Creative Direction
Campaign Development
Art Direction
Photo Editing
Copywriting
Design
After our shop named Crystal’s new Mountain Commons base lodge, we launched into a year-long creative and collaborative odyssey to tell its story to the resort’s ski community. We developed a playbook and campaign, driven visually by Voicebox Art Directors John Ide and Erica Kutz, which brought to life the lodge’s significance, including through campaign arcs, marketing ideas, information signage, social posts and future activations that reinforced it as the people’s vibrant space.
Infusing the brand identity throughout the lodge, our team ideated space activations, such as an outside DJ and a Legends Walk of Fame, bringing energy to the forthcoming mountain view plaza. The full team also put forward spirited, on-brand names for the internal businesses, including the Bootpack Bar, achieving an all-time life goal—naming a ski resort bar.
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.
Above it all, Crystal is a place that hits us right in the heart. It’s a paradise valley at the end of the road with the space to explore and the perspective of a powerful mountain presence. It’s where we find our escape and our community— where we celebrate mountain culture in all our regional forms. At its core—it’s essence—it’s an environment where we feel different, more like who we all are. It’s the place we return to season after season—just wanting more and more of, what we’ve all, embraced as ours.
After skiing hours, Crystal’s base area often goes silent. While the ski bars rage, few places offer an all-ages or outdoor space for families to just gather and linger past last chair. Even during night skiing, the base area is more a through-point than a destination. We propose changing the energy and base area operating hours with a thriving après space and stage that evokes the energy of legendary ski towns like Verbier or Whistler. This vibrant village-esque corner and multi-purpose stage will play host to everything from outdoor Red Bull and Disco night skiing DJs to holiday light shows, local mountain music, Freeride World Tour or Natural Selection live feeds as well as outdoor ski movies. In summer this uplifting outdoor space will host everything from interpretive talks and participatory art festivals to a mountain market, film festival screenings or outdoor, inspired yoga. To emit constant warmth, the Après Stage will sit above a giant outdoor fire pit.
The Sunnyside deck will also be the location of a subtle but impactful Crystal Legends commemoration, marking the most legendary characters in the history of the resort. This wall or walk of fame—with paver bricks embedded with Crystal legends from eras past and present—from World Tour Champs and MSP film starts to local ski business founders and non-profit org heroes—will give thanks to legendary members of the community who have made Crystal what it is for generations.
At Crystal, we hike for our marque lines. Whether ascending the King or the Throne or putting in the work one step at a time to access the best lines into Snorting Elk, Powder or Morning Glory bowls—it’s our own quads that take us where our deepest community lives and breathes, deeply. Located up its own steep pitch, our Bootpack Bar & Smokehouse honors that truth.