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For sixth straight year, Ridgway’s Issenberg handcrafts X Games Aspen medals

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Austin Colbert

Ridgway's Lisa Issenberg is the artist who handcrafted the X Games medals and was on hand to personally engrave any athlete medals on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, inside the athlete lounge at X Games Aspen at Buttermilk Ski Area.
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

This being her sixth year making the X Games Aspen medals, Colorado’s Lisa Issenberg doesn’t have any problem coming up with new ideas. After all, it’s what she does.

“It’s my passion. It’s what I do. It’s a great job,” she said. “I love being tasked with, ‘OK, come up with a good design.’ It really is the best job. It’s pretty much all my passions merged into one.”

Issenberg, who has a studio in Ridgway, uses a combination of industrial methods and handcraft to create each medal. She works with ESPN’s Brian Kerr each year to come up with a design approach. Creating something that reflects Aspen and nature has always been at the top of that list.

“Every year, we try to push it further. Again, it always starts with Brian Kerr,” Issenberg said. “He comes up with a theme, and it’s typically the mountains or snow, or this year, it’s snowflakes. It’s something wintery and natural and relating to Aspen. But from there, I dive into the world of design.”

The 2025 X Games medals are round with snowflakes in the background and the World of X logo is proud, with the snowflakes seen through the negative space. Issenberg spent part of Friday hanging out in the athlete’s lounge, offering custom engravings for their medals.


She also makes the rings that go to the knuckle huck winners.

“I would say it’s the most perfect design of nature. When you think about everything that nature designs, the snowflake is mind blowing,” Issenberg said. “This year, we wanted to go with more bling. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of taking this snowflake and abstracting it to work in a metal cutout.”

Ridgway’s Lisa Issenberg is the artist who handcrafted the X Games medals and was on hand to personally engrave any athlete medals on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, inside the athlete lounge at X Games Aspen at Buttermilk Ski Area.
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

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Issenberg, who operates through her company, Kiitella — Finnish for “to thank, applaud, praise” — has had plenty of clients over the years, hand-making awards for The North Face, American Alpine Club, the Birds of Prey World Cup ski races at Beaver Creek, and even Aspen Skiing Company.

Naturally, the best part of the process for Issenberg is seeing the medals around the necks of the athletes.

“They are on the podium, they are putting something around their neck, and they will probably take it home and put it somewhere and maybe look at it a little more later,” she said. “I don’t know what happens after that. But I know it’s mainly an award, so it’s my job to make the coolest token that they could possibly win. It’s really fun to see them have these around their neck.”

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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