BOCOG launched a contest on
May 5, 2004 to collect designs of the mascots for the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. BOCOG announced at press conference
held in Beijing Thursday that it will make public the results of
the contest on June 1, 2005 and will develop the Olympic Mascots
on the basis of the final winner designs.
The contest is open to professional designing institutes and individual
designers from all over the world. BOCOG will issue an official
＾
Invitation for the design competition of the
mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and Beijing 2008 Paralympic
Games￣ by mail to the participants. The participants can also
download the information about the contest from the BOCOG official
website at www.beijing-2008.org. All recipients of the invitation
letter will automatically become qualified for the contest after
submitting their work as required by the invitation.
BOCOG has put forward strict requirements for the design of the
Olympic mascots. According to the document on collecting the mascot
designs, the Olympic mascots should show the characteristics of
the Chinese culture, be cute and favored by children and widely
accepted by people of different cultural background, genders and
age. The Olympic mascots should also possess inherent commercial
value, being conducive to merchandising and adaptable across all
Olympic-endorsed products (including T-shirts, bags, cups, stationery).
They should possess the ability to be represented in both two and
three dimensions across all varieties of media (including TV, Internet,
CD, cell phones), as well as being aesthetically sensitive and adaptable
to the landscape of Olympic venues and infrastructure.
Participants in the competition should note that each entry must
consist one essential design of one or a number (two or more) of
cartoon images, and representation of this essential design in various
symbols of five Olympic sports, namely equestrian, swimming, running,
cycling and rhythmic gymnastics. The participants may also submit
designs for other individual sports.
BOCOG do not accept entries of design on the Internet. All works
must be sent by mail to the office of mascot design collection.
The collection process will be closed at Beijing Time 17: 30 pm
December 1, 2004 and BOCOG will receive no entries after the deadline.
From December 1, 2004 to May 1, 2005, BOCOG will set up an appraisal
committee to assess, select, modify and approve the best designs.
It will also register the copy right of the final designs according
to law.
In order to ensure the fair, open, justice and transparent nature
of the contest, the whole process of collecting and selecting the
Olympic mascot designs will come under the supervision of auditing
and notary authorities according to law. The selection of the mascots
of both the 2008 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games will be conducted
by a signal appraisal committee, in line with the same standards
and rules.
