The International Chess Federation has unveiled a logo for the World Chess Championship, which will be held in London in the fall of next year. It turned out a bit controversial. And now this logo is being discussed throughout the chess world, and in other places.
Danila Mahalin will tell us why.
This logo shows 2 people holding a chess board. Their arms and legs are intertwined. It's shown on the International Chess Federation website.
Chess players think that this logo is more suitable for a Viagra commercial or a Kamasutra book.
Bloggers writing:
"Agon decided to give a sex lesson to the chess world".
"This is the official logo for the 2018 World Chess Championships?"
"It must be some joke! Is it okay to show to kids?"
Sergey Shipov, Russian Grandmaster: "This logo was definitely noticed, because it distracts from our intellectual works, because previous Agon and FIDE logos centered on intellectual efforts, chess pieces, people's heads, but here the whole body, and, to an extent, the beauty of the human body are used".
The logo was created by a Moscow design agency, and this wasn't this first work of this kind. In 2016 they created a logo for the World Chess Championship in New York. Designers explained their logo on Instagram (запрещена в РФ): “Illustria of the day. It's as if M.C. Escher and Sigmund Freud got together and created the best/worst log in the world”.
Ivan Vasin, Design Company Partner: "It makes sense to speak about shared human values that the game is a relationship between people, a process, that should be positive, and we wanted to democratize this ordeal a little, and to step away from chess being viewed as something closed off, selective, black tie. And more towards accessible and more understandable".
Elvira Mirzoeva, Russian Grandmaster: "The logo is controversial, but my opinion is that it's strange for the chess world, that it's not associated with a world competition, and let's not forget that this logo will decorate Magnus Carlsen's games, the world champion, and his opponent, which may be a Russian chess player, who will be decided next March, we don't know the reaction of the competitors who will try to play Carlsen, but the chess world is full of discussion that the logo is very strange and suspicious, with clear erotic reference."
Ivan Vasin: "Tell me, do TV viewers remember many logos at all? As a population segment. Do they discuss many logos? But this logo generated such lively discussion in Russian and western media, I saw clips about this on western TV. If we hold that anything that increases interest in chess and in World Championship is good, then the logo was successful".
An image that's partially reminiscent of a certain sports brand, looks controversial and fashionable for FIDE, like London itself, which will host the Chess Championship in the fall of 2018.
Danila Mahalin, Umar Taskaev. Vesti.
