A new logo for Lichess

@IsaVulpes
"If all of you are professional designers that so easily can make a better design than the current logo, why did none of you ever bother to do so?"

Glad you asked. This is what really irks me about this. It's because they didn't tell anyone! The whole thing was carried out in secretive conversations by a handful of elites and then suddenly dropped on us. Some previous comments I made about this:

"Consider the possibilities that could have come out of the limitless human creativity of an entire online chess community had they been asked. By not putting this out to the community you deprived everyone of what could have been an enjoyable experience in just the trying. And omg, it would have been really really really fun to have seen what people would have come up with. And it would have been a great way to foster community spirit. Golden opportunity missed.".

@IsaVulpes In my case, no, I'm not a professional graphic designer (although I've worked with them as a software developer). In this instance, I didn't say anything during the design process because I had no idea there was a process. I don't think you can fault me, or others, for that.

I was a bit reluctant to weigh-in on the new logo because I get it: When you introduce a new logo, there's always some degree of pushback in the beginning. In this case, I decided to speak up because I think this is more than that. This isn't a matter of "The new design is too wide" or "too dark" or "too big" or heaven-knows-what.

Rather, it's a case of, "Oh no: The designer came up with the clear winning concept after the team chose something else." This was a "Eureka!" moment that was missed because it came late.

Opinions differ, of course. But I think there are several reasons why a winged knight makes a lot more sense for the Lichess logo (AKA the "Freedom Horse," which is @thibault's term) than the current choice.

I like the concept of a winged knight as the Lichess logo. I'm sure the winged knight logo that's been posted could be tweaked enough to make me prefer it over the current Lichess logo(it wouldn't take much as think the current logo is pretty bad.) A winged knight has potential for future logos in the years to come, as well. A front view of that might be interesting.

@Crapablanca64 Good observations. I think you're right: The winged knight is such a perfect concept for Lichess that I'd expect it to be around for a long time, with different designers bringing their take to it as the website evolves.

I'm OK with the current design, which I grade as a B. But it has a few shortcomings. It tries a bit too hard to be elegant, with the result being that the form of the horse is distorted at the bottom, making it look fat.

But the biggest problem is that it's generic. One of the indications that a logo is good is aptness: Does it express what is special or unique about the business? The current design could be the logo for any number of things: a horse farm; an upscale restaurant at an off-track-betting facility; a riding school; or any other chess website out there.

By contrast, a winged knight would not be appropriate for any of those, save maybe other chess sites -- and even there, if the average Joe was told what Lichess is all about -- free, open-source, unencumbered chess, without the usual restrictions -- even he would understand: "The winged chess piece... that's got to be the Lichess logo."

As design concepts go, it's pretty much perfect.

Wow, all these ppl with long txt rly think someone is reading that :)

@interskop I'll admit: I can keyboard a novella when it comes to certain topics. In fact, I probably enjoy discussing ideas on here about as much as playing chess.

I hate change. Bring back the old logo :(

@IsaVulpes I admit I should not have mentioned the "designer" thing and your criticism of designers talking but not doing would also have been deserved; however, we were not included in the design proces and learned about it only after the new logo was decided upon. Furthermore, if you go back in the comments you will see that at first I wisely decided to embrace the logo even though I found it far from perfect. Only after I learned that THE ORIGINAL DESIGNER HIMSELF made a good start for a logo that has the potential to be much better, I felt it was worth pursuing this better design. Because at this point I reckon Sadsnake1 ought to get the honor of providing the logo, he is the one who did instead of talked.

The link you shared: these show that the logo gets rhythmically more interesting and is more balanced if that line for the neck is added, but of course conceptually you don't want to add that line. It just shows that something is missing from the current logo, but it is very difficult to fix in any satisfying way – at least, I have messed around with it and can't find a good way.

Speaking of Pegasi, I can't help but share a very good graphic iteration done by my favorite designer Roger Excoffon. I'm sure it will inspire.

www.typogabor.com/Media/Excoffon/Excoffon_DSC4373.jpg

Please reconsider. This new logo is so bad that I actually like my favorite-in-the-world chess website just that little bit less. Who knew a fail logo could have such power?

It reads badly in icon form -- it looks like a thin circle with some weird bump on it. Nothing about a knight, that we all know moves like an L, should be combined with a circle. A circle with a horse's head makes no sense. Is it a horse with an alien circle-body? Is it a design-circle with a mutant horse head growing out of it? It represents nothing -- it only conflicts with everything that we know and love about the game that we play on this website.

Your logo before was a simple knight icon that is part of a piece set that can be used in online chess. The problem was that it wasn't an original design -- it was borrowed from an existing piece set. Why not stick with that idea, just use an original design for the knight? Look at your current logo from that perspective and you see instantly that it would never make a good icon for the online board because it reads badly and muddles the idea of the knight as a chess piece.