The World Chess Championship logo for next year’s match is raising eyebrows with folks online.
World Chess this week unveiled promotional artwork for its November 2018 title event in London. It included this image of two people around a chessboard, which some wags have dubbed “pawnographic”:
Others lightheartedly asked whether the image had been lifted from the Kama Sutra, and suggested it was “putting the ‘mate’ into checkmate.”
“People are openly laughing at it,” David Kramaley, who runs the Chessable learning website, told the Daily Telegraph. “But, joking aside, I’ve got to say it has grown on me.”
Not everyone was happy with the artwork, however. Chess grandmaster Susan Polgar questioned whether it was appropriate for children to see:
World Chess, the commercial arm of the game’s governing World Chess Federation, is organizing November’s match between world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and a challenger to be decided at a tournament in March.
World Chess acknowledged on its website that the new logo, developed by Moscow-based agency Shuka Design, was “controversial and trendy, just like the host city.”