Calling all Aston Villa supporters…
In June this year, we announced our intention to review how we visually present Aston Villa in the future; this review will include changing our current crest.
We want to examine elements including the crest’s shape, the way we showcase our unique name and how we use our colours as powerfully as possible to represent our modern-day club with such a rich heritage.
As a significant part of this process, we want to invite true claret and blue fans to give us their views.
We’re now sharing the first step in this process, which is all about understanding your views on how the club looks today, what you think of our crest, what you like in the broader world of football club crests, and what’s important to you in what might change about the way our own club looks in the future.
AVFC club crest supporters’ survey
We’re sharing this invite with a wide body of Aston Villa fans, and so it takes the form of a digital survey, using multiple choice questions.
We want your instinctive views on the questions asked, and we anticipate it should take around 10-15mins of your time.
What we learn from this survey will be combined with what we learn from other activities we’re undertaking as part of this process, including running in-person sessions with our fan groups, to help us stay informed and connected to you, our fans, as we conduct our review and any subsequent design work.
Please take part by Wednesday, August 31.
Thank you, as always, for your magnificent support.
Aston Villa club crest review
Why is this happening now?
There’s nothing like looking back to inspire you for the future. The 2021/22 season has been the 40th anniversary of our European Cup victory in 1982; we’ve celebrated together, but now we’re looking to focus on what’s ahead of us. There is strong momentum in this club, on and off the pitch - from men’s and women’s progress in their respective top tiers of football, to our new High Performance Centre at Bodymoor Heath, stadium redevelopment plans and beyond - and we need to make sure we do justice to the progressive club we are in the way we look too. Making changes to the club crest is something other Premier League clubs have been doing in recent times and we need to do the same to keep ahead, keep standing out and show the very best side of ourselves across everything we do.
How can fans input?
You can register your interest in taking part here. We will be running sessions with our Fans Consultation Group, as well as bringing together a representative sample of Villa fans at the right moments in the process, to have some discussion around the possibilities for change and what it could look like. We’re not going to run public or fan polls to show development, but we will ensure that fan voices are present at important decision-making steps. We want you to be proud to wear it.
What’s the timeframe for this change?
This is an important exercise and we want to get it right, with the right inputs and opinions, rather than rush it. As a result, this is not something you can expect to see in the 2022/23 season.
What’s wrong with the current crest?
The current crest isn’t weak; it’s served us perfectly well until now. However, we know that it doesn’t always stand out as it should in some of the places it is used, and when we look at it vs other Premier League clubs, the most powerful elements of our crest aren’t as powerful as they could be. It needs to look as strong as it can across both physical and digital uses, and from small format to large format uses; so this has to be factored into the design. Overall, this process means we have the opportunity to look the way we should; a competitive, unique modern club with a rich heritage.
What changes will be explored?
There are a number of elements we’ll look at. The shape; could a more rounded badge have more impact and work better across different places it exists, for example? Is the balance of colour right? Also, how should we use our name? Is it ‘AVFC’ or should we be using Aston Villa, given how distinctive a name it is? This isn’t a process of starting from scratch, it’s a process of thinking about the role of each element so it comes together in the strongest of ways to represent us brilliantly. It’s not just the crest, it’s about how our whole design world looks, in every part of what we do, from our Academy to matchdays at Villa Park, to our social media channels.