Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

[benkitesurfs]

Hope this helps shed a little light on the process. If anyone has any other questions, again feel free to post here or PM me directly.

-Dan

Thanks for the insight Dan. I still don’t like the name, but reading about the nightmare that is international trademarking gives me a lot more respect for what you guys were going through. Hope it all works out.

Next step, get back to those nice graphics we’ve been seeing the last few years from North. The leaked Duotone Dice looks...bland

[Pierrot]

quite nice actually!

[apollo4000]

+1 for being the same kites as last year but this time they’ve gone to extremes to differentiate....not just new material or less lines but a new company....

Same kite and production values = great
Design = alright colours, recognisable but the black smudge looks wrong, font looks lame
Price = this is the interesting bit...no fee to North sails and the need to establish a new brand....fingers crossed....although I don’t need any new kites...

[Snapback]

price drop will not happen

juice 17m - 1969 euro
click bar - 659 euro

wtf, if someone pays this kind of money for a kite and bar is out of his mind...

[ThickAir]

Who is going to buy apparel with Duotone written on it?

No problem there. North apparel was never available anyway. We had to design and print our own t-shirts!

[BigBafana]

.... How about other company names such as Cabrinha, Gaastra, Wipika, Takoon, and Naish. These are all kite companies with strange names that we have gotten used to.

Haha strange names?! Most names are iconic people in watersports with major achievements. Or you think Cabrinha or Naish or Gaastra are made up words? Personally I’ve never heard of Johnny Duotone before.

[kite_hh]

I see slight improvements over the first leaked pictures, but to me this looks too patchworked. Almost as if they randomly sew the kites together with whatever color was available.

This will be a far stretch for B&M. I wish them the best, but at these prices, this name, and to me not appealing design it may be hard to regain their old position in the market.

Only time will tell, but I am still shocked at how careless North Kiteboarding has been abandoned.

Edit: I just realized that the first leaked Dice is in the background (to the right) of the yellow rebel kite. So maybe this means it is a final version?!

[kiterocky]

I really think they are beautiful....but no money to buy

[Barryg101]

Definitely not my cup of tea ! Can't get over the name the more I say it the worse it sounds, and the colors and font are just ugly.

Suppose it opens up the market for new , innovative and more reasonably prices kites to get noticed.

I do wish Duotone all the best but I won't be splashing out on them for certain .

Only time will tell ....

[knotwindy]

IMO, North kites were mostly not very good looking anyway so no loss there.
Just personal preference and doesn’t really matter anyway. They fly fine as do lots of others.