The Need

In August of 2022, one of the last available parcels of land in Breckenridge, Colorado was approved for redevelopment, it would be an extension of the aging Ranch At Breckenridge development and needed a fresh identity to take to the market. The vision was a rustic, and secluded series of homesites that preserved the wild nature of this special piece of property by limiting the building sites and keeping the beautiful wooded nature of the forest on this high ridge. Owners would be incredibly high-end, seeking a legacy property that leaned into the western way of life with sites ranging from 5 to 20 acres.

The Solution(s)

Brand System

The first need for this project was a new brand to bring to the market. It needed to balance two competing elements, a tie to the longstanding Ranch At Breckenridge development of which the project is an extension, and a fresh new look that communicated the luxurious yet rustic vision of the developer. The name Solitude had already been decided upon so I got to work creating one of my most western brand identities to date.

I really leaned into the “brand” look with this one, evoking a mark that one could envision being wrought out of iron, or hung over the gate at a ranch. I also knew I wanted to keep the letter forms of S, R, and B within the icon mark. So I affixed our S within a classic western diamond and created a unique ligature with the RB to keep the presence of the Ranch at Breckenridge brand embedded within the new identity directly. Proportions were weighted to help this identity scale from a hanging sign to a tiny branded mark on promotional collateral. For the rest of the system I grabbed the far out west Arpona typeface for a preliminary identity typeface, and created a subtle tri-color palette that evoked pine ranch fences rolling under the wide open Colorado sky.

View The Full Brand Package

Website

With the brand in hand it was time to create the main point of public interaction for the project, a website. Like many other projects I worked on with the Slifer Smith & Frampton new development division the easy choice for the project was a clean and simple Squarespace site with a suite of integrated programs that kept the project fully synced with company systems including integrations from our design program Marq, and CRM system kvCore. One interesting feature of note for the site was the application of an interactive sitemap that showed available properties and their location on the site. This proved a critical element as it allowed our sales team to really put each property’s best foot forward on individual site pages.

View The Website

Sales Materials

To cap off the in-hand materials we needed a map. The location of Arbory was a key selling point for the development, situated as it is in the middle of one of Denver’s most storied neighborhoods. Fortunately I used to live in the area so I had a great time taking my old stomping grounds and turning them into a branded map that highlighted all that City Park West had to offer to prospective buyers. The team was so pleased with these that we wound up ordering a good deal more to keep around as giveaway materials at events.

Homesite markers using the brand system.

Advertising

With in-hand materials taken care of we then turned to the teams physical presence at the construction site, at events, and in their sales office. On the site we kept things simple with large banners announcing the coming of new condos that were elevated every time the builders added another floor to maximize visibility. At events I designed a pair of pop up banners that put the brand forward to new prospects and highlighted what makes Arbory an incredible place to live. Finally, at the sales center I printed their incredible project renderings onto metal substrate to fill a gallery style wall with images of the project, and then made them a sales tracking board again printed on metal with branded magnets they could place to celebrate each new sale.

A print ad in our company publication The Portfolio.

A print ad for the front page spot in the Summit and Vail Dailies.

The REsults

The timeframe from go to launch was inherently tight for this project. Final approvals came through in late June, and we knew we wanted to catch what we could of the summer selling season in Breckenridge. Our team was able to bring this new offering to market in August of 2022 giving the sales team key weeks to secure early contracts and build critical momentum. In the end this early action proved critical as we secured over $6 million in contracts before the road up to the property was even finished, and set Solitude up for a strong future as the sites became accessible.