Today’s Flashback Friday is the one-year anniversary of this website, so I wanted to thank everybody for checking in on the regular. 301 blog posts later and it’s still good times puttin material up on the web for ya’ll to see !!

Also a big-up to all the contributors who’ve helped me out with the Feature Photographer and Bikes column, as well as all the other random happenings around this planet you shot photos of and sent in.

For all ya’ll repping the stickers and putting them up everywhere, THANK YOU !

Speaking of stickers, I’ve attached the first post I did in The Daily on July 14, 2008…The Vin Sticker.

Cheers to another year of posts…Blotto

THE VIN STICKER

I was digging through the crates yesterday and happened upon a fat stack of Vin Stickers. This edition was in circulation for a couple of years during 2000 – 2001, about 5,000 total. It was more than just a random sticker, it definitely got your attention and you wanted one.

It started with Trevor Graves snapping a photo of Vin during an Oregon photo shoot, and somehow finding it’s way to everything from cell phones to magazine pages and hard cover books.

To tell the story I dialed up Vin and he tells it like this…..

Yea man!

It all started with Liam Maher taking a JPEG I sent around the office and putting it on a sticker. It became an instant hit at the 2000 US Open at Stratton. The next year, it was a life-sized head on a stick that was even more embarrassing.

The year I left Burton, it was placed on a RIP Flag and in each Burton Employees mailbox, as well as a bomb-email blast to the entire Burton customer list.

Blotto can be credited with getting that damned square monstrosity to almost every state with a snow hill and dozens of countries worldwide. Good stuff.

Quote from Trevor Graves:
” I think that’s my most published shot ever!”

I showed the sticker to my mom and she cringed. She did not understand the attraction, and quite frankly, neither do I.

But it’s interesting to have people look at your funny, do a double take and then say: “Hey, I’ve got you on my cell phone.” or, “Hey, you’re on my dorm room door!” or, “Hey, I seen that sticker on a lift pole at Brighton!” or, “Hey, I say your face in Japan!”.

The sticker made it’s way onto everything imaginable: phones, laptops, doors, cars, lift poles, boobs, snowboards (Barrett Christy showed me hers and it made me blush under my beard). I’ve even heard it’s going to be found on the cover of Marketing Guru, Seth Godin’s new book. Go buy it.

Chuck White said it was his highest selling sticker ever. He sold them for $11/ each on Ebay, claiming they were limited edition Burton special decals.

People are funny.

I saw the sticker once on a cash register at a coffee shop somewhere. I told them it was me and they didn’t believe me.

That sticker never gave me anything of monetary value back, and yet it keeps on living. I don’t know if it will ever die. It’s kinda timeless I guess.

Maybe some day it will come back around and I can claim copyright on it and win some HUGE lawsuit to retire. If that ever happens, I’ll take Blotto, Liam and T. Graves to Hawaii for a sweet golf/ fishing/ relaxing vacation.

VRL