The Earth, Air, and Water Upgrade

Big Bear Lake Resort Branding and Website

Big Bear Lake is Southern California’s only true four-season mountain resort, located 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The area has a seven mile long lake with fishing and water sports in the summer. It also has two full-service ski resorts in the winter—Snow Summit and Bear Mountain. The 200-member Resort Association, consisting of lodges, hotels, ski resorts, marinas and restaurants, enlisted Drake Cooper to help ramp-up marketing efforts to attract visitors to the Big Bear Lake region. This included not only a website redesign but a cohesive brand upgrade.

The new brand identity for Big Bear was launched under the thematic “Live It. Up.” This direction inspires and motivates outdoor enthusiasts to reap the benefits of an all-season escape out of SoCal city doldrums for some full-on fun.

For the brand, Drake Cooper created an identity scheme inspired by various National Forest trail signs at Big Bear Lake. The key elements of the logo include a newly revised “bear” icon, along with the brand designation “Mountain Lake Escape” which describes the heart of the brand.  A modular identity system was created which allows for versatility to change out the icon in the shield, to help communicate certain activities or marketing objectives.

The website was redesigned, shifting to a more member-focused functionality based around individual detail pages for each of the association members. Coupled with an SEO revamp, a custom-built, easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS) was developed so the members can easily update content, events, maps, alerts, banner ads, and much more.

The new brand identity and website launched mid-February to rave reviews from Big Bear Resort Association and site visitors.

See for yourself: www.bigbear.com

Shout-Outs: Bill Drake, Mona Teffeteller, Chad Connally, Josh Mcdannel, Justin Yonk, Heidy Agalsoff, Dennis Budell, Joe Quatrone, Amanda Cash-Crowley, Dave Casey, Joe Boren, Javier Barrera, and Gummibear.