/ Brand Strategy / Art Direction / Graphic Design
After working in-house for Crystal Mountain for two and a half years, I was able to join Voicebox West in generating a campaign playbook for the new base lodge’s naming strategy. Working together, we were able to bring forth story and the significance of the new space to the Crystal Mountain Community.
We dove into our knowledge of the Crystal brand identity we created, as well as the habitat within the PNW Ski resort market. Voicebox developed four potential naming directions, interior visual look/feel directions, along with high-level creative framework to infuse purpose into each element of the new lodge. Our collaboration and teamwork resulted in a 40+ page playbook outlining art for construction fencing wrap, interior elements, internal space naming, thematic activations, campaign execution, example programming calendar and future campaign activations.
We settled on the Mountain Commons with the Crystal team, to tie in the concept that this was the people’s lodge. A place for the community to thrive.
playbook
Campaign exerpt:
As PNW skiers and riders at heart, we feel deeply that our mountain not only holds incredible power but intense personal meaning. It’s our mountain, whether we’ve been skiing here since way back when or just discovered the refuge these peaks, lines and trees provide. It’s our space, our community and, to many, our identity. Tapping this truth, we honor the heart and soul of our diverse mountain community by dedicating the spirit of our new lodge to the radical idea of a mountain base lodge as an open and inviting community space, with access for all. Without our community, its roots, its character and its vision—Crystal would be just another ski area.
campaign pillars
social campaign
Developing a social campaign aimed at quickly pivoting from the negative reaction to pass price increases, we helped re-focus creative messaging in a social campaign. We wanted to highlight the many benefits of their new Mountain Commons lodge and the uplift it offered members of the community seeking to escape into the mountains. As a shop team of three, we crafted social stories, weaving together a narrative around the transportive feeling of the mountains and what the lodge emotionally represents for Crystal’s community.
We delivered a fully crafted and polished social campaign toolkit that provided guidance to the Crystal communications team on road-mapping the rollout of strategically-planned content.
construction wrap art direciton
art by Gretchen Leggitt
As construction commenced and Crystal broke ground for their Mountain Commons base lodge, the Voicebox team was tasked with crafting signage announcing the new space, as well as commissioning an art installation to wrap and beautify the temporary construction site.
Our aim was to capture the sense of this paradise valley in art, we evaluated potential artists and selected talented local muralist Gretchen Leggitt, renowned for her sweeping Pacific Northwest mountainscapes. We worked closely with Leggitt to provide our vision, guiding her to bring to life a piece that reflected the “Feel Different Here” identity Voicebox had created for the brand at Launch in 2020.
We are all inspired by the views of Mount Rainier from the Puget sound area, and the journey up through the White River Valley. We wanted to showcase that journey in a stunning visual landscape that captured the sensation of rising from foothills up into the alpine environment. These feelings also resonated with the Crystal teams across departments, so much so that it was adopted in multiple installations and merch across different surfaces as a defining visual for the brand.
