As the key project of precious metal commemorative coins this year, the design of the 24th Winter Olympic Games silver coins is highly valued by all sectors. The coins were divided into two groups and their drafts were required to be rolled out at the same deadline. Therefore, it was decided to create them using several groups of designers, and I led one group consisting of four young designers.
After more than four months of hard work, 8 drafts that I created for 15g silver coins for Groups I and II won the bid, which is an exciting result. In the process of designing the coins, we held weekly meetings to discuss freely on different ideas, and sometimes even arguments broke out. However, I think it is inevitable, as this is a group effort. This process not only maximized everyone's strengths but also improved the ability of the designers.
After more than four months of hard work, 8 drafts that I created for 15g silver coins for Groups I and II won the bid, which is an exciting result. In the process of designing the coins, we held weekly meetings to discuss freely on different ideas, and sometimes even arguments broke out. However, I think it is inevitable, as this is a group effort. This process not only maximized everyone's strengths but also improved the ability of the designers.
These coins feature eight different typical ice and snow sports. At the beginning of the design, I established a rigorous and unified design style and logic system. Although I hesitated to use different styles to design two groups of coins at the beginning, I believed that our design would be varied enough to reveal the characteristics of each coin, which diversity would be much bigger than the style. Targeted at the specific sports, we strived to maximize the characteristics and charms of these eight different Winter Olympics sports. The stretching limbs of the athletes almost fill up the whole coin, which fully shows the movements and shapes and makes sense of the power that bursts out through the body language of athletes. We took Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinc's famous sketch, A Study of the Proportions of Vitruvian Man, as a reference. The arcs formed by limbs just reach the boundary of the round coin, so the beauty of the human body's curves and strength is revealed. In addition, the faces of the athletes are close-up. The overall designs are integrated with the characteristics of different competition sites lined in the background, which makes a perfect expression of dynamism and characters. Such a combination gives the coins rich layers and a strong sense of composition. The guang bian lin cai technique was used to make the highlights. In fact, it is risky to use this technique in this program, but I always believe that the design needs an eye-catching effect to stand out and maximize the effect in addition to having a robust form of expression. Fortunately, it turns out that this combination of technique and art ultimately gives people a refreshing and colorful visual experience. Thus, the modern flavor of today's Olympic events is better demonstrated, which is brilliant, and the overall effect appears to be rejuvenated and rich in a sense of internationality and modernity. In one of the coins, that is, the coin with the theme of skating, I even put an Easter egg in the background with a dynamic skating figure from the 1980 13th Winter Olympic Games coin, as a tribute to the past.
Since we don't know most of the Winter Olympics competitions very well, the images of the athletes and technical movements were corrected and adjusted many times in strict accordance with the requirements of the various authoritative experts of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. We chose the most important moments in the competitions, and the drafts were drawn in a completely original way on the basis of a large number of official pictures. The facial expressions, movements, and body proportions were all completely loyal to the characteristics of the athletes and sports. We made modifications many times at an extremely strict standard without losing the sense of art and beauty. Ultimately, we made every part of the design to be reasonable and elegant to the maximum extent within the circle. In the whole group of coins, some show power, some show speed, some show grace, and some show elegance. Colorful and harmonious, each one in this series has its own theme and world, striving to maximize the uniqueness of the sport and achieving visual and psychological resonance with viewers. When they come together, they can be integrated perfectly to form a series.
As a result, these two groups of designs have been through biddings all over the world. They have consistently occupied the first position after several rounds of rigorous selection and voting. After the selection, the Olympic Organizing Committee and a number of authoritative experts from colleges and universities gave a high degree of affirmation, which drew a successful end to our more than 100 days of sweat and dedication. We finally made a due contribution to China's worldrenowned Olympic event.
The designing draft of the 24th Winter Olympic Games.
The first row is for Group I and the second row for Group II.