Burton Snowboard Timeline Experience

Let’s take it back to October 2011. Flash is all the rage, and ecommerece is just starting to grow. Platforms like Magento, Zen Cart,Virtuemart and Demandware are super popular and most people are starting to make the switch from their flip phone to an iPhone 4. Building interactive web experiences are limited and the small brands that are doing them aren’t doing them well. Except for Burton. They made an investment in ecommerece and launch some amazing shopping experiences over the next few years including a history timeline wall in their main navigation. They see the value in growing their company with softgoods and selling direct on their own site without the need for retailers.

The timeline visually matches the rustic look of their offices in Vermont. There is a hidden left navigation and a scrollable timeline on the bottom of the screen. This page doesn’t scroll vertically, yet only goes horizontal. Scroll to navigate through the years or skip to a specific section to catch a glimpse at your first snowboard.I know I did (Burton Twin 1995). This scrapbook-style showcase of annual milestones – starting with the Burton Backhill from 1977. Each milestone has a date and witty description copy, it also has a shareable facebook link which was just starting to become a popular trend on sites. If you keep scrolling you’ll timewarp back through the radical 1980’s and grunge-inspired 1990s. Not only is this a history archive for the hardgoods it also shows their marketing advertisements featuring athletes and apparel. Moving through the Olympic era and the technological innovations of the 2000’s to where it ends at the new mystery project for 2012.

Since they’ve re-platformed its hard to grab screenshots of what this site used to look like, but you can find some remnants of some images, and copy in the wayback archive and google. Overall its hard to show a brand or company timeline but this experience still sticks with me as a great piece of digital content that is still relevant. This is a great digital timeline but check out the physical history wall at their headquarters.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111130175817/http://www.burton.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Burton_US-Site/default/Company-History