Painting new purpose into an old school RV
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As part of SnowSearch’s mission to build a better way to hit the slopes, our founding team is trading in corporate life in Boston for a simpler setup on the road. Enter Ol’ Betty — the 1994 Catalina Coachman we bought as we prepare to launch our startup. Betty stole the show in SnowSearch’s first Medium article, so we figured she deserved her own 15-minutes of fame.
The Backstory
We found the vehicle on Craigslist late one night in early May. Before even seeing her in person, we knew she had great potential. Here’s a snippet from our Slack convo that fateful night:
The Purchase
That Friday, we ventured an hour south from Boston to New Bedford, MA. The seller Justin had sold his house and was preparing to hit the road and and homeschool his 2 kids with his wife in their shiny new 5th wheel (trailer attached to the back of a pickup truck, for all you RV noobs out there).
His destination? In his words, ‘West’. The only thing holding him back? He had a 1994 Catalina Coachman — the very truck that had gotten him hooked on life on the road — sitting in his driveway collecting dust.
The Transaction
After consulting the various ‘how not to get killed when buying stuff of Craigslist’ guides we found throughout the week, we met Justin at a well lit, centrally located repair shop in Freetown, MA of mutual choosing. The repair guys spent about an hour giving Betty a thorough inspection, after which it was deemed she needed approx. $1200 in repairs. We negotiated most of that off the sale price, and drove to a bank to have the title signed over on camera and hand over $7K in cash (yeah, these guides are pretty thorough). With that, we were handed the keys, and passed down a name.
The Next 2 Months
$1200 and 1 week was the initial estimate. In a series of calls and voicemails over the course of the next 2 months, we heard the following:
- ‘This camper is giving us all nightmares.’
- ‘We want it off our property more than you guys want it in your hands. Trust us’
- ‘We’ll call when she’s running again.’
- ‘It’s like navigating the goddamn Santa Maria.’
Confidence inducing? Nope, not at all. Yet in early July, we finally got the call we had been waiting for. She was ready, so we hit the road to pick her up.
The Collaboration
After making the initial purchase, we hooked up with Olivia and Erica — ‘art major friends’ from UConn — through a former colleague of mine for whom Erica was painting sweet garage mural. As any millennial strangers would, we jumped on a FaceTime to introduce each other. We gave them an idea of our vision and goals for the project, and verbally worked through some of the finer details of the arrangement.
Mood Boards
As a next step, in an effort to visually convey our respective visions, Luke (other Co-Founder) and I each spent some time pulling together our own respective mood boards. As you can see below, exactly one of us is artistically talented (and Swiss).
Inspiration
From these mood boards, Olivia and Erica came back with a handful of artists whose work they felt could act as inspiration for our design. Alongside this, they prepared a color palette leveraging our existing logo along with other shades they thought could be complementary. We dug through these items — picking out some that we liked and others we didn’t — and provided detailed feedback accordingly.
First Designs
These designs got us pretty hyped. Around this time, we launched our SnowSearch Instagram channel and posted a design challenge to help narrow down the options. Based on the results of this exercise (we got 32 votes)! and our team’s personal thoughts, we landed on a final design, below.
‘Final’ Design
I include quotations surrounding the word ‘final’ as this simply acted as a guide for the general vision we had hoped to execute. This was by no means a simple option — as it required intertwining an inverse two-tone design design into a cohesive soft-branded visual display. Most important was the fact that this helped us finalize our desired color scheme, which allowed us to shop for paint accordingly.
Shopping and prep
We spent about 5 hours between 3 trips to 3 different local Home Depots in Westchester, New York. While I wouldn’t call any of these experiences pleasant — their customer service leaves something to be desired — we found good humor in sifting through some of the more absurd paint names. From ‘Bath Salts’ and ‘Grandma’s Sweater’ to ‘Mayonnaise’ and ‘Nacho Cheese’, it was a solid way to pass the time.
The Main Event
The series of photos below were taken over the subsequent 4 day period. They tell the rest of the story better than words alone ever could!
The Finished Product
After 4 days and nights, 115 man/woman hours, 8 gallons of paint and 4 cases of polar seltzer, allow me to reintroduce Betty (we’re dropping the ‘Ol)!
What’s Next
Starting later this month, we will be traveling to meet with ski resorts across New England. Our goal will be to have them sign onto our innovative platform that will help them better reach the new generation of young, exploration-driven skiers and snowboarders.
While on the road, we will be doing a ton of cool stuff to get the word out about SnowSearch (giveaways, social media competitions, etc.)! We’ll regularly post our location via social media, so follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to stay up to speed. If we’re ever in your area, we would LOVE to meet you, hang out and give away some dope SnowSearch swag!
Finally, I want to a sincere thank you to Erica, Olivia and Luke for leading the charge on this project. I was mostly in the background taking pics and doing the low-consequence painting (if you ever make it up to our sky-blue rooftop, you’re welcome). We are beyond psyched about the final product and cannot wait to get out there and start spreading the stoke!
-Bryan
Co-Founder @ SnowSearch
bryan@snowsearch.io
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About the Artists
Erica Laucella is from Connecticut and received her bachelor’s in fine arts with a concentration in printmaking in 2015 from UConn. She lived in Boston for two years and now lives back in CT where she does freelance graphic design. She keeps herself busy in her downtime by assistant coaching her high school’s crew team. Erica continues to make her own art whenever possible and is fortunate enough to use the printmaking facilities at her alma mater. Hearing about this project, she felt nothing but excitement. Taking it on with her talented friend and colleague, Olivia Taylor, they have worked together through the design process and are pretty stoked to start painting! Erica’s website/portfolio is currently under construction, but you can see what she’s up to on her instagram: @ericalaucella
Olivia Taylor is Graphic Designer/Illustrator currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Apart from her day job as a Visual Designer, Olivia does freelance graphic design and illustration, taking on any project that comes her way. Any downtime she has she uses to hone her hand-lettering skills and create art of her own that she sells via Society6. One of her favorite things to do is mural painting, so when Erica told her about the SnowSearch project she could not have been more excited to be a part of it. You can view the majority of Olivia’s work on her website at oktdesign.com or check out her art Instagram account @okayokt for more of her fun projects!
Luke Zirngibl is SnowSearch’s Co-Founder & CTO, but prior to his foray into Software Development earned a dual degree in Fine Arts and Mechanical Engineering from Dartmouth College. He considers himself a computational digital and traditional artist, though this was by far the largest format project he had ever undertaken. From logo work to color schemes and custom swag, Luke is the visual brains behind all things SnowSearch. Simply put, this project wouldn’t have been possible without his direction (he’s still painting as I write this). You can reach him via the message bot on our landing page.
Special thanks to my @mom — who is also an incredible artist and pitched in hours to help out with some of the more challenging painting — and my @dad for letting us use their driveway and block the garage for the better part of the last week!
