Future Club Crest & Brand Identity

[Keyblade]

17 hours ago, Teale's 'tache said:

I was a little surprised when I saw the new badge in monochrome because I'd done a monochrome version for a kit mock-up, without really giving it any thought, and it seems they went a completely different way with it.

Not sure if my way makes it look any better, just interesting how two different designers can see things differently.

 

 

Filling the outer circle and not the inner one just seems so silly I have no idea what the club was thinking. It looks like the badge was cut out of a catalog or something. 

[OutByEaster?]

7 hours ago, Jas10 said:

I hope Heck employs the right people

In fairness, the club employed just about the most reputable agency in the world to bring us the current badge.

7 hours ago, Jas10 said:

bring us a bold and exciting new design that will at least satisfy the vast majority of us.

With respect, I'd suggest that's an either/or - I think you either have something bold and exciting, or something that the majority are 'okay' with. What we have at the moment is the badge that the majority of people were happy with, not just at the voting between two stage, but thoughout the consultation process - now there's an obvious argument to be had there about whether design by popular opinion will always lead you to a place that's a little bit bland, but a bold/exciting design will, almost by definition, not be for everyone.

7 hours ago, Jas10 said:

This time, we need it to stick! No more messing, let’s have some stability and consistency! It’s embarrassing to be so undecided and directionless in this sense… however minor an issue it may appear to some…

Amen to that.

Personally I'd stick with where we're at, I don't see the point of going through the whole process again - constant change in itself is almost the antithesis of the values I associate with the club - for me, there's something reassuringly permanent about us, something timeless - that hasn't been reflected in the badges we've had through our history, but I'm not sure more badges are the answer - and that's from someone who voted for the gaslamp.

Ultimately, I think this comes down to CEO's wanting to CEO and I'd hope there's a way we can find a way out of the Purslow's badge, Heck's badge, whoever's next's badge cycle.

[allani]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

In fairness, the club employed just about the most reputable agency in the world to bring us the current badge.

With respect, I'd suggest that's an either/or - I think you either have something bold and exciting, or something that the majority are 'okay' with. What we have at the moment id the badge that the majority of people were happy with, not just at the voting between two stage, but thoughout the consultation process - now there's an obvious argument to be had there about whether design by popular opinion will always lead you to a place that's a little bit bland, but a bold/exciting design will, almost by definition, not be for everyone.

Amen to that.

Personally I'd stick with where we're at, I don't see the point of going through the whole process again - constant change in itself is almost the antithesis of the values I associate with the club - for me, there's something reassuringly permanent about us, something timeless - that hasn't been reflected in the badges we've had through our history, but I'm not sure more badges are the answer.

Ultimately, I think this comes down to CEO's wanting to CEO and I'd hope there's a way we can find a way out of the Purslow's badge, Heck's badge, whoever's next's badge cycle.

The thing is just by switching the direction the lion faces means that ALL of our current branding needs changing otherwise it is just confusing - the doors at BH, so much of the stuff at Villa Park.  I mean you can sharpen / modernise the lion and some of the old references could stay in place and still make sense.  But changing the way it faces is such a fundamental change that you'd have to change everything otherwise it looks like a mess.  I mean short of changing the lion into a rabbit it is hard to think of a change that could be so fundamental and so pointless.

I think one of the reasons I like @Teale's 'tache ideas is that there are multiple elements that you can use in different settings.  For example just the AV diamond (no lion) could be used in small details (for example window panes or mirrors), in other settings you can just use the lion standalone and in others you can employ the whole design.  This gives you flexibility within the brand where each individual component still fully represents the brand - so it doesn't become confusing at all.  It also means that you can slightly tweak / evolve individual components without having to change the whole thing and so I think immediately gives more longevity to the overall brand.  (Although I am not an expert on this so happy for those who are involved professionally in this area to say that that's not quite how it works)

[Teale's 'tache]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

In fairness, the club employed just about the most reputable agency in the world to bring us the current badge.

With respect, I'd suggest that's an either/or - I think you either have something bold and exciting, or something that the majority are 'okay' with. What we have at the moment is the badge that the majority of people were happy with, not just at the voting between two stage, but thoughout the consultation process - now there's an obvious argument to be had there about whether design by popular opinion will always lead you to a place that's a little bit bland, but a bold/exciting design will, almost by definition, not be for everyone.

Amen to that.

Personally I'd stick with where we're at, I don't see the point of going through the whole process again - constant change in itself is almost the antithesis of the values I associate with the club - for me, there's something reassuringly permanent about us, something timeless - that hasn't been reflected in the badges we've had through our history, but I'm not sure more badges are the answer - and that's from someone who voted for the gaslamp.

Ultimately, I think this comes down to CEO's wanting to CEO and I'd hope there's a way we can find a way out of the Purslow's badge, Heck's badge, whoever's next's badge cycle.

With regards to the agency, it's all good and well hiring the best people, but you have to give them the tools and environment to work with to get the best results. In many ways hiring such a big agency and then restricting quite heavily what they can do creatively, was probably a bit of a waste of money, as a much cheaper agency could have produced the same design with those same restrictions for a fraction of the cost. The most talented creative people, in theory, should be working for the best agencies, but it doesn't matter how good you are if you are essentially painting by numbers, any competent designer can do that. We've paid for creativity and not really used it.

I agree that it is an either/or, and I can see the argument for playing it safe, but is that who we are as a club? Safe? Is that who we want to be? Or do we want to strive for more? Strive to be different? Stand out from the crowd?

I'm not saying one way is right and the other wrong, I can see both sides, we all have different interpretations of what our club is, and trying to compile all of those interpretations into one graphic is an impossible ask really.

As for where we go from here, I know you've been involved in the process and so the new crest probably has more meaning for you, and I agree that we shouldn't be chopping and changing constantly, but if we are going to hang our hat on a design for the next 20-30 years we need to be damn sure it is the right design, or we'll be changing it again in a few years anyway.

I get what you are saying with CEO's, but if we can build a successful brand then hopefully the next guy coming in won't need to change much, to break the cycle we need to build something that isn't worth tearing down. At the moment I don't think we have much of a brand, it's a mess everywhere you look, and having two crests makes it even worse. I'm hopeful Mr Heck can sort it all out, from what I've seen of him he seems very good at what he does, he gets branding and the role it can play, but I think we need to give him the time and leeway to do the job we are paying him for.

[maqroll]

Boom, sorted.

[OutByEaster?]

5 hours ago, Teale's 'tache said:

to hang our hat on a design for the next 20-30 years we need to be damn sure it is the right design, or we'll be changing it again in a few years anyway.

This is the thing though, I don't think there is a 'right' design. I liked the shield one from the consultations, but the vast majority of Villa fans preferred the one we've got to that one. 

I think the current one is reasonably inoffensive, it's claret and blue and it's got a lion and the words Aston Villa - beyond that I don't think we need anything else. 

I think the idea of the perfect badge is out there, but in reality, we each have our own, the perfect badge doesn't exist.

The ones with the AV framing for example, I hate it, the 'experts' in the marketing company say that AV just means audio visual to most of the globe, and I think if we introduced something that bold we'd end up with petitions and fury - but the people that like it love it - the badge we had last season was hated by an awful lot of people when it was introduced, yet has never had more love than since it was replaced - the current badge isn't bad, it does the job, and I don't think there's a "perfect" badge out there - for me it's just time to stop messing about and stick with something - this was designed to be that, so let it be, use it properly and get on with it.

 

[OutByEaster?]

8 hours ago, allani said:

The thing is just by switching the direction the lion faces means that ALL of our current branding needs changing otherwise it is just confusing - the doors at BH, so much of the stuff at Villa Park.  I mean you can sharpen / modernise the lion and some of the old references could stay in place and still make sense.  But changing the way it faces is such a fundamental change that you'd have to change everything otherwise it looks like a mess.  I mean short of changing the lion into a rabbit it is hard to think of a change that could be so fundamental and so pointless.

But that was always the plan - to replace everything with this badge.It's the recent decision not to use it that changes that.

Turning the Lion around was a disaster, I sat in a focus group meeting and we argued over it for a good forty minutes, just that, just turning the lion around, and which way was 'forward'. It doesn't face the way I would have liked and the way it faces was definitely club lead rather than fan lead (and in retrospect most likely driven by the desire not to be too Chelsea).

8 hours ago, allani said:

I think one of the reasons I like @Teale's 'tache ideas is that there are multiple elements that you can use in different settings.  For example just the AV diamond (no lion) could be used in small details (for example window panes or mirrors), in other settings you can just use the lion standalone and in others you can employ the whole design.  This gives you flexibility within the brand where each individual component still fully represents the brand - so it doesn't become confusing at all.  It also means that you can slightly tweak / evolve individual components without having to change the whole thing and so I think immediately gives more longevity to the overall brand.  (Although I am not an expert on this so happy for those who are involved professionally in this area to say that that's not quite how it works)

And that's exactly what this crest was designed to do - to have the ability to be used as the full badge, or just the lion or just the lion and the wording - all of that sort of stuff, different elements in different places - that's the (expensive) plan that's been abandoned.

I don't think the new badge is perfect, I've no real attachment to it, but it is was it is, it was worked through with a lot of stakeholders and decided on by fans.

By the time you marry your fourth wife, people don't really think you believe in marriage any more - I think that's where we are - another change of badge now and I think we'll end up changing it every four or five years forever as the next marketing guru arrives - I think the club loses something in becoming that.

We've just done this - it seems pointless to do it again, like knocking down the North Stand in 2029 and building a new one.

 

[Teale's 'tache]

45 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

This is the thing though, I don't think there is a 'right' design. I liked the shield one from the consultations, but the vast majority of Villa fans preferred the one we've got to that one. 

I think the current one is reasonably inoffensive, it's claret and blue and it's got a lion and the words Aston Villa - beyond that I don't think we need anything else. 

I think the idea of the perfect badge is out there, but in reality, we each have our own, the perfect badge doesn't exist.

The ones with the AV framing for example, I hate it, the 'experts' in the marketing company say that AV just means audio visual to most of the globe, and I think if we introduced something that bold we'd end up with petitions and fury - but the people that like it love it - the badge we had last season was hated by an awful lot of people when it was introduced, yet has never had more love than since it was replaced - the current badge isn't bad, it does the job, and I don't think there's a "perfect" badge out there - for me it's just time to stop messing about and stick with something - this was designed to be that, so let it be, use it properly and get on with it.

 

This is the problem for me, settling for something because it's not too bad, I think the club as a whole should demand better than that in everything it does.

The old badge had well-documented fundamental issues, even after a raft of adjustments from its original incarnation, this new crest has no fundamental issues so it's an improvement at least, but it's just so very safe, almost like we are trying to blend in with the crowd rather than stand out from it.

You're right, there is no 'perfect' design, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try and find something that can set us apart.

We may well stick with the new design, and I wouldn't be mortified by that, but it would feel like there has been an opportunity missed, to me at least.

 

Edit: Just quickly on the Audio/Visual thing, in my opinion, a good Marketeer would use something like that to their advantage,  like Audio - our fans sing loud - Visual - we play beautiful football, or something like that. I think this is the kind of thing Mr Heck is very good at picking up on, so hopefully going forward we'll be making more use of what we have in a marketing sense.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Teale's 'tache
Added an additional thought

[allani]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

But that was always the plan - to replace everything with this badge.It's the recent decision not to use it that changes that.

Turning the Lion around was a disaster, I sat in a focus group meeting and we argued over it for a good forty minutes, just that, just turning the lion around, and which way was 'forward'. It doesn't face the way I would have liked and the way it faces was definitely club lead rather than fan lead (and in retrospect most likely driven by the desire not to be too Chelsea).

And that's exactly what this crest was designed to do - to have the ability to be used as the full badge, or just the lion or just the lion and the wording - all of that sort of stuff, different elements in different places - that's the (expensive) plan that's been abandoned.

I don't think the new badge is perfect, I've no real attachment to it, but it is was it is, it was worked through with a lot of stakeholders and decided on by fans.

By the time you marry your fourth wife, people don't really think you believe in marriage any more - I think that's where we are - another change of badge now and I think we'll end up changing it every four or five years forever as the next marketing guru arrives - I think the club loses something in becoming that.

We've just done this - it seems pointless to do it again, like knocking down the North Stand in 2029 and building a new one.

 

The trouble is that the badge completely fails in its objective - to be a unique identifier of Aston Villa.  You put it in a table with all the other PL badges and it fades into the background.  It looks too similar to so many other badges that we've had to change the main constituent part of it for no other reason that to try and make it look a little bit less like Chelsea.  That is just **** design.  I'm sorry but there is no other way of phrasing it.  The fans were effectively given the choice between a bad design that was roughly in line with what people said they wanted or an incomplete alternative that ignored some of the fundamental components that fans said they wanted.

The Spurs badge is a good comparison - you can see their badge in silhouette, any colours, from different angles, from a distance, etc - and you immediately know it is Spurs.  Whether you like their badge or not - it does what it is supposed to do.  Ours doesn't.  So it isn't fit for purpose.  And I guarantee that if you'd asked fans whether the lion should have right or left then the %age of people saying it needed to change would have been tiny - so I don't buy the whole it was decided by the fans.

I'd maybe be more prepared to "accept" the new design (even if it looks like it has been picked off a shelf rather than uniquely designed for us) IF the lion had been facing the correct way.  Maybe a bit underwhelmed - but hey it's unlikely that everyone is going to like anything that Heck and his team come up with, so I'd just have to suck that up.  But the lion direction REALLY annoys me - it would have meant massive changes to so much of the branding around the club, training ground, etc at huge cost, plus we've "thrown away" 140 odd years of history and all because (as far as anyone can tell) it was the "easiest" way to make it look less like Chelsea.  We deserve better. 

Also if the design that the fans "wanted" did like too much like the Chelsea badge then the club and the branding team should have come out - as experts in the field - and explained to fans why this was a problem and why we needed to do something to make it stand out.  They should have come up with some proper alternatives and worked with fans / focus groups to try and explore options that could combine elements of what was wanted but still end up with a distinctive and recognisable "brand".  They should also have spent more time showing people the "art of the possible".  There are plenty of designs on this thread that I don't like, but there are also plenty that make you think "hmmm... it would have been interesting to explore that idea a bit further".

[allani]

1 hour ago, Teale's 'tache said:

This is the problem for me, settling for something because it's not too bad, I think the club as a whole should demand better than that in everything it does.

The old badge had well-documented fundamental issues, even after a raft of adjustments from its original incarnation, this new crest has no fundamental issues so it's an improvement at least, but it's just so very safe, almost like we are trying to blend in with the crowd rather than stand out from it.

You're right, there is no 'perfect' design, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try and find something that can set us apart.

We may well stick with the new design, and I wouldn't be mortified by that, but it would feel like there has been an opportunity missed, to me at least.

 

Edit: Just quickly on the Audio/Visual thing, in my opinion, a good Marketeer would use something like that to their advantage,  like Audio - our fans sing loud - Visual - we play beautiful football, or something like that. I think this is the kind of thing Mr Heck is very good at picking up on, so hopefully going forward we'll be making more use of what we have in a marketing sense.

Exactly - it would be a bit like sticking with Dean Smith (who was a LOT better than just not too bad) just because he was better than Bruce.  Admittedly we got his initial replacement badly wrong.  But we are without doubt in a significantly better position now with Emery in charge.

PS - I think you're clutching at straws with the Audio / Visual bit.  I don't think that people would look at the design and assume that AV means audio / visual, especially with a lion in the centre.

[OutByEaster?]

3 hours ago, allani said:

PS - I think you're clutching at straws with the Audio / Visual bit.  I don't think that people would look at the design and assume that AV means audio / visual, especially with a lion in the centre.

The design team did. It was specifically stated as an important point at the consultancy meetings. 

[brommy]

10 hours ago, maqroll said:

Boom, sorted.

Getting there. The teeth should alternate claret and blue and there should be a single star on the end of a wobbly spring attached to an alice band the lion wears.

[OutByEaster?]

Have there been any AI created badges in this thread?

 

[villa4europe]

lyon going with their own throwback badge for this season - 

its from the 89-96 seasons, i think thats class and they should keep it, strange how they dipped it to their past and to me managed to have something that now looks modern and different

[CarryOnVilla]

Out of curiosity, what was everyone’s option on the rubber badges?

I personally liked them, particularly being able to add the fine details in the lion 

[S-Platt]

4 hours ago, CarryOnVilla said:

Out of curiosity, what was everyone’s option on the rubber badges?

I personally liked them, particularly being able to add the fine details in the lion 

Rubber badges were class.  Only issue since we got involved with fanatics is that whoever creates the kit logos and sponsors peel off in the wash after a while.  This never happened before.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Kids membership pack arrived today and there’s a bag with the new crest on it. It looks really good and a lot better than the old one.  I reckon they might keep it.

[Captain_Townsend]

Hopefully they either keep the new one or improve it (turn thr lion left, sort thr monochrome version etc) or St the very least ditch the Lerner one

[Xela]

I reckon we should keep the current two, utilise the gas lamp one, and then have 4 more designed. Different badge for each day of the week, 

Think of the all the different hats/caps/scarves we could sell.

[villan95]

Both badges in the same picture again