The highly stylised, black and white graphic visual identity for the 2018 World Chess Championship has been generating plenty of interest and comment since the final head-to-head tournament began in London on 9 November.
World Chess, the rights-holder to FIDE’s World Championships, worked with Moscow-based design consultancy Shuka to create what is described as a ‘thoughtful visual identity’ specifically for the match-up between champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Fabiano Caruana.
The design project, which has been rolling out since the dates and structure of the qualifying Candidates Tournament and the Championship itself were announced at the end of 2017, reached across the entire World Chess visual landscape.
The work spanned the brand identity and all the relevant promotional materials created before, and during the championship: including on-the-fly marketing and PR content.
Thus the assets and templates were created to offer fast flexibility: providing imagery that can be used and adapted for in-game, play-related content, as well as media partners and brand partners
The project’s key piece was the much-discussed ‘intimate’ new logo.
(They put the "mate" in "checkmate.")
The World Chess Championships’ new logo is NSFW https://t.co/kdtAl4nEXv— Michael T Ford III (@MTFIII) December 19, 2017
The central logo is an abstract, graphic pattern image of two sitting players intertwined over a chess board and it formed the core visual concept which was then applied across various types of communication and multiple platforms: from Instagram posts, through web design to the venue wraps and backdrops.
Identity pieces spread across chess-board inspired, black and white stylised graphics,
What do you think of this World Chess logo? Like the game, it's very complex. https://t.co/1aArx3ie9E pic.twitter.com/dxcCNM3YPH
— Annette Peppis (@AnnettePeppis) April 5, 2016
the medals,
Introducing the World Chess Championship Medal. Now all we need a winner. https://t.co/BJZKlz8Xkg #chess pic.twitter.com/5OfQg9XWPu
— World Chess (@theworldchess) October 13, 2018
the in-arena dressing and in-game activation,
#CarsenCaruana2018 Game 8: Dubious Record Tiedhttps://t.co/Rx0Ts9x1Ja pic.twitter.com/FDyefxcVmC
— World Chess (@theworldchess) November 19, 2018
as well as the ticket sales campaign and the live leverage work.
Our friends at Shuka design talk to @readymag about design tools used for designing the World Chess products. Fascinating stuff (especially for designers) https://t.co/YGJLjORgm3 pic.twitter.com/5jpeeiOi8e
— World Chess (@theworldchess) October 28, 2018
The brand’s visual identity assets span chess’ physical and digital landscape: they formed the core of the pre-event promotional campaign, the at-event branding (both for the World Championships in London
and the Candidates Tournament in Berlin),
and they have been amplified widely across digital and social channels both by the rights-holder
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl5o08OnSsc/
and the design agency itself.
The designs also spread across the services and products linked to the tournament and created by World Chess and FIDE’s official suppliers and sponsors activation.
These range from perfumes,
Now chess has its own flavor, bright and memorable, like the games of grandmasters. English Opening and King’s Gambit, set of two perfumes by @bibliotekaaromatov is available in the official store of the Championship Match: https://t.co/DACGNgJ7Q6 pic.twitter.com/hsc0x2sDhv
— World Chess (@theworldchess) November 19, 2018
and pens
On average, the grandmaster uses 7 pens while playing chess on paper during the year.
Tracking moves is really helpful. Tracking moves with @STDupont_off World Chess limited edition pens is also aesthetically beautiful. https://t.co/i73mjiKtWz pic.twitter.com/3KML3aDiXI— World Chess (@theworldchess) October 3, 2018
to official partner brand marketing.
We would like to be sure that there is no cheating during the Match. So World Chess is happy to announce @Pinkerton , one of America’s oldest private security firms, as the official anti-cheating partner #londonplayschess #worldchess2018 #chesschampionship2018 #CarlsenCaruana2018 pic.twitter.com/fzJXnHXzuR
— World Chess (@theworldchess) November 16, 2018
The World Chess Championship has a two-year life cycle: the qualification rounds and a final round is held every other year.
Shuka was initially invited to work on the visuals for the 2016 New York Chess Championship and then six months later the agency was given the brief for the new cycle by Chief Executive of World Chess Ilya Merenzon.
Discussing the project, design agency Shuka’s creative directors – Ivan Velichko and Ivan Vasin – explain that World Chess’ business goals impacted on the identity refresh.
The business goals behind the brief aimed to build a strong and significant digital presence which would create an online landscape for the organisers to sell subscriptions to the live stream of the matches.
(The previous cycle’s visual identity was developed by Pentagram and took a relatively reserved aesthetic approach: one that aimed to appeal to ‘intellectualism’).
Thus the look, feel and practicality of the visuals needed to work as part of an online TV brand: more like Netflix and Twitch than an old school, traditional chess event.
Comment:
According to FIDE, around 600 million around the world play chess and see it primarily as ‘an exciting challenge stimulating positive emotions’ rather than a battle for mental superiority.
Thus the new identity aims to be both attractive and easy-to-grasp in order to make it straightforward to connect with the wider chess world and catch some mass attention.
A twin-figure logo that has hints of the Karma Sutra and launched a wave of comments about it being NSFW certainly generated some pre-event publicity.
The logo of the sitting players went viral: at first there were a lot of trifling jokes in the media and on Twitter, but then marketers began to leverage the imagery
and most grandmasters supported the design (saying our logo conveyed the desirable sensations of the game).
The founders of Chess.com even made a cool video in which they compete in the same posture that is depicted in our logo.
Since IBM’s Deep Blue beat world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 the issue of linking chess to the idea of superior human intellect has somewhat eroded.
But the new work certainly focuses on the emotional intensity of the game and the tournament.
World Chess is the exclusive official partner of FIDE and it owns the World Chess brand and the commercial rights to the World Chess Championship cycle: the brand runs the competition’s live site, ticket sales system, the broadcast platform, the live production, commentary, analytics, graphics and the like.
FIDE, the Fédération Internationale des Echecs / the World Chess Federation, is recognised by its members, players and the International Olympic Committee as the international federation for chess: the umbrella body responsible for the sport and its championships and it holds the sole rights to organise the World Chess Championships and the Chess Olympiads.
The 2018 FIDE World Chess Championships, which is being held at The College in The City of London between 9 and 27 November, is a 12-round series between reigning champion Magnus Carlsen (a Norwegian who has held the title since 2013) and American challenger Fabiano Caruana (the first American to contest the title for over 40 years).
Among the official partners of the tournament are Kasperksy Labs, ST Dupont, Prytek, Phosagro, Unibet, Pinkerton, Russian Railways.
Links:
World Chess Championship
https://www.instagram.com/theworldchess/
https://www.facebook.com/theworldchess
https://twitter.com/theworldchess
FIDE
https://www.facebook.com/ChessFIDE/
https://twitter.com/fide_chess
https://www.instagram.com/shukagram/
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