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lichess-org / lila

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Logo proposal #5680

Closed ghost closed 3 years ago

ghost commented 4 years ago

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i would go with the lilac color and with 2 knights

ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

i think the last 2 knights are pure gold. its either 1 knight or 1 white and 1 black knight.

ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

i think this one hits all the button -squareish -simple and slick -easy to remember -hidden ( Li ) in his face -knight with a proud father-figure

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superuser-does commented 4 years ago

I've written about this before, this is my personal take on what would be required for a new logo and my views don't represent Lichess as a whole.

  1. Must be a knight only, without other chess pieces, or visual elements like a chess board
  2. Must be legible and look good at 16×16 pixels, which is favicon size (these are the icons you see on browser tabs). I recommend using the crop tool before minimising down to 16px².
  3. Should work as a font-icon. This means it must be able to work as an outline only - either as white-on-black as well as black-on-white for dark theme users.
  4. Must be 2D, it can't have a 3D perspective. It doesn't have to be a totally flat sketch, but the amount of 'depth' must be very limited. It also can't have shadows.
  5. Think about how it fits on the site. Lichess doesn't display the logo on every page. It says 'lichess.org', but this could change - especially if lichess gets the .com extension (and redirects it to .org 😉). We could then put the knight logo to its left. Likewise, consider how it'd look as an Android/iOS app icon next to dozens of other apps on a player's phone or tablet.
superuser-does commented 4 years ago

Commenting on the actual suggestions now: I think these are very strong. I wouldn't go for the knights with the flat mouths, I believe Lichess as a whole has a more curvy look. The various arrangements you made near the top are also brilliant, like with the knight and a bigger outline of the same knight behind, but slightly modified and in a very specific colour palette. This is some seriously advanced thinking, especially if you narrow down towards a single design.

In fact makes me curious if you have a design/publishing background as I've seen this kind of thing before - different ways the same logo base can be used. Impressive stuff. Of course, this is easiest to do with a simple and straightforward logo (think of Google Search and their frequent 'Google Doodles'). A more complex logo is harder to modify.

I'm not sure how good these would look at favicon size, but keep going! You seem to be very familiar with vector now, but you can always sketch ideas in a raster program like Photoshop or The GIMP, whichever is easiest, and convert to vector later.

ghost commented 4 years ago

@superuser-does I am structural engineer :)) I design just for hobby, some days are very full for me ,some are not. Thank you for your support.

Here are more variants. If the lichess team likes one, then we can interate further on that one design.

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ghost commented 4 years ago

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ornicar commented 4 years ago

Great stuff, @sadsnake1, very impressive indeed.

Looking at these logo I realize that I enjoy plain shapes more than line drawings. Lines often look weird when put next to text.

Another example of a logo that I like is the starcraft teamliquid logo.

By the way if we choose a new logo, it will very likely replace the huge cburnett knight on homepage: https://lichess.org/

ghost commented 4 years ago

The team liquid is a competitive esport team, so the logo must be something agressive( spartan shield with a serios knight). Also that logo is made to be big, like a banner, it is not made to be portable

But look at the firms that are working with people or selling product or services. Their logos are friendly, colorfull and simple.

Also, please tell me which of those knights do you like. How serious looking should be the knight and also the background ( circle, square, shield, etc.) and colors

ornicar commented 4 years ago

I like the plain ones mostly.

simple and plain. Not sure about the lilac.

very nice try with the circle

again I appreciate the plain-ness and disc. Can the knight be simplified further?

It would be easier to talk about the designs if they had a unique name or number.

ornicar commented 4 years ago

Note: as we all know chess knights on a board look to the left, but in my opinion we don't need to respect that in a logo. I don't mind knights looking to the right. It's actually more instinctive for most left-to-right readers.

ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

I compiled here all designs for easier discussions

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superuser-does commented 4 years ago

Really good. The circular knight was the one that caught my eye as well, the one with just the outline. It's not totally common but the shape is interesting, yet still fits with the clean, basic lines throughout Lichess's design. I'd go so far as to say that it's great, but unique enough to make it ideal for a logo. You won't find a set like this (and that's okay, the logo doesn't have to be playable as a set).

I also think it's interesting that many designs work without eyes and nose. Or with. They're both okay and worth exploring :)

In terms of an Android/iOS app icon, it would be a bit tougher with a basic shape that relies on having no fill. It's also hard for the favicon. If we look at GitHub's favicon, it encloses the outline for Octocat (see it in full form here) in a dark circle. The same goes for other single-colour logos, like Slack's and Reddit's.

I can't speak for iOS, but at least on Android, you have a choice of bubble, square images, rounded squares, or just the image the app provides. Currently Lichess just uses the cburnett knight, and it's the biggest looking icon of them all! I quite like that myself, though I appreciate it's subjective. Here's how that looks on my phone.

So the last one Thibault pointed out is cool. but I prefer a more involved design so it looks more striking on mobile. There can always be a separate, simpler version for e.g. for the lobby background, Thanks again!

ghost commented 4 years ago

The circular knight is the best choice. For the lobby background is perfect. Maybe it can spin slowly when searching for a match, like a loading aperture. I will make some iterations, having in mind that will also has to be a full fledged logo for the app.

ghost commented 4 years ago

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ghost commented 4 years ago

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i would go with one with the last two knights. Period

ghost commented 4 years ago

This baby right here is the answer. Familiar knight, friendly, not easy to forget, close to cburnett, can be spinned like a watch, can be a minimalist app icon, a favicon, etc. Screenshot_20191128-012413~2

ornicar commented 4 years ago

Man, that's great work you're doing here. Gonna discuss it with the team now.

ornicar commented 4 years ago

So far this one is our favourite:

Simple, memorable, elegant. We also like the similar: But we think maybe it's better when the curved line becomes thinner at the end.

That last one you posted is very cute, too much maybe, seems childish to me. Some of us love it but it's not my personal favourite.

More generally the 6 proposals in https://github.com/ornicar/lila/issues/5680#issuecomment-559242016 are very strong.

If you're inspired to try more variations, we'd love to see them.

Here's a few things the team hacked while brainstorming:

ornicar commented 4 years ago

for giggles:

ornicar commented 4 years ago

I should add that we have team members across different timezones, and most of them have not seen these logos yet. So this is provisional feedback.

ghost commented 4 years ago

I work with people everyday and I know when somebody just made a decision. that logo is the best choice for lichess and I would like to ask you something in return for my work it is a simple thing : changing the icons for blitz and bullet modes to match their names. it's just something that poped into my eyes when I first entered the site. I can also provide you better alternatives for the rest of the icons.

ghost commented 4 years ago

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icp1994 commented 4 years ago

hey @ornicar would it be feasible for your team to finalize on 4 (or some number) logos and then put them up for a vote on the lichess home page?! That poll should be fun to watch :)

ghost commented 4 years ago

@icp1994 https://images.app.goo.gl/UMGeXiWMs4WdD1KfA

ghost commented 4 years ago

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ornicar commented 4 years ago

OK let's move forward with this. Can we get SVG for these: ^ B1 and D2 ^ A1 and A2 ^ A1

We'll try them out on the test server.

Regarding the bullet icon: I hear you. Can we finish dealing with the logo first? Then we'll discuss it.

Regarding the piece sets: I thought about showcasing them in the same blogpost that we'll make if/when we pick a new logo.

ghost commented 4 years ago

Here are the svgs. personally i will go with nr. 4 (see zip). Regarding the rest, yes the priority is the logo.

logos.zip

ghost commented 4 years ago

I saw the logo on lichess.dev, my opinion is to make it 10% smaller, so it wouldn't touch the margins of the lobby screen

ornicar commented 4 years ago

The current cburnett knight has no margin. We'll try with margins as well.

CynicusRex commented 4 years ago

The new logo isn't discernable at all at favicon size. The lines are way too thin; it just looks like a slightly rotated letter e. The following three logos are significantly better (provided that the first one is corrected to a perfect circle): lichess-logo-proposals-top3

The latter two would look fantastic on swag store items.

awsumbill commented 4 years ago

There seems to be a gray border around the logo image image image

Browser: Microsoft Edge 44.18362.449.0 Microsoft EdgeHTML 18.18363

awsumbill commented 4 years ago

This does not seem to happen on Chrome.

I tried on Chrome 80.0.3984.0

kspalaiologos commented 4 years ago

@awsumbill can't reproduce. obraz

superuser-does commented 4 years ago

The same, can't reproduce on latest W10.

image

This will soon be a moot point anyway due to ChrEdge.

awsumbill commented 4 years ago

That's quite odd, look at mine image

Specs: Windows version: image Edge version: image Display settings: image Browser info: https://whatismybrowser.com/w/ZREQJ9K

ZacharyTalis commented 4 years ago

Love the new logo! It'd make an excellent loading icon, if need be :)

Loading spin GIF ![Lichess_Loading](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/23324896/70086844-2de48f80-15e1-11ea-9178-dc457bc777bf.gif)
awsumbill commented 4 years ago

New Logo TO-DO:

Double-check:

Third-party:

If any else sees an outdated icon feel free to add on.

superuser-does commented 4 years ago

Hope you don't mind me using my collaborator access for this - I added all the other ones I could think of!

niklasf commented 4 years ago

@superuser-does Here's one you could update or close: https://github.com/discordapp/discord-open-source/pull/193

awsumbill commented 4 years ago

Thanks for editing @superuser-does and @niklasf

ghost commented 4 years ago

Just a tought. The logo on the lobby screen should be scaled down by 10-20%, so it would be even less invasive and to be even more transparent. Also, maybe we can change all knights in the all the sets to look to the right, just to show that lichess is something else.

ghost commented 4 years ago

Maybe a bit to late, but here are some more iterations...

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awsumbill commented 4 years ago

Notifications haven't been fixed yet. Tried on both Edge and Chrome and cleared cache beforehand. image image image image

awsumbill commented 4 years ago

@sadsnake1 I really like the second one, it looks more like a real knight than the current one.