A New Direction for US Chess
By US Chess   
July 31, 2015
In this year's Delegate's Call, Executive Director Jean Hoffman outlines some exciting changes for the The US Chess Federation to dovetail with our new status as a 501(c)(3) organization. This changes include our shift from "USCF" to "US Chess",  a new visual identity and transition to a new website.   

USChessFedlogolead.gifAbout Our New Logo: In redesigning our logo, one of our top priorities was to modernize our look while still recognizing and paying tribute to marks from the past. We also wanted to make sure that our logo reflected our new mission of empowering people through chess one move at a time. The new logo was inspired by iconography found on previous logos dating back to the mid-1900s. The new emblem is designed to convey essential information about our organization's mission while creating an iconic mark for US Chess.

ABOUT THE NEW US CHESS: One of the most important aspects of our new identity is the change from calling ourselves USCF to US Chess. Over the years, our organization has been known by many names including the United States Chess Federation, the USCF, US Chess, and the United States of America Chess Federation. Moving forward, while our corporate name, the United States Chess Federation, will remain the same, we will refer to ourselves as the US Chess Federation or US Chess for short. We decided to go by US Chess-as opposed to USCF-because:

•The name US Chess reflects our mission as a 501(c)(3) organization: dedicated to empowering people through chess one move at a time.

 •The name US Chess differentiates our organization and avoids confusion with numerous other groups that go by USCF.

•The name US Chess has been used by our organization historically and is reflected in our bylaws and the organization's previous versions of our logo as well as our bylaws.

•The name US Chess directs traffic to our website and domain name www.uschess.org.

ABOUT THE NEW WEBSITE:
On August 1, we unveiled a homepage redesign and a new "Give" section of our website. This is part of Phase 1 of a comprehensive website redesign project that will be completed in multiple phases, and the initial work of design, development, testing and deployment is expected to take up to two years. The new homepage is designed to improve the user experience, incorporate more modern design, and serve as a fundraising tool for the organization.

Modernizing our website is a long-term project that will be completed in phases, so you will see improvements to other parts of our site over time. The next major accomplishment in this process will be a multiphase redesign of the US Chess website. Because the site has so many important components, a phased approach will allow us to implement new pieces of the site as they are completed, rather than delaying progress until the entire site is ready.

We hope you will be thrilled with the modern, user-friendly site design and navigation. Because of the iterative nature of this project, however, there will be a period where it will be necessary to move between redesigned pages and the old templates. We appreciate your support and patience as we continue to migrate sections of the site into the new format and make improvements.

About Our Social Media Fans of our facebook page may have noticed that we changed our facebook page name to US Chess, and merged the Chess Life Magazine group into US Chess. We recently hired digital assistant and chess master Vanessa West, and we are expanding our social media presence. Please join us on twitter, facebook & YouTube.

We also just started an Instagram page @US_Chess.

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The US Chess Office staff in Crossville celebrate our new logo.