If you click on read more it looks like the eagle may be toast
I may be talking bollocks, but the timeframe makes it pretty clear to be the consultation was just a necessary box to tick.
How many days since it closed, 10? Is that really time to go through thousands upon thousands of comments, collate them, draw the necessary conclusions, and then design a strategy for the next stages? Seems impressive to me if that was the case...
Also they promise us the new design within weeks, again that's not a huge amount of time to (apparantly) design a new badge, go through the various stages of getting feedback and tweaking it, approving it, planning a PR strategy for the release, and lastly getting it plastered across a range of promotional material and merchandise, over club property and equipment etc... not to mention the photo shoots and video edits and web content that will be produced to go alongside it all.
Yes I'm being cynical, but how can these be so precise that it will only be a few weeks? Why not just say in due course/in the coming months/in the close season?
I suspect they already had a shortlist prior to the survey, say half a dozen, and will now pick the one that satisfies the most Cityzen responses.
Saying that, if I like it I'm not that arsed how they came about choosing it.
Good post mate, I understand your scepticism. Whether it was just a PR exercise or not, I actually think the consultation has been a positive thing. The amount of posts on this thread about it since the club announced the consultation shows that it means an awful lot to people.
If you look back through the threads on here from previous years relating to the badge, you'll see that the overall sentiment is much the same as this thread. The round design was overwhelmingly popular, and
@GeekinGav 's design with the boat and 3 river shield was the most popular on there 2 or 3 years ago. I'm sure those threads and Gav's excellent design helped the club realise there was a real appetite to change, and they had a great idea about which designs were popular.
If you are being cynical you could say the club have already decided on a design before the consultation. But if that is actually the case, they will not have done it blind. They will have noticed the other threads, the popular designs, and I'm sure gauged the opinions of Bernard Halford and other genuine blues.
Regarding the data analysis, I'll be honest, I think you've probably over-estimated how long this will take. With the club having SAP as a partner, for a questionnaire with so few variables I'm sure the data could be analysed in real time. The percentage voting for a round badge, the ship, rivers etc, will be very easy to analyse the instant the votes were cast.
Also regarding timing, as I said earlier in the thread, I've got a friend who designs the kit for one of the biggest clubs in the league. He said for a club the size of City to get kits manufactured in time for next summer we'd have to settle on a badge design by the end of November, or first week or so in December if we were pushing it / had a late release of kit.
The timing of City's announcement makes it clear to me that we will be having a new badge for next season.
It's unfortunate that there won't be a second round of consultation because there is a slim chance we could end up with something dreadful like Everton or Melbourne City, and the fans won't have had a chance to vote on a final design. The only way for the club to avoid a disaster like Everton is to stick to a clean, simple design like the ones that are so popular on this thread. Don't try to be too clever or over egg the pudding.
