GarethRDR Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Whole process has been penny-pinched wherever possible. It's not a rebrand, it's a de-brand. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 7 minutes ago, Aston_Villan4 said: The top line looks funky for sure Looks even worse on mobile, the crest overlaps the nav bar. One would assume they have worked on this for a good while. Did they not bother trying it in staging first? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 10 minutes ago, Stephen_Evans said: The club crest section of the website makes an interesting read. Apparently the badge will soon be round. It's an old article, not updated (unless you saw something else). "On brand" needs to do some house cleaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Other Mat Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 5 minutes ago, romavillan said: Really do not like the badge still, on all my trawls through free google fonts for headlines I've never though Medula One looked any good. Roboto is a decent readable screen font but I don't like the pairing much, I mean if you're going on a bog standard readable display font for your body copy it must be for practical readability reasons. There are no practical readability reasons for choosing Medula One and neither are particularly complimentary to the Alverata Black used in the logo, no relation that I can see. Maybe I'm getting old but I'm not that impressed with it, especially the badge, the drop shadow is a criminal act if you ask me. Looks maybe that the designer did it out of desperation when being forced to use the yellow lion on the light blue background. Hopefully the savings on this sort of stuff mean we get a big signing this summer... I'm with you on this. I was going post the same, awful typeface selection. The drop shadow on the logo is unforgivable. Feels like the agency threw in a 'filler' option and the client picked it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imavillan Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 1 hour ago, JPAngel said: I must say, I find it amusing how people have softened on the badge. When it first leaked, everyone was aghast at how bad it was. Social media was its usual dumpster fire self and was rife with people complaining about it. Now it's here and it's largely been met with a shrug of the shoulders and fans gaslighting other fans who don't find it to their taste. The internet is a funny place! That's not true. Not everyone was against it. There are plenty who were for it and liked it from day one. We/they were just not as vociferous as the same 20 or so regular posters on here who didn't like it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teale's 'tache Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 14 minutes ago, romavillan said: Really do not like the badge still, on all my trawls through free google fonts for headlines I've never though Medula One looked any good. Roboto is a decent readable screen font but I don't like the pairing much, I mean if you're going on a bog standard readable display font for your body copy it must be for practical readability reasons. There are no practical readability reasons for choosing Medula One and neither are particularly complimentary to the Alverata Black used in the logo, no relation that I can see. Maybe I'm getting old but I'm not that impressed with it, especially the badge, the drop shadow is a criminal act if you ask me. Looks maybe that the designer did it out of desperation when being forced to use the yellow lion on the light blue background. Hopefully the savings on this sort of stuff mean we get a big signing this summer... It's only really the colour scheme that bothers me about the crest, there are other parts I would possibly change if it was up to me, but none of them are deal breakers. Personally, I quite like the font choices and pairing, I think they go together fine. As with any font choice, it depends on what you are picking the fonts for, just because Medula One didn't fit with things you were working on doesn't mean it doesn't work for us. Personally, I think it is okay maybe a little too much going on, but certainly, they could have chosen much worse, it's all opinion at the end of the day. Roboto is very widely used and for good reason, it's clean and legible and perfect for body text and not too bad for headings either, very much an all-rounder. Alverata I can't say I've used/seen before but I think it works for us, it seems quite elegant and refined, works well in different weights. It would have been nice to have custom ones made just for us, I've never made one myself, but I know they take a long time to get right and can get quite expensive, so it may simply be we didn't have the time/budget to go the custom route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teale's 'tache Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 45 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said: Could be, font licences are damn expensive, we got to think of PSR after all I think, after doing a bit of research, that there isn't actually a web font version to license, I can only seem to find desktop licences. So if there isn't a web font version then I guess using images is the only way to have it on the site, hence why it is used sparingly outside of obvious banners, no good for SEO mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teale's 'tache Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 17 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said: I feel a cheated about the medula one font. That brand video made out they customised a font based upon villa elements. But naa, just an off the shelf font Yeah me too, good fonts can take a long time to make from scratch though, not sure we really had the time frames for it, and they can get expensive as well so possibly a budgetary concern as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarryOnVilla Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 1 minute ago, Teale's 'tache said: I think, after doing a bit of research, that there isn't actually a web font version to license, I can only seem to find desktop licences. So if there isn't a web font version then I guess using images is the only way to have it on the site, hence why it is used sparingly outside of obvious banners, no good for SEO mind. Makes sense, but damn a quick message to the font creator and a signed Coutinho shirt, could have got it converted and licenced. Kind of poor that it can’t be used within the web design, outside of images Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarryOnVilla Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 2 minutes ago, Teale's 'tache said: Yeah me too, good fonts can take a long time to make from scratch though, not sure we really had the time frames for it, and they can get expensive as well so possibly a budgetary concern as well. Yeah, to get it done correctly would have taken ages and expensive. But on the flipside... It would of been uniquely Villa and only us having it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0Lamptey Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 7 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said: I feel cheated about the medula one font. That brand video made out they customised a font based upon villa elements. But naa, just an off the shelf font On the face of it, the video is nice, and the roll out is starting to introduce some consistency. Sorting out the colours and the fonts out is a big step forward. But it still all looks reverse engineered to me. There's a nice bit in the video where they pick out some of the ironwork in the gates and link it to the font, but then they've just picked an off the shelf font with some flourishes that are tenuous at best. I really like the 'A' pulled of the gates. Maybe they could have used that for the AV150 logo if it was so influential to the branding. They make a thing of the 1874 on the mosaic, but when translated to the badge it's just in very basic Helvetica(?) font with no character to it. The double outline and shield shape comes from an old V-neck shirt does it? There's nothing new or unique here. The website is looking better, but to me it's very generic and does nothing to make us stand out. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted May 31 VT Supporter Share Posted May 31 7 minutes ago, Teale's 'tache said: It's only really the colour scheme that bothers me about the crest, there are other parts I would possibly change if it was up to me, but none of them are deal breakers. Personally, I quite like the font choices and pairing, I think they go together fine. As with any font choice, it depends on what you are picking the fonts for, just because Medula One didn't fit with things you were working on doesn't mean it doesn't work for us. Personally, I think it is okay maybe a little too much going on, but certainly, they could have chosen much worse, it's all opinion at the end of the day. Roboto is very widely used and for good reason, it's clean and legible and perfect for body text and not too bad for headings either, very much an all-rounder. Alverata I can't say I've used/seen before but I think it works for us, it seems quite elegant and refined, works well in different weights. It would have been nice to have custom ones made just for us, I've never made one myself, but I know they take a long time to get right and can get quite expensive, so it may simply be we didn't have the time/budget to go the custom route. The yellow on blue is just mental, does not work and the drop shadow is some sort of desperate attempt to fix it that I doubt the designer himself would have picked as our crest. Yeah Roboto you can't really say anything about in terms of practicality, it's not winning any beauty contests but it's fine. Medula is in my opinion not very easy to read and isn't practical in my opinion, the only reason they might work as a pair is because Roboto would go with thousands of typefaces. Alverata isn't bad, but surely you'd pick a headline font that compliments it seeing as it's the core typeface of your new brand. If anything was going to be a custom font (IMO they all should be but hey) it should be the badge. Then maybe you use the source or "inspiration" of your badge font for the headlines. Anyway, I'd be going with something like the NYTs headline font to compliment Alverata, not Medula. Woudl work fine with Roboto too if they've picked that for it's practicality. Would take a long time to make a family that would work well in print and on screen across diff media and devices but for the badge no. You don't even need the whole alphabet. I'd be amazed if there weren't some incredibly talented graphic designers in Birmingham that would have done some amazing work given the chance. All subjective I suppose but there are some rules to decent typography... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teale's 'tache Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 3 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said: Makes sense, but damn a quick message to the font creator and a signed Coutinho shirt, could have got it converted and licenced. Kind of poor that it can’t be used within the web design, outside of images Interestingly I think it was originally chosen by Dragon Rouge judging by this bit of branding they produced So it's a little surprising they decided to keep it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted May 31 VT Supporter Share Posted May 31 27 minutes ago, GarethRDR said: Whole process has been penny-pinched wherever possible. It's not a rebrand, it's a de-brand. Yeah it doesn't look like they've put much budget in to doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen_Evans Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 22 minutes ago, Mic09 said: It's an old article, not updated (unless you saw something else). "On brand" needs to do some house cleaning. Yes I know 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarryOnVilla Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 19 minutes ago, Teale's 'tache said: Interestingly I think it was originally chosen by Dragon Rouge judging by this bit of branding they produced So it's a little surprising they decided to keep it Ahhh yeah it is… Odd that Dragon Rouge using a font that didn’t have a web version too. you’d think the creative director would of made sure of that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teale's 'tache Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 3 minutes ago, romavillan said: The yellow on blue is just mental, does not work and the drop shadow is some sort of desperate attempt to fix it that I doubt the designer himself would have picked as our crest. Yeah Roboto you can't really say anything about in terms of practicality, it's not winning any beauty contests but it's fine. Medula is in my opinion not very easy to read and isn't practical in my opinion, the only reason they might work as a pair is because Roboto would go with thousands of typefaces. Alverata isn't bad, but surely you'd pick a headline font that compliments it seeing as it's the core typeface of your new brand. If anything was going to be a custom font (IMO they all should be but hey) it should be the badge. Then maybe you use the source or "inspiration" of your badge font for the headlines. Anyway, I'd be going with something like the NYTs headline font to compliment Alverata, not Medula. Woudl work fine with Roboto too if they've picked that for it's practicality. Would take a long time to make a family that would work well in print and on screen across diff media and devices but for the badge no. You don't even need the whole alphabet. I'd be amazed if there weren't some incredibly talented graphic designers in Birmingham that would have done some amazing work given the chance. All subjective I suppose but there are some rules to decent typography... I don't know why the colours didn't change, I'd guess they wanted to keep as much continuity with the current brand as they could whilst evolving other parts, just goes to show how a bad design decision can stick around like a bad smell. I've no doubts the designer didn't want to keep it. I don't think Medula One is unreadable, it could be better of course, but it is saved somewhat by mainly being used quite large, in headings .etc If they started trying to use it very small they'd run into issues. What I really don't like about it is the capital 'E', that is going to bug me for a while, but I'll get over it eventually. Roboto does work with most things, mainly because it's a bit beige it allows the font paired with it to be a bit more flamboyant, which I think works in this case as Medula One is nothing if not flamboyant, possibly too much so. Alverata is quite sensible as well, so again I think that allows the Medula One to do all the shouting. It's all opinion though, if you don't like them that's understandable, everybody has different tastes, they probably aren't the fonts I'd have picked, but there you go. Sure if you only want to use the letters in 'Aston Villa' then it wouldn't take quite so long to make a font, especially if it's only to be used in one place as a graphic, but it's only a matter of time until you'd need/want to use it on something else and then you'd need the whole lot doing anyway. Personally, I'd much prefer a set of font families unique to us, unavailable for others to use, and really set our brand apart as unique. It's something the likes of Samsung and Google have done, and probably lots of others too, I don't know why we haven't done that, it might be time factors, might be cost, I don't know, maybe it's something we'll look at down the line in a few years if we still have the same team in place and its time to evolve things again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imavillan Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Elmo has hinted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farlz Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 I like the badge and the branding video is great. Good job all round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teale's 'tache Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Quote They could have used a higher res image for the badge, it looks absolutly horrendous amateur levels of design. Moved this over from the kit thread by @OutByEaster?'s request @jim the image is an SVG (scalable vector graphic) which is a graphic file that can be scaled down or up without any loss of quality, so you can't technically get a higher resolution than what they have used, if it looks bad it is one of three reasons: The design itself doesn't scale down well, in this case the double border is the most likely issue with the lines being so close together, when it gets to a certain size they will become blurry. The pixel density of your screen, the higher it is in theory the better it can handle the scaling down, so with a lower density things will start to look rubbish sooner. The settings on your screen ie brightness, contrast, etc. can all affect how clean/clear things may look. I think it's probably number 1 more than anything, possibly with a bit of 3 thrown in depending on your settings, most phones have high pixel density nowadays if you are viewing on one, if you are viewing on an old monitor that might not have a great pixel density so could be a cause. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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