. The contact with the director in recent years has made me really feel that the degree of his dedication and love for his career is really difficult for ordinary people to achieve and surpass. ”
Applying Chinese line drawing to modern illustration, the beauty of the lines in Li Min's illustrations in the media touched director Zhang Yimou. "Even this opening ceremony is a little modern, combined with the Chinese tradition, different from the new art form in 2008, I hope we can provide some good ideas."
After completing the design work for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, Li Min threw himself into the illustration of the theme of the Winter Olympics. Li Min maintained the work habit of meticulously crafting and illustrating. For example, in the Year of the Rat in 2019, she painted "Nine Rats Send Blessings", and the flexible and interesting zodiac cultural design touched many foreign readers. Recently, she also recreated and designed a batch of snowflakes. "After painting for so many years, I've never painted so many snowflakes. It's nice to be able to incorporate some of my thoughts into the snowflakes. ”
In her view, breaking down the barriers between words and language, illustration is a particularly effective soft way of disseminating Chinese cultural output, from which foreign audiences can get a more intuitive feeling about Chinese culture. "In 2017, I tried to combine Chinese aesthetics with illustrations, the tone and expression may be very modern, and at the same time combined with traditional brush strokes, decorative paintings and other forms, I think that with such visual arts, you can break the differences and barriers between different cultures, promote the spread of Chinese culture, and more easily resonate and move." Although everyone is a fast-paced reading method at present, the works of art that have been precipitated by time and are exquisite in place appear to have more artistic value in the general environment. Li Min said, "My teacher said that it is not ancient and full of oriental charm, not imitating the ocean but rejuvenating the spirit of the times." This touched me a lot, and it is also a good guide for the direction of my future development. ”
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Zhang Nan
Source: Yangtze Evening News