Earlier this year we announced our intention to carry out a review of how we visually present Aston Villa Football Club and outlined that a review of our current club crest would form part of this process.
In this announcement we confirmed that it was our intention to involve you, the fans, in the review, to make sure that any changes take into account what is important to you.
Earlier this month we confirmed that nearly 13,000 Villa fans had completed a digital survey to share their views on the crest and our wider visual identity.
In addition, from the 6,500 fans who initially registered interest in being involved, we asked if any would like to continue sharing their views with us on this project. We subsequently formed a steering group made up of 24 supporters randomly selected from the fanbase across a range of ages and including our internationally based fans.
They all have taken part in discussions with club officials and we have also consulted with our officially constituted Fan Consultation Group (FCG). Thank you again to all our supporters who took part at this stage in the process.
Our learnings from fans to guide us were:
- The current crest does not represent Aston Villa well
- There is no emotional attachment from supporters to the current crest
- Fans told us that they think there should be a better way of representing the club and our values in a crest
- They said the Lion, name Aston Villa and our colours of claret and blue were fundamental to the crest
- Some liked the idea of the date of our foundation being included
- The star to signify the European Cup win was welcomed, but not viewed by some as essential
- There is room for exploration in the shape of the crest to balance our history while remaining unique
The invaluable input we received as part of this consultation helped us get a clear sense of what is important to the majority of fans as we look to evolve our identity into one that reflects our unique heritage as well as our status as a modern Premier League football club.
These insights have been used to directly support the creative development of possible new and evolved crest designs, and on Tuesday, September 20 we invited fan groups, including the FCG, to preview the progress that has been made.
During the meeting the groups were given an overview of the feedback collected from the initial phase of fan consultation, along with variations of multiple work-in-progress crest designs.
The purpose of these fan sessions was not to present final versions of possible crests, but instead to present variations in order to get feedback on the preferred use of elements, possible lion variations, the crest shape, use of our name and colour.
The comments and contributions made were insightful and constructive, and whilst, as expected, a broad range of views were shared, there were also consistent themes that materialised, particularly around how the lion should appear on the crest, how the name ‘Aston Villa’ should be used and the balance of colour.
The feedback provided will now be used to further guide the creative process and the design of refined crest options.
As we have done throughout, we will then look to test how any suitable options work in important areas the crest is used, from future kits to our stadium to social media and broadcast.
Our priority as we continue the process will be continuing consultation with our supporters. We take the responsibility of considering changes to our crest very seriously and therefore fan groups will again be invited to preview and comment on new designs prior to any decision being made on the future of our crest. We will also discuss with these fans groups how best to share designs with the entire Aston Villa supporter base and will provide further updates in the coming weeks.
We are excited to be one step closer to delivering you a crest that represents the heritage and ambition of the club, and we’d like to once again thank all our fans for stepping forward and playing their role in this process so far.
