Fresh PowderPre-development brand strategy
Fractional CMO
All work Work / Lionsback Resort
A lone hiker on a sandstone ridge above Moab at sunset, fins and buttes in the haze beyond
Selected work

Lionsback Resort

Moab, UT Hotel, residences, casitas, trailhead to Sand Flats 175-acre resort at the gateway to Arches

The Idea

A resort that treats the wild as the amenity, not the view.

When the wild terrain is calling, find yourself at the gateway of Sand Flats Recreation Area, Canyonlands, Arches and the Colorado River. More than luxury homes for sale in Utah: a destination that welcomes all ages to relax, recharge and take the best of both worlds, civilized towns and untamed terrain. The brand had to carry that promise without a single adjective doing the work.

Location
Moab, UT
Program
Hotel, residences, casitas
Developer
Invent Development Partners
Setting
Sand Flats, Arches, Canyonlands
Phase
Residences delivering, hotel to follow
Audience
Owners, guests, all ages
What we did

Positioned a resort on the edge of two national parks for two audiences at once: people buying a home in the desert and people visiting it for a weekend. One identity, a sandstone badge and a plain-spoken wordmark, carried across flags, site, sales gallery and the book, with the landscape doing the talking.

PositioningBrand identityNarrativeWebsiteSales collateralEnvironmental
Success

A brand quiet enough to let Moab be the headline.

  • One identity for a hotel and a for-sale residential program, built so neither reads as the other’s afterthought.
  • A badge cut to the shape of the mesa, a wordmark that says only the name and the place, and one line to live by: Stand tall on the shoulders of giants.
  • Photography-led: the parks, the river and the ridge carry the brand; the type stays out of the way.
  • Residences delivered and occupied ahead of the hotel, on the strength of the pre-sales story.
The place
Rendering of the Lionsback lodge: low timber and glass buildings with terraces and umbrellas under a red sandstone cliff, desert scrub in the foreground
The lodge, as rendered. Low, long, and under the rock rather than on it.
Photograph of a built casita at dusk: a flat-roofed stucco house with a lit glass wall and a hot tub, on a rise of red earth and sage
Built. A casita at dusk, lit from inside.
Delicate Arch at sunrise with two figures beneath it and the La Sal mountains beyond
Arches, ten minutes away. The amenity nobody had to build.
A hiker on a sandstone ridge at sunset above the Moab valley
The ridge above the resort at sunset.
Brand Imagery

The identity.

Lionsback Resort badge: a black mesa-shaped shield with Lionsback Resort Moab UT in white capitals, on sage green

The badge. The mesa, cut in black on sage.

Three flags on timber poles against a blue sky: two cream flags reading Lionsback Resort, a green one with the badge

Flags at the entry · cream, sage, and the badge.

Collateral
Monitor showing the Lionsback Resort website: Stand tall on the shoulders of giants in serif capitals beside the lodge rendering and Delicate Arch
Website · Stand tall on the shoulders of giants.
Open sales book: the headline Stand tall on the shoulders of giants on the left page, Delicate Arch at sunset on the right
The book · 175 acres, a stone’s throw from Moab.
Welcome kit: a kraft tube printed with contour lines and the badge, an invitation card, and a towel with a green tag reading Wash away the dirt, but keep the memories
The kit · contour lines, coordinates, and a towel that says it.
Rendering of a residence interior: a double-height great room with woven pendant lights, a long table, and red rock through the glass
Residence interior · the rock through every window.
The thesis
In Moab the landscape is the brand. The job is to not get in its way.
Fresh Powder, on Lionsback Resort
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