The CharSet Logo Compo 2026 is open
We ran this compo in 2024 and 2025, and it's back for 2026. The brief is a simple one: make an original Commodore 64 logo using nothing but character graphics. It's running now, and we'd love for you to enter.
Here's the part worth saying up front: you don't need to be a scener, and you don't need to have entered a compo before. A charset logo is one of the friendliest ways into C64 art — a canvas of up to 40×25 characters, a handful of colours, and your idea.
The deadline is 31 August 2026 — a little over seven weeks away. That's plenty of time to sketch something, refine it, and submit.
Raistlin of Genesis Project
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CharSet Lab — built for this compo
The one thing that can put people off a charset compo is the technical side — modes, character limits, colour rules. So we built a tool that handles all of it for you.
CharSet Lab runs in your browser — nothing to install, nothing to pay for. Drop in a PNG of your logo and it will:
| • Tell you which compo mode it fits — Multicolour / Mixed, Hires, PETSCII, or ECM. |
| • Count the unique characters it needs, so you know whether you're inside the 256-char limit. |
| • Build a ready-to-run .PRG you can load straight into an emulator or real hardware. |
| • If it doesn't fit, point at the exact cells you need to fix. |
And it does the hard part well: in our testing, CharSet Lab packs charsets tighter than any other converter we've tried — fewer unique characters for the same image. On a busy logo that can be the difference between an idea that fits in 256 characters and one that doesn't.
You're free to use whatever tools you like to draw — CharSet Lab is just the easy way to check your entry is compo-legal before you send it.
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Four categories — pick your mode
| • Multicolour / Mixed — the richest palette; mix in hires detail via colour RAM. |
| • Hires — crisp 1×1 pixels with free per-character colour. |
| • PETSCII — built from the standard ROM character set, upper or lowercase. |
| • ECM — fewer characters to play with, but up to four background colours. |
Not sure which one your idea belongs in? Draw it, drop it into CharSet Lab, and it'll tell you.
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The rules, briefly
| • Charset only — up to 256 unique characters. |
| • The logo or wordmark is the primary focus — decoration can support it, not dominate it. |
| • Fresh work, made for this competition. |
| • No automatic conversions or tracing. No AI-generated artwork. |
| • No sprites, rasters, or other VIC tricks — simple fade-ins and fade-outs are fine. |
| • Up to six entries per person. |
Established group emblems and scene motifs are welcome, as long as the artwork is newly redrawn for the compo. The full rules are on the compo info page.
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How to enter
Deadline: 31 August 2026, 23:59 UTC. Voting then runs 1–7 September here on C64GFX.com, using our quick 10-star system — browse and rate every entry on a single page.
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Seven weeks. Give it a go.
You don't need permission, experience, or a group behind you — just an idea and a bit of time. Draw your logo in whatever tool you like, then let CharSet Lab check it fits a category and package it into a ready-to-run .PRG.
We can't wait to see what you make.
— Raistlin
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