Vail Resorts, Inc, Vail, Colorado

Vail Resorts, Inc. is one of the leading resort operators in North America. The Company owns and operates four ski resorts in Colorado, one ski resort in Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada, and one summer resort in Grand Teton, Wyoming.

Initial Concept:  Vail Associates built a new corporate headquarters in 1994.  Our challenge began as we studied the company and the message they wanted to communicate to their clients and employees.    Consulting with their architectural and senior staff we distilled our quest to one question. “How can we best showcase a company that has a short but rich history and is already in one of the most beautiful places in the world?”

Solution:  We worked with their staff photographer and town historians to unearth favorite old pictures detailing the history of the resort.  We carefully crafted super-sized black and white prints, and then hand oil colored selected items within the prints.  (Such as Pete Seibert’s famous yellow snowcat.)  This created an historic walk through their headquarters.  The night of their grand opening we were invited to join the honorary guests for the tour of the building. Jerry and Betty Ford were with us and we all enjoyed one of their 60’s photographs, President Fords striped ski pants and all.

Quote:  Andy Daly, their President exclaimed   “We spent one million dollars on this project,  $50,000 on the art project, and all anybody talks about is the art!”

The end result – we helped transform a corporate office space with few real windows to the outdoors into a powerful workspace where both clients and employees could enjoy the history and feel a connection to the past and a part of the future.

Design and Production Team:  Jason Ingram and Wayne Hill, Concept, Karla Nicholson as Oil Colorist, Stuart Huck as Printmaker