Introduction
Please read this short introduction before clicking through to view the design options. It provides a summary of the key learnings from the extensive supporter and stakeholder consultation process over recent weeks and will help you understand the evidence upon which the designs for the new Club Crest have been developed.
The massive participation in the consultation about the Crest, by over 20,000 Everton supporters – as well as partners, staff, players and other interested parties, has shown how much the Club Crest means to Evertonians at home and across the world.
The majority of Evertonians understand the need to modernise the Club Crest, to get it working hard for the benefit of the Club commercially, internationally and across all the diverse media available today.
But Evertonians also believe that modernisation builds on and retains the things that make the Club what it is. Everton is about heritage. It is about being pioneering, about quality football and about family and community. Everton is a club that has earned and continues to earn respect – a club that does what is right, that “behaves with dignity when it loses just as when it wins”.
And Everton is more than just a football club. Everton is “a way of life” for many, for others “it is what you live for”.
The challenge for the Club Crest is to represent the balance of these factors that matter so much to so many people.
Many people who took part in the consultation have spoken about the need for achieving something that is simple and classy, reflecting a modernisation but retaining important elements of heritage. Evertonians want to feel proud of their Crest.
Through the surveys and focus groups that have taken place over the last few weeks, it is clear what is most important to include in the Club Crest.
The clear priorities of the majority of fans are inclusion of the Tower and Nil Satis Nisi Optimum.
The Tower should reflect the heritage and design from previous Crests – especially the 1991 (60% preferred) and 1938 (24%) versions, reflecting not a photographic representation of the real Tower, but the heritage of previous Club Crests and the dreams and aspirations of supporters. As one person put it: “The Tower has been idolised forever, why change that now?” As another put it, “The Tower is Everton’s equivalent of Arsenal’s canon”.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum is a non-negotiable inclusion for the future Club Crest. Whilst the majority are ambivalent about it appearing in a scroll as in previous crests, it must be written in full and in Latin, and not be dumbed-down and weakened through abbreviation.
Beyond the two elements upon which almost everyone agrees, the inclusion of the Club’s name is ranked as next most important in the survey.
Whilst significant numbers of supporters taking part in focus groups felt Everton’s Crest should ideally be recognisable without the inclusion of the name, more participants agreed that the inclusion of the name was important to “broadcast” Everton effectively: to other football supporters, in Europe and internationally, with sponsors and through merchandise and to potential new supporters. Whilst there were many views as to which version of the name to use, the preferred name was, simply, ‘Everton’. This option was preferred by over two-in-five survey respondents, almost twice the number of any other option. The focus groups validated this choice as being not only the most preferred but also the most practical choice.
Beyond these elements, well over half of survey respondents preferred a Shield being used to present the elements of the Crest. Whilst there were a range of views, this was confirmed through the focus groups, the Shield helping represent heritage and reflecting the top two and fourth most preferred previous Crests from 2000, 1991 and 1938 respectively. There was a strong preference for the Shield, should it be used, to be a more slim-line design than the current Crest, reflecting heritage whilst being modernised.
One of the key challenges of modernising the Club Crest is how best to simplify it where needed to achieve an effective Crest for the Club and what to exclude if necessary to do so. This has been a key part of the consultation.
Whilst many supporters feel passionate about the inclusion of 1878 and the Laurel Wreaths, these two elements were ranked lowest overall in the survey and so have become regarded as secondary elements, with less support from participants in the consultation.
That said, they are still important elements of the Club’s heritage and have been considered for inclusion in the designs where possible, once the main priorities have been addressed.
Finally, the question of colour.
Royal Blue and White received the overwhelming preference from survey participants with six out of every 10 respondents preferring it to the other options.
This was also reflected in the focus group preferences and discussions. However, also reflected was a degree of sympathy towards the use of amber as an appropriate supporting colour, for example to help provide a border when a blue badge would be on a blue shirt or to support other design details on the Crest or other elements of the Club’s wider branding.
Everton Football Club is committed to following the evidence gathered through the consultation process and to ensuring it is used to fully inform the design of our next Club Crest so that it is modernised in the right way.
We want a Club Crest that we can all be proud of, all feel we have contributed to and which will work hard for our Club.
The next stage is an open and transparent voting process, supported by Electoral Reform Services.