Work
Ski Sundown
Winter made better.
When it opened for the first time in 1964 as “Satan’s Ridge,” Ski Sundown had three slopes, one mile-long trail and two lifts. Over fifty years later, they’re up to 70 skiable acres, 16 trails, 5 lifts, 2 terrain parks, and to top it all off, they can make snow on 100% of their trails.
Project Goals
Ski Sundown joined forces with Julia Balfour to help establish them as a leader in mountain sports and activities within Connecticut while editing, rebranding, and restructuring their current website.
Hitting the Slopes
Design
With the exception of Ski Sundown’s well-instituted bright color palette, our creative team was given freedom to expand their brand for the web. First, a secondary palette of neutral colors was developed to add some layers to the design, and make the bold orange and blue pop. To better express their personality, a system of modern typefaces, as well as a set of textures and icons, were used throughout the site. Finally, everything is grounded with dozens of real photos provided by Sundown’s fantastic marketing team.
Mountain Strategy
Custom Functionality
Ski Sundown needed a few pieces of custom functionality that would help their website work a little harder for them, and we put all of it front-and-center. The masthead of every page houses three very important pieces of information: the weather, the conditions report, and a very important call to action. Right next to the real-time display of the weather at the mountain, you’ll find a link to the Conditions Report. It’s fully editable, so they can let their visitors know when a trail is closed at a moment’s notice. Also, depending on the time of year, Ski Sundown’s visitors are looking for a few specific things. In the fall, for example, they’re looking for season passes. We built them a friendly widget that gives priority to those seasonally-important items.
