Ancient History Encyclopedia has now been around for almost twelve years. Since then, over 136 million people have used our website to learn about history, making it one of the most-read history publications in the world. Our project has won awards and it is recognized by prestigious institutions of learning; the name Ancient History Encyclopedia has become an established brand, not only in historical circles.
We have now covered most of the ancient world, a significant part of medieval Europe, and we have just started writing about colonial history and early modern Europe. Our publication is no longer exclusively about ancient topics and covers increasingly more recent historical subjects. We have outgrown our name.
The time has come to rebrand and change our name to World History Encyclopedia, a name that better reflects our organization and its aspirations. This monumental change will occur over several months, starting with the change of our name this week. We will initially continue to use our much-beloved and highly-recognized ancient.eu as our domain name, and switch to our new domain name worldhistory.org in a few months' time. At the same time, we are in the process of incorporating a charity in the United Kingdom to own the publication and all related intellectual property.
No rebranding is complete without a new logo, of course! Our new logo was designed by Dorothée Olivereau, a French graphic designer. In the design process, we wanted to ensure that our new logo reflects the fact that our brand is a continuation of Ancient History Encyclopedia, which is why we decided on a very similar shape and layout.
The symbol in the red square is inspired by cuneiform symbols, representing the earliest form of writing. If cuneiform writing is the earliest form of history, then a website like ours is the latest form of history, and we cover everything in between. A symbol representing writing itself is also fitting for an encyclopedia. The central shape is also reminiscent of the “play” symbol found on media players, highlighting the digital media aspect of AHE, while also guiding the eye towards the writing on the right.
We’re very happy with this new branding: It’s very unique and recognizable, and it’s linked to our roots in ancient history. We hope you will like it as much as we do!
