WorldSkills Medals Celebrate Craft, Culture and Innovation

The winners of the 48th WorldSkills Competition will receive medals that showcase traditional Chinese culture, reflect Shanghai's identity, and highlight modern manufacturing.

Zhu Xihua, a craftsman and senior arts and crafts master at Shanghai Mint, led the design of the medals.

The medals' irregular hexagonal shape, inspired by the traditional Chinese mortise-and-tenon joint known as sunmao, is particularly distinctive.

Zhu said the mortise-and-tenon structure symbolizes traditional Chinese craftsmanship.

"The technique is a skill in its own right and reflects ingenuity. It carries a strong Chinese identity, and its interlocking design is especially effective in creating a sense of depth, structure, and precision in relief," he noted.

The obverse of the medals adopts a 3D mortise-and-tenon structure, symbolizing craftsmanship and the pursuit of excellence. On the reverse, the design combines the lintel of Shanghai's iconic shikumen (stone-gate) architecture with the silhouette of the city's modern skyline, linking tradition with innovation.

The manufacturing process also reflects the competition's emphasis on technical precision.

The medals use brass as the base material and are produced using a multi-color electroplating process. Different glossy and matte finishes are used to create greater visual depth, while the process is also designed to improve durability and resistance to fading or deformation.

Precision molding, repeated pressing and detailed surface treatment are used to reproduce the medal's three-dimensional patterns and structural details.

Modern production technology is also used in quality control. Intelligent visual inspection helps identify color differences and surface defects, improving consistency between medals while reducing reliance on manual inspection.

The combination of traditional design and modern production techniques allows the medals themselves to reflect the skills celebrated at WorldSkills – from craftsmanship and precision manufacturing to surface treatment and quality control.

The 48th WorldSkills Competition will be held in Shanghai from September 22 to 27.