Future Club Crest & Brand Identity

[allani]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

I keep seeing this and frankly it's laughable. 

Our "animal" is a lion. 

So is theirs. 

Other than dropping the lion I don't see what we can do. The badges are both round. We've had a round badge for long stretches of our history. 

But the badges are just not going to get confused. 

The lion is massively different in style. Our Lion is curvy and muscular. Chelsea Lion looks bedraggled and starving like it's been lame and having to live off scavaging. 

They're different colours

They're facing different ways 

Chelsea lion has stolen a crossing ladies lollipop 

Their badge has footballs and flowers on it

Our badge has a date 

Our badge has a star

Chelsea lion has a tongue 

Our lion has the head facing forwards

Chelsea lion has its head turned. 

Frankly if you get the badges confused you must be brain damaged or something. 

 

Change our lion to face the way that it should face - to the left and not to the right.  And then do the same comparison - but in black and white and from a few feet away.  The badges are so similar it is untrue.  I think the designers twigged that at the end and the easiest option was to turn our lion to face the other way.  Easiest for them - but massively expensive because it would mean having to change so many fixtures and fittings around the ground / training ground / etc.  If the lion had become simpler (or more elaborate) but was still similar enough then a few old fixtures still having the old style would be acceptable and a nod to a previous iteration.  A fundamental change like changing the direction immediately makes them all look wrong and confusing.  It was an appalling idea.  IF the rest of the badge / design had been sensational then maybe it's a change I could get used to over time.  But when the rest of it is (in my opinion) uninspiring and too similar to other styles then it is a pointless and very expensive exercise to cover over a poorly executed design.

[OutByEaster?]

20 minutes ago, allani said:

Pretty sure that the owners were the ones that didn't like the new badge, didn't like the new kit and that these were major reasons for hiring someone who has a really good, global reputation for getting these things right (allbeit in a different sport). 

I think that's right, but maybe for the wrong reasons - I don't think the owners will care too much about the aesthetics of kit and badge, I'm not sure they're overly bothered about whether or not they 'like' the shirt.

What they didn't like was that the club wasn't generating sufficient revenues from it's main marketable sponsorship products - the shirt front and the sleeve. For the owners, Heck's marketing skills aren't about how pretty he made the 76'ers, for them it'll be about how much income he can generate from the sale of the front of the shirt and the sale of the sleeve (and matchday revenues) and to do that he's charged with raising interest in us. They want more money from our brand.

He will have persuaded them that given the scope to change a couple of things he can deliver that interest and behind it, deliver on those revenues - one of those things he feels needs to change to do that will have been the crest.

The value of Heck, the thing that will define him as a success or failure either next season or whenever the BK8 deal is ended is how much money he can get on the front of the shirt - he'll know that and if we have to have a bit of chaos to get him into the best position to deliver that, I don't think he'll back away from that at all. I think he'll be ruthless in delivering on his aim and his aim is to raise our top line.

[Spoony]

This whole saga has made me basically support the amended Lerner badge. 

[Spoony]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

It's interesting that 77% of Villa fans disagreed with you on that when it was launched. 77% is an extraordinarily high number on this sort of thing - a landslide - you'd struggle to find 77% of Villa fans that agree on anything.

I think it'd be interesting to see if that figure was the same today as it was when it was introduced, I reckon it''d be significantly lower.

The choice of the round badge was a weird and potent mixture of fashion and nostalgia, which made it very popular with the fanbase, but fashion changes fast - I think if anything that's the lesson we should be learning - and the thing we should avoid, a badge doesn't need to be 'current' or 'of it's time' - in fact, I'd suggest that maybe it shouldn't be.

I know I get on my soapbox a bit on this topic, but for me the crest should be about the values of the club and what we represent - regardless of whether those values have ideal 'optics' for commercial purposes - I don't believe that the purpose the badge or crest is to make selling stuff easier, I just don't think that's what it's for, I very much doubt that view will prevail.

 

Tbh I think it tells us that fans shouldn’t decide it. I wonder if 77% still support it seeing how naff it looks on kits and on social media

[OutByEaster?]

21 minutes ago, allani said:

I'm a little nervous about having too many fans involved or even putting it to a general / widespread vote - designing by committee rarely works well and stifles creativity.  I'd like the club / design team to get some fairly loose ideas on what the badge should mean (rather than asking for a list of design elements) and then use that to come up with a good selection of 4 or 5 quite different interpretations for further discussion.  There are plenty of Villa fans who have experience in the industry and / or are heavily involved in particular fan groups who could assist in ensuring that the badge / future kits reflect our history but also make us more unique and easily identifiable.  That way there's still a sense of fan involvement but hopefully we can avoid getting too side-tracked by a lack of creative thinking.  By the way creative thinking doesn't mean that we have to end up with something radically different - just as innovation doesn't mean coming up with something wild and whacky just to be different.  But I think there are several things that have a deep symbolic meaning to Villa and finding a way to combine some of those whilst retaining a clarity / simplicity of design is something that could be very striking without being constrained by a list of fixed "demands". 

I agree - less fan isn't necessarily a bad thing in design - I don't actually think the last process was too far off this, but I suspect that the designs that were presented were heavily influenced by the CEO (rather than fans).

It's worth remembering that they don't have a completely blank canvas - there are things that can't change, or at least not without a documented meaningful consultation with supporters - last time out for example, they surveyed fans and a huge majority said that the badge must have a lion - they couldn't at that point remove the lion without falling foul of governmental/football authority approval issues.

Like you say though, a few rules and guidelines shouldn't be a barrier to creativity - I have personal preferences, I'm sure most people do, the chap from MoMs for example wanted a much more radical approach, more akin to the Juventus rebranding, which I'd have hated, but there's no reason not to explore these things. Let the designers design, let the marketeers, those that will use the badge, decide on it, then let fans approve.

[OutByEaster?]

18 minutes ago, allani said:

Change our lion to face the way that it should face - to the left and not to the right.

You would not believe the amount of time we spent arguing for this in the consultation meetings, we had three or four meetings, six or seven hours in all, and we were only one set of a number of groups consulted - I suspect we spent maybe a third of our time arguing exclusively that the lion was facing the wrong way - and we'd have argued about that for a lot longer given the chance.

[allani]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think that's right, but maybe for the wrong reasons - I don't think the owners will care too much about the aesthetics of kit and badge, I'm not sure they're overly bothered about whether or not they 'like' the shirt.

What they didn't like was that the club wasn't generating sufficient revenues from it's main marketable sponsorship products - the shirt front and the sleeve. For the owners, Heck's marketing skills aren't about how pretty he made the 76'ers, for them it'll be about how much income he can generate from the sale of the front of the shirt and the sale of the sleeve (and matchday revenues) and to do that he's charged with raising interest in us. They want more money from our brand.

He will have persuaded them that given the scope to change a couple of things he can deliver that interest and behind it, deliver on those revenues - one of those things he feels needs to change to do that will have been the crest.

The value of Heck, the thing that will define him as a success or failure either next season or whenever the BK8 deal is ended is how much money he can get on the front of the shirt - he'll know that and if we have to have a bit of chaos to get him the best position to deliver that, I don't think he'll back away from that at all. I think he'll be ruthless in delivering on his aim and his aim is to raise our top line.

I actually think that the owners are probably more interested in the aesthetics or the kit and the badge than you suggest - really good "branding" is a fantastic way of raising the profile of your business and attracting new clients.  You might be right that their "interest" is financially motivated rather than out of personal choice - but I do think that they will have been very aware of the feedback on the sponsor, the general sense that the new badge was underwhelming (and that many early views outside Villa Park were that we'd copied Chelsea's badge) and I don't suppose that they are unaware of the debacle that has seen us, West Ham and Burnley all being accused of wearing a knock-off version of another team's kit.  Being talked about as a club copying Chelsea's badge or having a kit that could be a West Ham kit is the kind of thing that could put off sponsors / investment.  Clearly on the pitch success is key - but sponsors will want people to know that they are associated with a successful team and not see a shirt from a distance and think "I didn't know X sponsored Burnley".

But absolutely - Heck needs to get a good name on the front of our shirt (and ideally some good ones on the sleeves, at the ground) for a good price.  I don't think it is all about the hard numbers (as we have found out this season) - we need a brand that we, as fans, are happy to represent our club.  I don't think he's got much to beat - the question is how big a name / number can he bring in.  If he can do that and give us a badge / kit that looks great then all the better.

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, allani said:

But absolutely - Heck needs to get a good name on the front of our shirt (and ideally some good ones on the sleeves, at the ground) for a good price.  I don't think it is all about the hard numbers (as we have found out this season) - we need a brand that we, as fans, are happy to represent our club.  I don't think he's got much to beat - the question is how big a name / number can he bring in.  If he can do that and give us a badge / kit that looks great then all the better.

I think it will be about the hard numbers - our current owners have partnered with a company rumoured to be a front for Chinese triad gambling organisations because they were the highest offer we could find. I don't think their disappointment is with the ethical issue, I think they want a higher offer - so they've bought in a man to do that.

In terms of the aesthetic, I think they know enough not to let their personal opinions hold any sway, they've bought in a man who promises them more money, if he delivers that, even if they think the things he's doing are ugly, I think they'll be very happy.

More money helps us win, and the purpose of the badge is to make us easier to sell.

 

[Spoony]

No round badge. Too many clubs have them. It isn’t part of our identity it’s just nostalgia for 1982.

And on that for the love of god get rid of the star. It’s so small time and one cup win does not define our identity.

Focus on the name and the lion. Lion, Aston Villa. It really doesn’t need anything else. All the round badges are  instantly forgettable IMO. I prefer the likes of what Spurs and Liverpool have done. 

[OutByEaster?]

The stripped down lion and year thing - the one we see on the blazers, that worries me.

I think it's beautiful.

But it's very much a right-now kind of beauty, it's on-trend, it works and it's a very sellable design. It'll be outdated in two years and need replacing. That's what I'd like to avoid, the constant state of change around the badge/crest. 

Sure is pretty though.

Maybe it's just something I need to get used to, that the future of club crests is similar to that of club kits - the colours stay the same but we get a new one every year. I dunno, it just feels to me that it shouldn't be something so disposable.

[allani]

9 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I agree - less fan isn't necessarily a bad thing in design - I don't actually think the last process was too far off this, but I suspect that the designs that were presented were heavily influenced by the CEO (rather than fans).

It's worth remembering that they don't have a completely blank canvas - there are things that can't change, or at least not without a documented meaningful consultation with supporters - last time out for example, they surveyed fans and a huge majority said that the badge must have a lion - they couldn't at that point remove the lion without falling foul of governmental/football authority approval issues.

Like you say though, a few rules and guidelines shouldn't be a barrier to creativity - I have personal preferences, I'm sure most people do, the chap from MoMs for example wanted a much more radical approach, more akin to the Juventus rebranding, which I'd have hated, but there's no reason not to explore these things. Let the designers design, let the marketeers, those that will use the badge, decide on it, then let fans approve.

100% agreed.  And I think that's why I think the input should be more about the meaning behind the badge or thoughts on what is good / bad about previous designs - rather than specifying design elements (as there's already a pretty clear list of those that would be difficult to change).

That said I do wonder whether one of the design concepts put forward shouldn't be completely off the wall and maybe not feature a lion.  After all our nickname is Villans rather than Lions and so I'd like to maybe see a Villans option (if nothing else then the design concept could be used on some of our leisure wear).  I'm pretty sure that I'd prefer to keep the lion as our main symbol but I'd be interested in giving someone free reign to try something where the lion is less prominent.  It could cause carnage / chaos in terms of a fan reaction - but sometimes even if the wild choice isn't one that people pick it might make them view the other options in a different (more unconstrained) way.

[OutByEaster?]

8 minutes ago, allani said:

That said I do wonder whether one of the design concepts put forward shouldn't be completely off the wall and maybe not feature a lion.  After all our nickname is Villans rather than Lions and so I'd like to maybe see a Villans option (if nothing else then the design concept could be used on some of our leisure wear).  I'm pretty sure that I'd prefer to keep the lion as our main symbol but I'd be interested in giving someone free reign to try something where the lion is less prominent.  It could cause carnage / chaos in terms of a fan reaction - but sometimes even if the wild choice isn't one that people pick it might make them view the other options in a different (more unconstrained) way.

I agree on the principle - let the creative people be creative - but on the Lion thing, I think the chaos/carnage of fan reaction of removing it would see it refused by the league/governmental group and rules that were set up following the Cardiff debacle. I don't think they're allowed the freedom to go completely wild.

 

 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

12 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

The stripped down lion and year thing - the one we see on the blazers, that worries me.

I think it's beautiful.

But it's very much a right-now kind of beauty, it's on-trend, it works and it's a very sellable design. It'll be outdated in two years and need replacing. That's what I'd like to avoid, the constant state of change around the badge/crest. 

Sure is pretty though.

Maybe it's just something I need to get used to, that the future of club crests is similar to that of club kits - the colours stay the same but we get a new one every year. I dunno, it just feels to me that it shouldn't be something so disposable.

In fairness, there is more chance of what you describe, happening to the current crests, than the minimalist  Lion crest.

The advantage of having it so minimalist is that it can be added to, evolved,.manipulated and updates as time goes by etc. And on different media.

[allani]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

The stripped down lion and year thing - the one we see on the blazers, that worries me.

I think it's beautiful.

But it's very much a right-now kind of beauty, it's on-trend, it works and it's a very sellable design. It'll be outdated in two years and need replacing. That's what I'd like to avoid, the constant state of change around the badge/crest. 

Sure is pretty though.

Maybe it's just something I need to get used to, that the future of club crests is similar to that of club kits - the colours stay the same but we get a new one every year. I dunno, it just feels to me that it shouldn't be something so disposable.

Isn't it just a case of using elements from the overall brand to deliver something to meet a specific purpose.  I mean the lion and the year are "ours" and so they are both elements that remain consistent with the overall brand.  Does being able to use elements from the badge in a different way (even tweaking them slightly) mean that the overall brand is more future-proof?  You don't need to change the overall badge as often to create something "edgy" if the individual components are all distinctive enough and they all shout Aston Villa individually as well as collectively.  (I know you've talked before about how important it was for the lion to be able to be used on its own)

[OutByEaster?]

10 minutes ago, allani said:

Isn't it just a case of using elements from the overall brand to deliver something to meet a specific purpose.  I mean the lion and the year are "ours" and so they are both elements that remain consistent with the overall brand.  Does being able to use elements from the badge in a different way (even tweaking them slightly) mean that the overall brand is more future-proof?  You don't need to change the overall badge as often to create something "edgy" if the individual components are all distinctive enough and they all shout Aston Villa individually as well as collectively.  (I know you've talked before about how important it was for the lion to be able to be used on its own)

For the round badge, the design team produced exactly this, and discussed it with us in detail, naming the element 'the lion unleashed' - weirdly, we've taken their design principle but not their element to produce our 'blazer' badge - and it appears everywhere, in our marketing, as the watermark on our youtube stuff, in player interviews - it's as visible an badge element as any, although I'm not sure its parts exactly match any current badge.

Absolutely, yes - I'm not against that design per se - but it seems to be very much the 'thing' in crests at the moment to just have a single element and a word - what Spurs did. They don't add anything to theirs, where Liverpool for example went with just the bird and a word (everybody's heard that right?) but then also retained their traditional crest which they used in lots of other places and also contains the bird.

Perhaps what I'm saying is that in this case the way to less is more - bring everything and take bits away. I wouldn't want us to go with just the lion alone without that other back up and there seems to be a little bit of a quiet marketing campaign for us to do just that.

 

 

 

[allani]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

I agree on the principle - let the creative people be creative - but on the Lion thing, I think the chaos/carnage of fan reaction of removing it would see it refused by the league/governmental group and rules that were set up following the Cardiff debacle. I don't think they're allowed the freedom to go completely wild.

Sorry - I probably wasn't clear enough.  I'm not suggesting that a non-lion / Villan theme should be implemented unless it had absolutely massive support from the fans (like almost universal support).  I'd like to see it as a proposed idea (ideally one of 4 or 5) rather than just selected and presented as THE new design.  It is possible that it is SO good that we all look at it and go "Wow yes please" - but I think it's usefulness would more likely be about opening people's eyes a bit and looking at the other designs from the perspective of "what is possible" rather than "can we make it look like it did when I was a kid".  (That's not to say that the former is right and the latter is wrong in terms of the direction we should take.)  Like I say at worst I think it could make for a good range in the leisure wear area. 

I'd also hope that the review of the 4 or 5 options is more about - we like this element of Badge A, but not this element and we prefer this part of Part B.  It might be that the final design comprises elements from different drafts that actually then work really well together. 

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, allani said:

Sorry - I probably wasn't clear enough. 

Not at all, I got that from you, I probably wasn't clear in enough in my reply.

 

[allani]

4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

For the round badge, the design team produced exactly this, and discussed it with us in detail, naming the element 'the lion unleashed' - weirdly, we've taken their design principle but not their element to produce our 'blazer' badge - and it appears everywhere, in our marketing, as the watermark on our youtube stuff, in player interviews - it's as visible an badge element as any, although I'm not sure its parts exactly match any current badge.

Absolutely, yes - I'm not against that design per se - but it seems to be very much the 'thing' in crests at the moment to just have a single element and a word - what Spurs did. They don't add anything to theirs, where Liverpool for example went with just the bird and a word (everybody's heard that right?) but then also retained their traditional crest which they used in lots of other places and also contains the bird.

Perhaps what I'm saying is that in this case the way to less is more - bring everything and take bits away. I wouldn't want us to go with just the lion alone without that other back up and there seems to be a little bit of a quiet marketing campaign for us to do just that.

Ah OK - with you now.  In that case I would agree.  I think I'd like us to have a shield of some shape (ideally something pretty unique to Villa) with the lion inside - that way you can use either the lion or (for example only) a gaslight, or 1874 or the AV font of the old floodlights either together (as a single badge) or individually in different ways and still in each context you don't need the words Aston Villa because it is blatantly obvious that it's us.  So a slightly more complex "badge" that allows you to use a wider selection of simpler impressions to represent it in different scenarios.

[DJBOB]

34 minutes ago, allani said:

100% agreed.  And I think that's why I think the input should be more about the meaning behind the badge or thoughts on what is good / bad about previous designs - rather than specifying design elements (as there's already a pretty clear list of those that would be difficult to change).

That said I do wonder whether one of the design concepts put forward shouldn't be completely off the wall and maybe not feature a lion.  After all our nickname is Villans rather than Lions and so I'd like to maybe see a Villans option (if nothing else then the design concept could be used on some of our leisure wear).  I'm pretty sure that I'd prefer to keep the lion as our main symbol but I'd be interested in giving someone free reign to try something where the lion is less prominent.  It could cause carnage / chaos in terms of a fan reaction - but sometimes even if the wild choice isn't one that people pick it might make them view the other options in a different (more unconstrained) way.

Hard not to see this happening to be honest considering they had the Vegas Villains as a real interest. 

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, allani said:

Ah OK - with you now.  In that case I would agree.  I think I'd like us to have a shield of some shape (ideally something pretty unique to Villa) with the lion inside - that way you can use either the lion or (for example only) a gaslight, or 1874 or the AV font of the old floodlights either together (as a single badge) or individually in different ways and still in each context you don't need the words Aston Villa because it is blatantly obvious that it's us.  So a slightly more complex "badge" that allows you to use a wider selection of simpler impressions to represent it in different scenarios.

I completely agree.

One interesting one on the use of AV in any lettering or form is that the design and marketing companies hate it - in foreign markets it's Audio Visual or Audio Visual Football Club, it confuses people who don't know us and they very much wanted to get away from it. With this management team very much driven by the marketing numbers and the desire to maximise incomes for the brand, I'd be astonished if we see the initials back again any time soon.