Burton is an American brand of sportswear, which specializes mainly in the production of snowboard equipment. The company was established in 1977 and named after its founder. Today the branded sports clothing and accessories are distributed all over the globe and considered to be one of the most popular in its segment.
Meaning and history
The visual identity of the men’s fashion brand has always been based on the principles of elegance and timelessness, and though there was a short period when the label used some interesting colors in it logo palette, in the end, it returned to the original monochrome composition, which is always an excellent choice for any fashion house.
The 1950s — The 1960s
The logo, created for a fashion house in the 1959s featured an elegant black wordmark in all capitals, executed in a timeless sophisticated serif typeface, which is very close to such legendary fonts as Didot and Bodoni.
The 1960s — The 1970s
In the 1960s the wordmark was rewritten in a fancy custom typeface with elongated and curved tails of the letters “B” and “R”, and the tails of the “R” crossed the next “T”. The bold serif inscription has a double black underline, which added solidness and confidence to the whole look.
The 1970s
The logo, which the brand used in the 1970s was written in the title case, and this is its unique feature, as all the other versions, created throughout the years were all set in capitals. The logotype from these years featured a bold and narrowed serif font, similar to Apud Black.
The 1970s — The 1980s
Later in the 1970s, the logo was redrawn again and the new style boasted bold white lettering in triple outline, which made the wordmark look three-dimensional and added some sophisticated volume to the image. The font, used for this version was simple and traditional sans-serif.
The 1980s — The 1990s
In the 1980s the Burton inscription got its lines thinner and italicized. The sans-serif typeface used here was light and clean, with medium-weight straight lines and distinct cuts of the edges.
The 1990s — 2002
The color first appears on the Burton logo at the beginning of the 1990s. A sleek yellow serif inscription in all capitals was written above the white “Menswear” tagline in the same smooth typeface, and placed on a very rich and elegant calm and dark pink background with a thin yellow outline, repeating the rectangular shape of the badge.
There was also a second version created during the same years — a light beige nameplate with a white tagline placed on a dark beige rectangle with no framing.
2002 — 2018
The redesign of 2002 brought a completely new style and modern touch to the Burton logo, which again started using the black-and-white color palette. It was a capitalized inscription in a sleek sans-serif with square letters and rounded angles. The closes fonts to the brand’s logo are Venus Rising Regular and Protrakt Variable Bold-Exp-One, but with the contour of the letter “R” modified.
2018 — Today
The current Burton logo was introduced in 2018 and featured a very simple and minimalist sans-serif inscription with the “Menswear London” tagline, written in all capitals of the same font, but with thinner lines and more space.
Font and color
The Burton logotype we all can see today is written in a clean and neat sans-serif, which evokes a sense of lightness and freshness, yet still looks confident and stable. The closest font to it is Phi Caps Medium, which is a modern sans-serif with rounded shapes of the letters.
The black-and-white color scheme of the brand’s visual identity is a very reasonable choice, which reflects the label’s style and specialization, showing its value of quality, beauty, and elegance.