The Alpinist: Branding, Website & Sales Materials

The Need:

In early 2024 well-established development group Navarro Lowrey was getting underway with a redevelopment project in the heart of EagleVail, Colorado. Their vision was both compelling and forward-looking; they sought to take an existing, underused office space structure and reimagine it as the beating heart of this mountain community. The building was rather interestingly built as an amenity heavy tech office back in the early 00s. Things didn’t pan out for that plan and the space rotated through a number of various underuses for the next twenty year.

This project with take that space and turn it into a flexible, amenity-rich, built-to-suit office option for small businesses. Due to the adaptability of the space they would offer everything from a 5,000 sf showroom to a 150 sf micro office and everything in between, all centered on a beautiful sunlit atrium and cafe. Being a predominantly Florida-based group, Navarro Lowrey reached out to our new development team at Slifer Smith & Frampton and we got to work.

The Solutions:

Brand System

This project presented me with a clean-slate, from the ground up branding opportunity for a project that aimed to become a true neighborhood focal point. More excitingly, our target market was folks I had a lot in common with, ambitious professionals seeking to grow their business through hard work and collaboration. So I dove right in, starting with the name. I presented the team with a slew of options ranging from the solidly traditional (ex: Whiskey Creek Commons) to the much more modern (Openspace). Ultimately we landed in a nice middle ground with a name that feels decidedly fresh and modern, while still nodding to our target markets and the aspirational nature of the project. The Alpinist. I finished the name with the modern and inviting suffix “neighborhood workspace” to open the invitation to check this place out to the whole community.

With a more modern name in hand I moved on to visual identity. Knowing that I wanted this to feel very fresh and modern I presented the team with a bevy of choices that zeroed in on the adaptable combination mark that ultimately was selected. The “A Skis” icon gave us an endlessly scalable and reusable icon that truly breathed life into the project. The icon also set a decisive vibe for this place, somewhere where you can come off the hill, hang up the skis and get to your best work. A great and pleasant surprise in the project for me was when the team opted for by far the most adventurous color palette I presented them, a bold and fun tricolor sampled from the colors of vintage mountaineering gear.

Standard appearance,

with MANY alternate colorations.

A Skis Icon

Website

Next up, the website. Once again I kept things simple and brand-forward with a Squarespace site integrated directly into our in-house CRM system at Slifer. I kept they layouts open and unconventional with a predominantly single-page scroll design that invites you to walk leisurely through the project. This was also the first appearance of much of the copy work I did for the project including the “Sunlit. Collaborative. Vibrant. Inspiring.” headline and “Let’s get to work.” CTA. In the end I wrote all the copy for this project and paired it with renderings and carefully selected imagery to bring it to life, even while it was in a preconstruction phase.

Web designs

Sales & Event Materials

Last but certainly not least, I crafted a suite of sales and event materials for our broker team to use in representing the project. Copy and design cues were largely taken and held from the website design that had garnered such a positive reaction from the client. But this suite of tools allowed us to represent the project in its very best light at all touch points, including a series of events that engaged the community and brought them in as this incredible space was brought to life.

The Results

The Navarro Lowrey team kept this project clipping along from its inception. Construction timelines moved briskly and tenant signings kept pace. Our team was able to deliver the brand and materials ahead of schedule and keep things up to date as this fast-moving project went from permit to completion. In the end, we were able to lease out 2/3s of the showroom space with anchor tenants, and fully half of the office space before we even got beyond hard hat tours.