Meet Bing DwenDwen — Official Beijing Winter Olympic Mascot
“Bing Dwen Dwen” has become an unexpected hit! The mascot of the Beijing Winter Olympics has now become the darling of sports fans across the country and even the world, and there is a trend of “hard to find a Bing Dwen Dwen” both online and offline.
The special charm of this cute panda-style mascot
The reason why many people like “Bing Dwen Dwen” is very simple — cute! Indeed, the prototype of “Bing Dwen Dwen” is a panda, which is itself “the world’s most adorable thing”. It has a very high reputation and many true fans around the world. In recent years, with the blessing of the Internet and short videos, the panda’s The cuteness has been further explored, and tens of millions of people pass through the iPanda panda channel “Cloud Sucking Panda” every day. With the “basic plate” of the panda as the base, it is difficult to imagine the mascot not to be cute.
Compared with many previous mascots with pandas as prototypes, “Bing Dwen Dwen” can be said to be the most panda-like one, and it is also a “cub”. According to Cao Xue, the chief designer of “Bing Dwen Dwen”, in order to make the image of the panda look more pleasing, he and his team members flew to the Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve in Sichuan for on-the-spot observation. The eight characters and the head-to-body ratio are also different from those of adult pandas, making them more cute and cute, so they were perfected based on the image of juvenile pandas. In addition, with the opening of the Winter Olympics, “Bingdun” gradually came to life, and its stunning appearance at the opening ceremony showed its stupid and cute features. It was after the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics that “Bing Dwen Dwen” really caught fire.
In addition to the image, the name is also a very important part. “Bing Dwen Dwen”, both in Chinese and English, is catchy and easy to remember. Even foreign athletes can pronounce it accurately and remember the name at once. One of the reasons why “Shuey Rhon Rhon”, who debuted together and is equally naive, is not so popular is that the name is not as easy to remember as “BIng Dwen Dwen”, not to mention foreigners, many places in China can’t accurately distinguish “rong” and “Rong”. The pronunciation of “yong”, and the words “Rong” and “Rong” are not the same. It is easy to make mistakes when searching, which objectively reduces the spread.
The story behind the creation of “Bing Dwen Dwen”
The image of “Bing Dwen Dwen” was originally derived from “Bing Tang Hulu”
According to reports, since August 2018, the design team led by Cao Xue and Liu Pingyun of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts has started the design of the Beijing Winter Olympics mascot. In fact, the image of their initial shortlisted mascot work is not the giant panda that everyone sees now. Its creative prototype is the traditional snack of ice sugar haws in northern China. “I’m from the south, and my impression of the north when I was a child was ice and snow and candied haws.”
However, we found that the ice-sugar gourd, as a presentation and bearing of the national image, still does not have much weight. “Liu Pingyun introduced that their design team began to try to incorporate new elements. In the following time, the design team began to modify the ice shell for up to 7 months on the premise of retaining the ice shell. It was replaced with images such as tigers, rabbits or elk, and finally, the national treasure giant panda was considered the most suitable for representing China. The design team has tried to replace it with images such as tigers, rabbits or elk under the ice shell.
Liu Pingyun specially mentioned that they introduced the image of the “ice ribbon” of the National Speed Skating Hall into the giant panda’s helmet, “At that time, we felt that we had hope all at once, and the whole spirit of the giant panda took on a new look, with colors, warmth and warmth. Finally, after thousands of repeated revisions by the design team, “BIng Dwen Dwen” stood out from nearly 6,000 entries from around the world and was officially identified as the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
“Bing Dwen Dwen” is not just a giant panda image, it has rich meaning behind it
As an important element of the visual image system of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the mascot “BIng Dwen Dwen” has been widely concerned and loved by the public since its birth. As a core member of the design team of “BIng Dwen Dwen”, Liu Pingyun believes that “BIng Dwen Dwen” is not just a simple, honest and cute panda image, but the meaning behind it is very rich. “It is a representative of China and a representative of China’s image. It is stocky, honest and friendly. It is represented by one word, and that is warmth. Warmth is the expression of Chinese people’s friendship and peace.” Liu Pingyun said. “Bing Dwen Dwern” combines the image of a giant panda with an ice crystal shell rich in super energy. The shape of the head shell is taken from an ice and snow sports helmet, decorated with a colorful halo, and the overall image resembles an astronaut. In Liu Pingyun’s view, giant pandas are recognized by the world as China’s national treasures, with a friendly, cute and naive look. The giant panda’s head is decorated with a colorful halo, and the overall shape is like an astronaut, like an ice and snow sports expert from the future, which reflects the combination of modern technology and ice and snow sports, which means creating extraordinary and exploring the future. The design team gradually took shape after introducing the image of the “ice ribbon” into the giant panda.
Compared with the previous giant panda mascot “Bing Dwen Dwen”, it has inheritance and innovation
In fact, from the mascot of the 1990 Beijing Asian Games “Panpan”, to the Fuwa “Jingjing”, one of the mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, to the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, “BIng Dwen Dwen”, the three major The mascot of the event uses the image of the giant panda. How to break the traditional form to create new creations is a difficult point for the design team. The point of view put forward by Liu Pingyun is “the aggregation of historical codes and current codes”.
Liu Pingyun said that they set 2022 as the future, a world with a sense of technology. “BIng Dwen Dwen” needs to add some era characteristics under the historical code, such as 3D technology and some technological elements in the 5G era. “Let it be of the times, so it is possible to form the ‘BIng Dwen Dwen’ shape that is of contemporary significance today.” Liu Pingyun believes that compared with the previous giant panda mascots, “BIng Dwen Dwen” has both the inheritance of traditional culture and the new era. Breakthroughs and innovations in new technologies.
Liu Pingyun is both pleasantly surprised and proud of the continuous popularity of “BIng Dwen Dwen” recently. He believes that the reason why “BIng Dwen Dwen” can be loved by Chinese and foreign people is the strong appeal and attraction of Chinese culture.
Recently, Liu Pingyun, who has been busy promoting the Winter Olympics culture in many places in Gansu and Guangdong, said frankly that as a designer and a cultural volunteer, he believes that through hard work, he can spread the Winter Olympics culture farther and drive the ice and snow in China and the world. Sports, especially the people in southern China can also participate more in the Winter Olympics.
Originally published at https://www.tlw.com.