A designer was inspired by physically-challenged athletes when
he created the pictograms for the Beijing 2008 Paralympic
Games.
The 20 logos were unveiled at a press conference Wednesday held
by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX
Olympiad (BOCOG), which coincided with the Month for Publicity for
the 17th National Help-the-Disabled Day.
Hang Hai is an associate professor of the Central Academy of
Fine Arts and chief designer of the Beijing 2008 Paralympics Games
Pictograms.
"Before, I didn't know anything about the Paralympics. But as I
got to know some physically-challenged athletes and their stories,
I was moved many times," he explained. "So I just tried to convey
the dynamics of their body movements through the pictograms," said
Hang.
Following the design styles of the pictograms of the Beijing
Olympic Games, the Paralympics Pictograms use the Chinese seal
script as their basic form while incorporating the pictographic
elements of oracle bone writing (jia gu wen, dating back from 14th
century B.C.) and the bronze-ware script (jin wen) with the
individual event.
The logo for wheelchair basketball features a stick figure
seated in a wheelchair while getting ready to shoot the
basketball.
Hang explained they chose the seal script as the basic from
because it is graceful and liquid, which embodies Chinese
traditional aesthetics. "The pictogram is a good combination of
body movement and rich cultural connotation," Hang said.
"Pictograms must be easy to recognize even without captions, so
we incorporated the charm of oracle bone writing," Hang told
Chinadaily.com.cn. When asked if he had considered other Chinese
writing styles, Hang replied the other scripts would have been too
complex to modify into a pictogram.
(China Daily May 24, 2007)