Shuka rebranded World Chess with streetwear type and Fraktur drama for Armageddon

It began with one task: key visuals for the 2016 World Chess Championship in New York. CEO Ilya Merenzon then asked Shuka to join his global goal — re-humanise 'the most boring game in the world' and fit it into the digital era — signing the studio as its only long-term design partner.

Streetwear-age typography for championship chess; for the Armageddon tie-break, a deliberately over-dramatic medieval Fraktur look — irony aimed at chess's stuffiness.

Shuka built a distinctive visual system around fast-consumption audiences, then designed the Armageddon blitz series (three-minute games, five vs four minutes, draws going to Black) whose dark, Fraktur-heavy look took chess to prime-time Russian television for the first time.

World Chess CEO Ilya Merenzon says after the London campaign launched, chess landed in a heated debate about design, sex and gay culture, drew significant millennial attention, was covered by all major outlets — including an above-the-fold Financial Times front-page feature — and was called one of the most important sporting events of the year.

When World Chess asked Moscow-based studio Shuka to brand the championship of what its own partner and creative director Ivan Vasin calls 'the most boring game in the world', the studio's answer was that it 'had no other choice but to make it exciting'. Everything began with a single task — key visuals for the World Chess Championship in New York in 2016 — before CEO Ilya Merenzon asked Shuka to join a global goal: make chess popular again and fit it into the digital era with a distinctive visual system. Shuka signed a long-term contract as the only design partner.

The story's origin point, as Vasin tells it, is 1997, when Garry Kasparov lost to IBM's Deep Blue and the sport faded out; preparing for the 2018 championship, the goal was to break chess's image as the most conservative sport and show its human, one-on-one side. Shuka's answer was typography and imagery closer to streetwear than to a 1,500-year-old game, built for 'the fast consumption audience'.

The flagship was Armageddon, the blitz tie-break — three minutes per player, White five against Black's four, Black winning a draw. Shuka took the name literally: content manager Vasily Kolesnik explains the team dated the concept of Armageddon to the Middle Ages, so they 'took the Fraktur typeface and pretended Armageddon was happening in prime-time', flooding the style with drama. Ivan Velichko calls it 'an irony that couldn't be more straight and more perpendicular to chess philosophy' — and the format carried the game to prime-time Russian television for the first time.

Measuring perception is hard, but Merenzon points to a surge: after London's campaign launched, chess found itself 'in the centre of a heated discussion about design, sex and gay culture', attracted significant millennial attention, and was covered by all major media — including an above-the-fold front-page Financial Times feature — with media calling it one of the most important sporting events of the year.

A rebrand that treats a heritage game as a contemporary product can unlock distribution the game never had — here, prime-time Russian TV for blitz chess.

The identity concept leans into the format's own name and iconography, so the design does argumentative work (chess can be fast, dramatic, even profane) rather than decoration.

The outcome shows design as sport-coverage bait: a Fraktur-heavy blitz series became front-page FT material and a design-world debate.

It is a rare case of one studio holding an exclusive long-term design partnership for a global sporting property, from 2016 New York key visuals through the 2018 London championship.

When the brief is 'make the most boring game exciting', don't modernise politely — pick the format's own name (Armageddon) and over-commit to its drama until the irony becomes the identity.

By January 2020 Shuka remained World Chess's only design partner, with recent work centred on the Armageddon series; Vasin hoped the impact would hold between championships and keep shifting perceptions of the game. Shuka's route to the project: founded in 2003 in editorial design, the studio pivoted to branding after Russia's print media crisis.