Vail, Colorado Poster

This poster has been developed as part of my Colorado Vintage Travel Poster series. Created in Adobe Illustrator, I am able to enlarge and reduce the illustration without loss of quality.

I call this the “travel poster” look which is a simplistic graphic illustration style but with more gradations than the old world travel posters from the 1930’s and 40’s. The process: I first create rough sketches. Then I tighten up each part as a pencil sketch and scan the drawing into the computer. I then use this scan as an underlay importing it into Adobe Illustrator. Each part of the image is created as a shape and eventually I fill the shapes in with color. After the color palette is established, I then create simple gradations to allow the image to have some depth. This piece has been printed as a giclee on watercolor paper.

Vail Ski Resort is located in Eagle County, Colorado, next to the town of Vail. At 5,289 acres, it is the 3rd largest single mountain ski resort in the United States behind Big Sky and Park City, featuring seven bowls and intermediate gladed terrain in Blue Sky Basin. It opened in 1962 and is currently owned and operated by Vail Resorts, which also operates three other ski resorts in the state, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Beaver Creek.

Vail Mountain has three sections: The Front-Side, Blue Sky Basin, and the Back Bowls. It also has the fourth largest skiable terrain in North America after Whistler Blackcomb, Powder Mountain and Big Sky Resort. Most of the resort is wide open terrain with all types of trails. There are cruising runs on most front side and Blue Sky Basin lifts, as well as the wide open Back Bowls, glades, and chutes. Unlike other Colorado ski towns such as Aspen, Breckenridge, or Steamboat Springs, which existed as mining towns prior to the establishment of their ski resorts, the town of Vail was built when the resort opened.