Evolving the Burton Snowboards Brand Identity —
 

As the brand looks towards a new era we set out to update the logo by identifying opportunities for consistency, clarity, and continuity across everything the brand produces. The branding approach was as evolutionary process, choosing to position the brand forward without abandoning its roots.

The brand has a storied history with logos, with updates incrementally happening every few years and even a brief period where the logo deliberately changed every season. As the brand grows so does the need for consistency and continuity.

We identified a path forward building on the legacy of two key brand marks, while ensuring that the update remained unmistakably Burton — a combination of our Mountain Logo from the early 80's, and our bar logo.

The mountain logo was created with the genesis of the brand, and the bar logo was significant during one of the brands most culturally significant eras. Both of these marks have had a significant presence within the brand over its forty-plus year history.

The original mountain shape and Helvetica Black text from the bar logo went through rigorous revisions and refinement. Balancing positive and negative form, redrawing the overall shape and adjusting kerning for maximum scalability.

The resulting combined identities are clearly recognizable as our logo, but with vast improvements to its usability across all brand and product applications.

While the solution may seem obvious, through the process we looked at hundreds of alternate solutions. We partnered with a large network of designers and studios to make sure we weren't overlooking something simply by updating existing identity. This exploration and testing work helped validate our approach, that a simple update to a historic logo can takes the best of the past forward and modernize it.

Supporting Team
 

Principal Designers - David Pfluger, Joshua Kaplan
Additional Design Support - Berger & Fohr, This
Product Direction - Mike Gratz, Erik Petersen