THE NEED:
A visionary property developer had a piece of land and a dream, a community of beautiful homes nestled under the pine trees over looking the beautiful Twin Lakes in central Colorado. Their team had owned the property for quite some time and over the years in fits and starts had attempted to bring it to market, but had never quite brought it to fruition. In spring 2021 they contracted with our team at Slifer Smith & Frampton for our full suite of services from branding and marketing to sales and closing. As the team’s designer and brand strategist I got to work brining this one-of-a-kind project to life.
THE REMEDY:
Branding —
When we began the development team had a preliminary concept that had been used as a placeholder in earlier attempts to bring the project to market, but no working brand package or even working files. So I took their concept and reworked it into a bold new look that would capture the beauty of the surrounding area. Twin Lakes is a two-part lake nestled between Colorado’s tallest peaks and the property looks across the lake at a stand of aspen trees where in the fall their golden colors illuminate the image of a kneeling angel on the mountainside. For the brandmark I wanted a relatively abstract pictoral mark that would contain three elements angel wings, the twin peaks that set the backdrop for the property, and the lake itself. After an intense process of concepts and refining we landed on a new brandmark that wowed the development team and paired it with bold, modern typefaces that would pair well with their vision for a collective of mountian-modern homes. I topped it all off with a tricolor palette that pulled from the blue waters of the lake, the green of the pines, and the vibrant yellow of the aspen tress in autumn.
Website —
Armed with a brand the team was excited about I set out to bring the project really to life with a new website. Using Squarespace I created a fully featured website that would take the vision in our client’s head and convey it directly to their target audience. I laid out the website per their vision and then filled the pages with sourced imagery, wrote copy to fill the pages, and designed visual assets for use around the site that completed the brand. The project was fairly unique for us in that I sat in the middle of three of our primary markets, so I worked with our Digital Director to customize our lead-tracking systems to allow for the correct sales teams to be notified when inquiries came from our different markets.
Sales Materials —
With the website humming I then set out to create a unique set of sales materials to arm our teams with. I began with things like price lists, fact sheets, and homesite rendering galleries, all branded and version-controlled with online publication, and then created a sharp sales folder for the team to use at a series of informational events our team hosted at the property.
One of the projects that I enjoyed working on the most for AngelView was the map. I began by taking very rough excavation plans and remade them in Illustrator into a clean, clear, branded property map that then made appearances in an abundance of places. With that aesthetic established I then sought to highlight the project’s location with a promotional trail map. We had some fun with this one in printing when we set it as a trifold with a branded rear panel so that our clients really felt like they had a local map with AngelView at its center.
Branded sales folders were a first step.
I converted development plans into a branded property map that was used in both print and digital appearances.
Then I applied the look to a promotional “trail map’ of the area that really highlighted just how incredible of a location AngelView truly was.
Advertising —
Once sales materials were printed and in-hand it was time to really get the word out. In the first phase we advertised the project heavily in our mountain markets subtly tuning the message for Roaring Fork Valley, Vail Valley, and Summit County respectively. The project appeared in national and local publications and was well highlighted in our own publication “The Portfolio”. Once the contract process was ironed out we moved into phase two and began marketing more heavily in Colorado and in our key feeder markets like Texas, California, New York, and Florida.
THE RESULT:
“Sold out phase one properties in eight weeks.”
After languishing in no-mans-land for nearly a decade our team successfully brought AngelView into a hot market within three months. Thanks to the strong brand, and complete suite of sales materials our team was able to sell out the first phase of properties within eight weeks of their launch, and AngelView is well positioned to bring the rest of their unique homesteads to market in the coming months.
