Case study · Hospitality · Website design
The Maven
Denver.
A boutique hotel at Dairy Block, built around the city's artists, designers, and makers. The site had to feel like the building: industrial, warm, and full of local hands.
The homepage in motion: a different Denver maker every visit
2017
IAC Best Hotel & Lodging Website
Gold
HSMAI Adrian Award for the site
Silver
W3 Award, same year
3
Homepage variants: artist, designer, photographer
1
Dairy Block: Denver's historic maker district
The Maven is really a gallery of Denver's makers with rooms upstairs. So the homepage leads with the art, not the room grid , and every visit opens on a different local face.
01 · The brief
An independent hotel
in a maker's district.
The Maven sits inside Dairy Block, a restored downtown Denver block full of local restaurants, shops, and studios. The hotel curates an eclectic mix of local art and handmade goods, with a staff who genuinely live for hospitality. None of that came through on the old site.
The brief was a site that felt like the building, industrial and warm, art-forward, with generous type and photography that gives the makers room to breathe. And a booking path kept simple enough that the story never gets in the way of a reservation.
02 · The homepage
Meet a Denver maker,
before you meet a room.
The homepage rotates through the people who give the hotel its character (an artist, a photographer, a designer) each one the full-bleed hero with the booking bar tucked underneath. Hover any of them to ride the page.
The artist
Open on a painter, and the paint leads
The photographer
Next visit, a lens tells the story
The designer
A maker's hands, front and center
03 · The site
The whole property,
in the same editorial voice.
Interiors, the gallery, special offers, and a page for Dairy Block itself. Every template keeps the art-forward rhythm, so the neighborhood and the hotel read as one story. Hover to scroll each page.
hover to scroll
Interiors: photography with room to breathe
hover to scroll
The gallery: local art, not stock
hover to scroll
Offers: packages as editorial cards
hover to scroll
Dairy Block: the neighborhood as an amenity
04 · The brand system
A script that signs the work,
a palette pulled from the block.
A handwritten wordmark signs the hotel like an artist signs a canvas; a clean sans does the quiet work underneath. The palette is Dairy Block itself (ink and denim, brass and sand) warm metal over industrial black.
#151515
Ink
#364C6E
Denim
#978152
Brass
#E6D9C5
Sand
#EBD89A
Wheat
#F4F4F4
Paper
The result
The most awarded hotel site
of its year for us.
The Maven site took IAC Best Hotel & Lodging Website, an HSMAI Adrian Gold, and a W3 Silver in 2017, recognition for a boutique hotel that refused to look like a chain, and a site that put the city's makers on the cover.
“Sell the neighborhood and its people, and the room books itself.”
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