Fireside Resort Case Study
IMAGES COURTESY OF RESNEXUS AND FIRESIDE RESORT
Known as the "Last of the Old West," Jackson Hole, WY is the perfect blend of an old western town and a modern ski town. Located just outside of Jackson, Fireside Resort adds to that feel with their rustic-modern luxury cabins. The wedge shape design of each cabin tailored with metal and wood paneling instantly gives a feeling of a mountainside modern luxury resort. In addition to private balconies, grills, and firepits at each cabin, the resort features a pond, a hot tub, and an RV park and is just across the street from the 4-Star Teton Pines Golf Course.
The Challenge
ELEVATE FIRESIDE RESORT'S ONLINE PRESENCE TO MATCH THEIR LUXURY BRAND
Although luxurious in person, Fireside Resort's online presence lacked the same statement. On their website and booking engine, many of their photos were of low-resolution and outdated. The website design, although professional in nature, felt very template based and didn't match their brand to any degree. ResNexus's goal in working with Fireside Resort was to help elevate their online presence by providing professional drone and commercial photography of their property and cabins, and providing them with a new website design to match their brand.
The Approach
TAKE A ROAD TRIP TO JACKSON, WY AND PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL DRONE AND PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE PROPERTY, THEN REDESIGN THEIR WEBSITE
To efficiently maximize our time away from the office, we set up a road trip to Jackson, WY that encompassed meeting with and providing professional business reviews, drone footage, and commercial property photography for more than a dozen clients in and around Jackson, Fireside Resort included. As the ResNexus website team lead, and with my background in photography I was selected to go on the trip and photograph each property as one of the photographers.
Real-Estate Photography
Background Textures
I USED TEXTURES FROM THE CABIN EXTERIORS TO ADD TEXTURE AND DEPTH TO THE WEBSITE DESIGN
While photographing Fireside Resort , I made sure to capture and note the elements on the property that I felt added to it's rustic luxury vibe (such as the wood paneling and metal paneling pictured below). I used these elements as background textures throughout the site.
Selecting Colors
I USED THEIR RESORT SIGN AND LOGO AS A BRANDING GUIDE FOR THE COLOR PALETTE
The Ember Orange color was selected to be the main accent color and was only be used for buttons and subheadings. The Charcoal Black color, to add to the luxury vibe, would serve as the main background color with a topographical design overlay. This would alternate between the images of the wood paneling and metal paneling from the sides of the cabins. The Mountain Air White color was our main text color, and opted as a reverse accent background color from the Charcoal Black in certain key areas.
*The 3 images with the colors blocks shown above are from Unsplash photographers: Kenrick Mills, Luigi Manga, and Pawel Czerwinski respectively.
Setting up the Typography
TO GIVE A LUXURY FEEL AND MATCH FIRESIDE RESORT'S LOGO, I PAIRED CINZEL WITH OPEN SANS
The serif font Cinzel, naturally provides a sophisticated feel with it's fine edges and sharp serifs. To create contrast I paired Cinzel with Open Sans. Open Sans works as a great body copy, especially when paired with a serif heading font. For consistency and hierarchy, Cinzel would be the main header and sub-header font throughout the site, while Open Sans would serve as the body copy and paragraph font.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
I SET UP THE SITE TO PROVIDE A LOGICAL AND SMOOTH FLOW FOR THE USER
In designing Fireside Resort's website, I wanted to make sure you could get to each of the main pages from the homepage in a visually appealing manner. To do so, I included in each section images, intro sentences, and call to action (CTA) buttons that linked to each of the respective pages.
On each of the main pages, I made sure that there was enough written and visual information, combined with the right CTA's to help the user add the item to their cart and make a purchase. I also included CTA's to help them learn more about an accommodation, or attraction (if applicable) prior to booking .
Below are my low-fidelity wireframes for the main pages.
The Finished Product
THE FOLLOWING IMAGE REPRESENTS THE FINISHED PRODUCT OF THE WEBSITE WHEN THE SITE WENT LIVE
To see Fireside Resort's current live website, click here. The Home page is featured below.
Thanks for Viewing
