Unlocking the Infinite
Wisdom of the Backcountry.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
UX STRATEGY
UI DESIGN
ART DIRECTION
PHOTOGRAPHY
COPYWRITING
APPAREL DESIGN
MOTION GRAPHICS
ILLUSTRATION
Credits - Created under the visionary leadership of Baldface owners, Jeff and Paula Pensiero. Creative direction and UI/UX provided by Toby Grubb. UI Design support from Tyler McRobert. Color and apparel design support by Kevin Evans. Project managed by Melissa Garr & Jodi Glover-Thiel. Photography by incredible Dustin Lalik. Insane illustration and animation by legendary artist and fellow eastcoast shred, Scotty Lenhardt. Homepage dev provided by Bryan Howarth, Dave Hulse, and Brandon Kitajchuk. Video of rider, Mikkel Bang provided by Travis Rice.
It's rare that a client sells out of their product,
every year, 365 days in advance.
For Jeff & Paula Pensiero, the owners of Baldface Lodge, a backcountry resort in Canada's Kootenay Range, it was never an issue of demand. They were looking for new opportunities to align their brand with the quality of their outdoor experience. We were there to help them with the transition from the 'white room' into the black. 💰
We identified three areas for growth: a more culturally-inspired homepage, a four-season experience, and an improved product offering driven by eCommerce.
Welcome to
the Clubhouse.
We enhanced the Homepage by visualizing the "secret clubhouse" vibes ⛺️that Baldface is known for. To tease future guests and immortalize trips from past, we created a media feed with six content types: Lodge Life, Featured Videos, Instagram Posts, Retail Products, Photo of the Week, and New Partnerships. All media was searchable, so users could find the latest Volcom guide gear or where Jamie Lynn was sleeping that week in the lodge.
With some electrical tape and ingenuity, we modified a Davis Instruments station to post live weather events using the WeatherUnderground api. To stoke out incoming guests, a bit of javascript dumped animated pow ❄️over the homepage according to the actual precipitation.
But it wasn't all bomb drops and bong hits, these playful user experiences were derived from an extensive site audit that revealed the best line.
Not Just a
Winter Wonderland.
With a narrow five-month business window, 📈a four-season strategy seemed unavoidable. We built a wild, illustrated version of Jeff Pensiero's vision with the help of our friend and snowboarding's art legend, Scott Lenhardt. The site was targeted at light-hearted, C-suite folks looking for a refuge to host their next sales meeting or corporate event.
Increasing the funnel.
For sales and beers.
Our final effort was made in the Retail department. We contributed to a three-tiered merchandise strategy: ➊ a line of premier goods with subtle and evolved branding (only available in the lodge), ➋ co-branded staple products with relevant brands, and ➌ general graphic tees for broader consumption.
All paying customers were given first dibs to buy
the new gear via a site we called the "Shhhhop".
We evolved the brandmark with geometry and reduced its non-essential forms. The visual elements of the diamond, mountain face and slash were combined to allude to the terrain and its purpose, respectively.
With a custom-built Squarespace site to save cost, it made sense to leverage Squarespace's native eCommerce platform to drive sales of these new products. We added products previously-used by legendary riders and made the purchase of drink rounds possible online to make the typical eCommerce experience bend to the playful will of the resort.
