Teale's 'tache

There is every way in the world, it's common for data to be used in an interview process, especially at a high level such as this. I wouldn't be surprised if the owners consulted Heck with concerns about the figures for the rebrand and in part employed him based on his response. It is all conjecture, I'm just looking logically looking for reasons rather than blindly trying to attribute blame. We have amazing owners, but it should come as no surprise that they will pull projects if they are not financially viable, that's just good business and they are good businessmen. I have no idea why people find that so hard to believe. I'm done with this, I've neither the time nor the hunger to argue with you or @Captain_Townsend any further, believe whatever you want.

Well, then the launch was delayed until the numbers were crunched and clarified, he may have taken one look and thought 'We need a second opinion on that figure'. Also, he may well have been sounded out and presented with some of this data long in advance of his appointment.

I believe, after a quick Google, Heck was appointed in May 2023 and the crest was announced as cancelled in September 2023, seems plenty of time to have crunched the numbers to me. I agree that the owners have never held back on investment, but at the same time, successful business people do not endlessly plough money into a project without considering if they'll get it back at some point, if the figures don't add up they'll pull the plug.

I'll speculate on why, but this is just speculation so please keep that in mind. I would imagine at the beginning of the process Purslow, the owners, or whoever suggested we needed a rebrand, then most likely Purslow as CEO, went out and costed the project, how much would it cost to have the design created and rolled out everywhere in one go? Let's call that figure A, he'd also probably crunched some numbers to figure out a rough 'ROI' (Return On Investment), let's call that figure B. Purslow presented this to the owners, and everybody agreed the figures were far enough apart to make it worthwhile, a budget was set, and the project was green-lit. Purslow goes and hires a design company and the process begins, design is produced, fans are consulted, and everybody is happy by and large. Now Purslow leaves and Heck comes in with a remit to make and to save us money. He looks at the figures and he believes that figure A is far too low, it's going to cost a lot more to roll out the new brand than Purslow anticipated, and quite possibly figure B is a bit on the optimistic side, so he believes as somebody who has worked more in the field of branding than Purslow that the figures are much closer together, he takes this to the owners explaining the additional costs and the effects it will have, how much extra budget might be needed to continue and possibly at this point the roundel crest gets canned, and they then try to figure out a more cost-effective way to refresh the brand. Projects like these do get paused, cancelled, or scaled back all the time, partly because figures A and B are both difficult to calculate with any degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, this has been a very public process in a very passionate industry, and so somebody is going to have to get it in the neck, Heck is taking the heat for it at the moment and if he's got his figures wrong then he should, but if he's right then possibly not. Again to clarify, this is just speculation, I have no inside knowledge, I've just seen projects be scaled back or ended for this kind of situation before so it lines up in my mind. Edit: As @NurembergVillan has mentioned previously, the kits are produced way in advance, so I'm guessing the process had already started before Purslow left and Heck came in. Hence why we have that badge on our shirts this season.

Exactly, it's the change of brief that disappoints me the most. The crest they've produced isn't that bad once you understand the restrictions in place. As a designer I've seen plenty of good brands and the effect good branding can have, so I was very excited and hopeful that we'd be getting something that could really push the club to the next level in terms of attracting sponsors, fans and marketing, and just to finally put an end to this awful disjointed brand that has been holding us back. To still be stuck pretty much where we were, after all the faffing around and money wasted, is just very very poor in my view.

I believe what we are being given, judging by the crest we've seen, is a brand evolution rather than a total rebrand. If this is the case then there are definitely more restrictions than just the ones outlined in the results of the survey, and you have to start with the Lerner crest and go from there. I'd imagine they couldn't change the lion, the direction it is facing, or the star as that would kill too much branding already out there, they also likely couldn't change the colours as it would be too big a change and take the new design too far away from the Lerner crest for them to feel part of the same brand. The reason they need to feel part of the same brand is so you can phase out the Lerner badge gradually over time rather than outright change everything in one go. There'd have to be a shield shape at least similar to the original. Then add the questionnaire restrictions and you can see how the designers have been very restricted in what they can do. The text being top or bottom is a bit overblown for me, both can work and both can look unbalanced, it's the '1874' that's causing most of the balance issues in my opinion. The AV150, again in my opinion, is a good idea with good colours, it's just poorly executed, it should be more obvious what it is supposed to say. Also, launching that marque on its own, on Twitter, on the day the fans find out about the North Stand project being put on hold really made a bad first impression and those are difficult to shake. I'm not defending the crest we've seen, I'm not happy about it, even with the restrictions in place it could be better, I'm just trying to explain why the fan-made designs (my own included) haven't been working to the same restrictions and so it's much easier to make something more desirable.

Fan designs work to whatever restrictions they want, for example a fan design can drop the star or 1874 and people will say it looks clean, but the survey dictates to the actual designers that they have to be there, if there were no restrictions I'm certain we'd be looking at an entirely different and likely much better design.

I'm using the evidence of my eyes and engaging a bit of logic. The lion, star and colours are intentionally the same so they don't have to change every single part of branding and marketing materials. A brand evolution is cheaper to roll out than a complete rebrand, and this is a brand evolution. A brand evolution can be a good thing in some cases. An example: Imagine for a moment that we have paper sheets we use at the ground to wrap the hot dogs/burgers/pies etc. in, and that paper has a pattern of the Lerner crest on it. Now consider how many of those we might have in stock, 100k? 250k to last a season maybe? Possibly we bought millions a couple of years back thinking the crest wouldn't change for a long time. With a complete rebrand, all that stock goes in the bin, but with an evolution, you can keep using these paper sheets until they run out as the two crests are similar enough to be part of the same brand. Now take that example and apply it to thousands of other lines we have in place and you can see how the cost is less up front and spreads out as the old badge is phased out over several years. They'll likely change the crest in places where it is most visible straight away, but we'll still be seeing the Lerner crest for a few years. So it can be a good cost-saving exercise and is also better environmentally as there is less waste. However, the fundamental problem in this instance is that our brand is crap to begin with, and has a glaring flaw in the colour scheme that a brand evolution cannot correct. At some point, it needs fixing, for whatever reason the decision has been made that it won't be now. Why the club has taken this route I don't know, I don't know enough about the financial side of the club to speculate, I doubt we'll get a straight answer out of Mr Heck and I doubt they'll come out and sell it as the cheaper option. Heck may well be incompetent, but the crest we are getting is the result of a business decision.

The round badge is only on kits/training gear which change every year anyway, so the cost of replacing it is negligible. The cost of keeping it and rolling out everywhere is a lot, I read a figure of around £10m somewhere, but I forget where.

It's cost, I read somewhere a total rebrand would cost in the region of £10m, an evolution where you don't have to change everything can be rolled out more to whatever budgetary constraints you have at the time. You can believe whatever you want though and get angry at Heck, I'm just not sure you're being angry for the right reasons.

I was going to wait for the official announcement, but it's taking too long and I want to give my thoughts on the 'leaked' crest and how I think we've arrived at it. My initial thought when seeing the crest was that this is now an evolution of the Lerner brand and not the complete rebrand we'd been expecting. A brand evolution essentially means changing only a few components, slightly, so that at a glance you don't notice any difference, this means you don't have to pull down every version of the old crest in one summer and can instead do it gradually over a period of time. In this case, they've 'improved' the shield shape and the lettering, but taken care to keep the colours, lion and star as they were. The old lion and star in particular have been used in quite a bit of branding since Heck came in and because they haven't changed all of that branding can stay as is. So for those asking 'Why do we still have yellow on blue?' or 'Why have we gone back to the old lion?' That's your answer. Essentially it's about money. Heck came in with the remit to make/save money, he saw what the rebrand project was going to cost and decided that an evolution was more financially viable than a complete rebrand, he may have loved the roundel design, he may have hated it, but the reason it was canned was financial by the looks and nothing to do with preference. Now, if you look at the design, knowing the designer couldn't change the lion or star, and couldn't change the colours, and also had to fulfil the demands of the questionnaire, then it begins to make a little more sense how this design has been produced. I have great sympathy for the designer, this was mission impossible. It's a cautionary tale of how bad design decisions can hang around like a bad smell, 16/17 years we've had the yellow on blue, and until we suck it up and pay for a full rebrand there it will remain, the drop shadow doesn't fix it, but it does improve it ever so slightly. I don't really mind if the lettering is top or bottom because it can look unbalanced either way, the white text on the light blue is rubbish though. I'm just very disappointed, in the club and how they've communicated the whole thing, and the fact we aren't getting the total rebrand we desperately need. As I and others in here have shown, we could have had a really nice brand, that would have made it a whole lot easier to sell ourselves to new fans, investors, partners .etc Instead, we just plod along with the same broken brand. Womp womp.

Oh no offense taken at all, and yeah if this was the crest you could absolutely expand on the gaslamp shape, I can imagine numerous ways it could be incorporated into a brand

Here's the thing, you don't have to get it. It doesn't have to be recognisable as a gaslamp shape. It would be a shape that is unique to us, that nobody else will use. It makes us instantly recognisable and has a meaning for those who want it to have meaning. It works for those who love all the heritage stuff and for those who know nothing about us, having a unique shape will help us to stand out from the crowd.

One last time before this sorry saga is over (for now...) Done a little more work on the gaslamp version and how it would work in a brand. Works on any background... Works in monochrome... Has different components that can be used individually across a brand... Looks good on a kit... And as someone previously mentioned, the unique gaslamp shape can be used in the brand as well... (forgive the Watkins image being old, knocked this up in a rush) This is the kind of thing I was hoping for, by the looks I'm going to be very disappointed

I believe @OutByEaster? has already stated that the consultation rules were met, it may have been the minimum required, but they were met all the same, the MOMS guy is just blowing smoke for engagement. If this is indeed going to be the new crest the fans really don't have too much of an argument, it is obviously a villa crest and has all the ingredients the fans voted for in the survey, they've not done anything radically different enough for the FA to be interested, there's nothing there that it is against our heritage. The rules are in place to stop the owners adding a unicorn pooping rainbows to our crest, not to step in because they haven't changed the colours. I'll give my thoughts on this crest if/when it's confirmed, and try and explain some of the thought process behind it.

I like the idea of using the gaslamp to break up the circle, very inventive. However, I prefered the previous colour scheme, I don't believe we have to have quite so much blue, and I don't like how the gaslamp and inner circle now make up the shape of a bauble, which I now can't unsee. Really good effort though!

Can confirm, I'm a professional designer and have dropped some colossal cojones in my time. Though, I've always generally worked solo and not as part of a team. I'd expect there to be a whole team working on this, so it must have gone through multiple sets of 'fresh eyes', to not have been corrected and made more legible isn't a great sign. However, I do reserve judgment until we see the rest of the branding and how it's used.

Which is in itself a change...

It does feel like we are approaching somewhat of a crossroads when it comes to Villa Park. Ideally, I think the owners would like us to stay where we are and have always been careful not to trample on traditions or take anything away from our club's identity. At the same time, they must know that to compete off the pitch we need our stadium to be more profitable, both on matchdays and all year around, the capacity has to increase and more corporate spaces created, to do that and for it all to be feasible it will also need to be more accessible than it currently is. Is our location holding us back? Can we create the facility we need in the space we currently have? Can we afford to lose revenue while development takes place? I don't know. It's all very much up for debate. However, I don't think the North Stand update alone was ever going to solve all of the issues or future-proof the stadium for where we intend to be. Maybe there are grander plans afoot? Like the Bernabeu with its disappearing pitch and closing roof, imagine the events they can hold there, and the additional revenue it will attract. As others have said the ability to easily host other sporting events like NFL and MLB games brings in plenty of coin, concerts the same, it all adds up. I love a brick facade as much as the next man, I love our stadium. But football has long become a business as much as a sport, and if you want to compete with the big boys you simply have to do so on and off the pitch. Change is coming one way or another, whether you or I like it or not.

I agree, quite like the style but the execution could be better, it's always a difficult balance with that type of font style, but it should be a little more obvious what the letters should be. I don't want to judge too much until I've seen the rest of the brand though, out of context a marque on its own can be misleading, not sure the thinking behind leading with it, first impressions are important.

Seems to be a bit of misunderstanding going on here, this is a marque, it is not a logo or a badge, a marque is an icon used as part of a brand, it doesn't have to have letters let alone the full name. This would likely be used as a detail on a shirt or other apparel, in places too small to accommodate the full logo, in places where maybe the shape of the full logo wouldn't work, and just generally used within the brand where needed.

Although there are many obvious benefits to a new stadium, I don't believe that's the plan going forward, I'd imagine it's a last-case scenario option. You don't spend millions on an inner-city academy down the road, add loads of corporate areas to the stadium, double the size of the club shop, and develop the Warehouse stuff to then immediately uproot and move elsewhere. It just wouldn't make sense. That is not what we are looking at right now. But transport is very much a big issue, you can spend as much as you want on the stadium and its facilities, but there's a finite amount of people you can reasonably get in and out of the area in a sensible amount of time, adding 10k more people to that has a big impact and would detract from the matchday experience for everyone. Transport into the area simply has to be improved if we want to grow, and that's where the bottleneck is. I don't think it's a lack of demand, it's a logistical problem that is not easily fixed. The landscape has changed regarding the council since Purslow originally drew up these plans, and how the situation evolves depends on how or what we can do to improve transport under this new landscape. The new North Stand was going to add loads more corporate areas, which Heck absolutely wants, but there's no point adding more corporate if it's incredibly inconvenient to get to and from, it's hard to sell an 'experience' if you have to tell people to allow for multiple hours travel and waiting around. Throw in that we are way ahead of schedule on the pitch, and now have more investment joining us, and it begins to make a bit more sense as to why we are having a pause and rethinking how we can best move forward. It may well still go ahead, we just have to be sure logistically it will work as intended so that the considerable investment has appropriate returns. If there really is no way forward in terms of improving the transport links, and we continue on our current trajectory, then somewhere down the line the new stadium idea would become a more viable option to break the impasse. The owners, up until now, have shown no interest in going against our traditions as a club, moving away from our home would be a huge breakaway from that, but if it stunts our growth and their investment, then it is only natural a move would at least come under consideration.

Indeed, I wonder if the opportunity for extra investment may have led to a rethink, and the scope of the project increased. It's a project that has had pretty obvious obstacles from the start in terms of transport, logistics, the loss of revenue whilst it is completed, and none of these issues seem to have been overcome as of yet. It's frustrating, but it's a massive project and unfortunately, massive projects are often subjected to multiple delays and changes.

Interview with Heck up on AVTV https://www.avfc.co.uk/news/2023/december/19/chris-heck-interview/

I've never been a huge fan of Frank, just always seemed very much in love with himself, but I can respect the job he's done at Brentford and I can appreciate that he went to speak to Ollie after the game as he knew something must have happened to cause the celebration so out of character for him. However, I think it is really very poor that he refuses to condemn the challenge by Mee, were the challenge on one of his players I'm sure we'd be hearing an entirely different tune coming from him, and this is a problem I have with quite a few of the managers at the moment. They are so quick to criticise officials or opposition players and so loathe to admit any fault of themselves or their own players, even incredibly obvious ones. His reaction to the red card was incredibly petulant and began a sour mood over the rest of the game. We've said it recently about Arteta, players see how their managers act and will copy that behavior. If it was a bad decision, then you could maybe understand, but even given the time to have seen replays, to have seen what his own behavior later caused, he still won't accept that a high, over-the-ball, studs-up challenge is a red card. He's arguing that black is white to save face, it's childish, and too many managers have been employing this kind of tactic for way too long. It encourages more bad challenges and it continues to make the official's job more difficult. Managers should own what their teams do out there on the pitch and stop trying to throw everyone else under the bus to distract from their failings. They need to grow up and be the adults in the room that they are supposed to be. Anyway, another great result in the end, performance was okay I thought considering the players we were missing, I'm trying not to let the late stupidity ruin the result, I can't blame a few players for getting a bit excited considering where we are, Emery has already said he's going to look at and correct it and I have every faith that he will do just that.