Project delivered on time and on budget!
Well, the timing might not have been any more sophisticated than “get as much done as possible for May 2nd” and the budget may have been precisely zero, but it was still on time and certainly didn’t go over budget.
However, I’m a little late updating the AWAY!! blog. Yeah, I know, sorry about that.
New logo
Nevertheless, the new Aston Villa Central logo was updated everywhere during the early hours UK time and the updated layout and style changes followed seamlessly on the website. Here are the logos, old and new:
The new logo – or “badge” might be a better term – is based heavily on the old Aston Villa Football Club badge from the 1970′s and 1980′s; the colour scheme is different and it’s been freshened up using a few gradients and drop shadows.
The aim was to produce something more obviously relating to Aston Villa while also making the Aston Villa Central name more prominent. The feedback has been generally pretty positive, so mission accomplished I think.
New site layout
However, the new logo did force the design of a new layout for the site. I was never really happy with the previous layout, so it provided a convenient catalyst.
Here’s the before and after:
The main menu bar in AVC v3.0 was getting lost; one or two users had let me know that they were completely unaware of the existence of the wallpaper mini-site, let alone The Villa Wire and Aston Twitter. That was the main reason for the redesign in v3.5 and, although I think the four sections were made much clearer, I was never entirely satisfied with the design.
AVC v3.6 is much closer to what I had in mind several years ago, the new tabbed interface providing a much cleaner layout. Well, I think so anyway.
30th anniversary infographic
The deadline for these changes was May 2nd. Why? Because it was the 30th anniversary of Aston Villa’s last English league title and I’d been planning on putting together an infographic detailing the club careers of the 14 players used during the 1980/81 season; an amazing accomplishment. I thought it would be entirely fitting to simultaneously launch the logo I’d been playing around with for some time.
So, it was this one simple idea, one piece of blog content, that spawned all this work. Here’s the final result and the full sized version is available at the Aston Villa blog.
It’s been worth it, but it’s a good example of what can happen if you don’t remain disciplined about the scope of a project!