Aston Villa 150th Season Concept Kits

[Danny the Sheeb]

Despite being born and raised in Arkansas, I've been a fan of Aston Villa (thanks to my dad) since I was a kid.  With 2024 marking 150 years since the club's founding, I mocked up a set of kits that take inspiration from several different eras of Villa history.

 

(Yes, I know Adidas will make the kits next year, but I don't like using manufacturer-branded templates, so I'm using my own slightly awkward template instead.)

 

 

HOME KIT

 - No betting sponsors (or sleeve sponsors, although I care far less about that) in this household, so I used the Aston Villa Foundation instead.

 - I went back to the shield shape, but with the current lion.  I also moved the star representing the 1982 European Cup championship outside the shield, since I wanted it to be larger and more obnoxious.  It'll stand out much more from a distance this way.  In my research, I also realized Villa have never (as far as I can tell) used a crest with "Aston Villa Football Club" on it, so I decided to incorporate the full name.

 - The subtle halved design is a callback to the first Villa jerseys to use the famous claret and blue colors, worn from 1888 through the early 1890's.  I wanted to keep the classic claret-with-blue-sleeves design, though, so I used two shades of claret for the body.

 - The broad collar references the jerseys worn from the mid-1890's all the way through into the 1950's, during which time Villa had arguably one of the best clubs in the world.

 - While the modern Villa home kit comes with blue socks, claret ones were common from the 1890's into the 1920's, so they're first choice here.

 

CHANGE KIT

 - The basic design is obviously a reference to the European Cup-winning kit, but I also tried to incorporate a bit of the 1957 FA Cup-winning design (mostly just in the thicker pinstripes), which is the last time to date Villa have gotten their hands on the FA Cup.

 - The European Cup set came with white shorts, but since those belong with the home kit, they're included up there.

 

THIRD KIT

 - The horizontal stripes reflect the first ever Villa kit, but with some creative liberties taken.

[VampyrRabbit]

This is pretty good. The home and road are really good.

Some suggestions -

 

- The shade of claret is very purplish, and I would probably change it to a more classic looking shade to fit in with the theme of 150 years.

- Too much gold on the home. It makes sense having some gold on there, but it feels like there is way too much on the shirt.
- Aston Villa were the team that popularized Claret and Blue, so many teams followed in their footsteps and really the crest should be majority claret and blue, with the lion being claret. Also maybe use this seasons crest. The fans overwhelmingly voted for it as their new crest and Chris Heck (club president of business operations) decided to disregard that and introduce a new one without any fan consultation and imput. Also he decided to tell media to keep using the old Aston Villa logo, which the Daily Mirror (to their credit) decided to ignore and use the 2023-24 crest.  Heck says the decision to go back to  the old crest was due to the 2023-2024 crest "not having the desired impact", but considering that he told media to keep using the old one and that the 2023-2024 uniforms had serious quality issues which have affected sales, that lack of impact has a lot to do with him and nothing to do with the new crest, because he wants to go back to the old crest that the majority of fans had voted to change.
- The lack of the club motto on the shirt, which could go where the lion underneath the collar back is.

 

[Danny the Sheeb]

7 minutes ago, VampyrRabbit said:

This is pretty good. The home and road are really good.

Some suggestions -

 

- The shade of claret is very purplish, and I would probably change it to a more classic looking shade to fit in with the theme of 150 years.

- Too much gold on the home. It makes sense having some gold on there, but it feels like there is way too much on the shirt.
- Aston Villa were the team that popularized Claret and Blue, so many teams followed in their footsteps and really the crest should be majority claret and blue, with the lion being claret. Also maybe use this seasons crest. The fans overwhelmingly voted for it as their new crest and Chris Heck (club president of business operations) decided to disregard that and introduce a new one without any fan consultation and imput. Also he decided to tell media to keep using the old Aston Villa logo, which the Daily Mirror (to their credit) decided to ignore and use the 2023-24 crest.  Heck says the decision to go back to  the old crest was due to the 2023-2024 crest "not having the desired impact", but considering that he told media to keep using the old one and that the 2023-2024 uniforms had serious quality issues which have affected sales, that lack of impact has a lot to do with him and nothing to do with the new crest, because he wants to go back to the old crest that the majority of fans had voted to change.
- The lack of the club motto on the shirt, which could go where the lion underneath the collar back is.

 

Thanks for the feedback.  Going point-by-point:

 - I grabbed the shade of claret from the Wikipedia upload of the Villa crest, but it does look kind of off.  Might try a better version.

 - Fair enough.  I felt like confining the gold to the crest alone was too minimal, but Villa don't really use yellow/gold on the home kits normally, so I see where you're coming from.

 - I tried to get some blue on the crest, but it really didn't jive with the gold (which is also why it's separated with claret on the home sleeves).  If it weren't for the 150th, the crest would be colored pretty similarly to the modern shield logo.  With regards to the roundel crest, I might try a version with that.  I was just really sold on the shield version once I mocked it up.

 - Good point.  The one regret I had with the crest was that I couldn't fit "Prepared" on it.  (I grew up with the late-aughts crest, so I'm nostalgic).  The back would be a good place for it.