Wednesday, March 5

10E2335: A Brief History of Burton Bindings + Note On Kelly Air


General overview from Burton's Chris Doyle about the history and changes in snowboard bindings in the newish video above. 

A few weeks back I reached out to try and find the story behind the Craig Kelly Burton AIR graphic (seen below attached to a Micro Air) - which I always assumed had some connection to the topographical outline of the state of Vermont. For those just joining, Burton Snowboards was basically born in Vermont, we'll say Londonderry. Thanks to the instagram commentators and Todd Kohlman at the Burton archive for the further info.


"CK Mystery Air is a classic, and that particular binding was one of the first injection molded hi backs that had forward lean on it." - eastcoastb12

"The Air Tear was in fact loosely rooted in the VT state silhouette, it’s not particularly accurate but we had that dialog while making it. Giovanna Jager and George Mench worked on this word mark with me. It was about premium precision (the blade angle type), vertical air time and spontaneous energy and action, expressed with the tear energy." - Michael Jager of JDK (design firm in Burlington, VT that has handled Burton's graphic work since 1989).


Burton Mystery Air 1991 / Craig Kelly from Snowboarding8090.com - sidenote amazing resource.