Built by the Community, for the Community
West Slope Startup Week
Visual Identity Design
Creative Direction
Iconography
Print & Digital Design
Illustration
Brand Guidelines
Website Design
Environmental Design
West Slope Startup Week is a free, five-day event that brings together entrepreneurs, makers, creatives, and small business owners from rural Colorado and beyond. It offers workshops, panels, and networking across multiple tracks—like tech, arts, sustainability, and business growth. Designed to inspire collaboration, skill-building, and community-driven innovation.
Photos By: Ryan Sanchez
THE CHALLENGE
Startup Week is an international event. Denver hosts one of the flagship U.S. gatherings. And even though Grand Junction is still Colorado, it's a different world from the metro front range. The rural culture out here carries its own rhythm, its own set of challenges for business. That reality is shared by communities all across the Western Slope, from Durango to Steamboat. So when the idea took shape to build our own Startup Week, the challenge was clear: create a brand that could stand alongside events like Denver's while staying rooted in the people and landscape it was actually built for.
THE PROCESS
Shortly after Denver Startup Week, I sat on a panel in Grand Junction where we discussed our experiences as small business owners and how to bring that energy home. Being a brand designer and close to the problem, I was brought on to build the visual system. It needed to represent the Western Slope without leaning too rural, and it had to be adaptable. This event was going to travel across the region and grow beyond what any of us initially planned for. So I designed around flexibility. A system of parts that could scale, shift context and still hold together across tracks, venues and years.
THE SOLUTION
What came together was a full brand identity system that feels fluid and technical while celebrating the rugged beauty of the Western Slope. A stylized line-art illustration library became the visual backbone, capturing the landscape through a contemporary lens. Custom iconography was built to silo each event track, from Capital to Makers to Tech, giving the programming a visual language as organized as the event itself. Print, digital, environmental design and web all drew from the same system. The brand has since carried the event from Grand Junction to hometown gatherings in Durango, Steamboat Springs, Telluride and beyond, growing alongside the community it was made for.
Approach
Every project follows the same process. One rooted deeply in the practice of our Signature Thataway Method. →
Solutions
"I highly recommend working with TJ for branding and graphic design projects, especially for those seeking a modern, western charm and aesthetic. TJ produced stunning graphic design assets for my event, West Slope Startup Week, that helped make promotions for the event more successful and memorable."
- Kayleen Cohen / Mountain Dog Media
