Gevril is one of the oldest names in Swiss watchmaking — a brand whose roots stretch back to 1758, when its founder was appointed Royal Watchmaker to the King of Spain. But heritage alone doesn't sustain a brand. By the time Gevril came to us, the name had faded from the spotlight, and its digital presence didn't reflect the caliber of what was being made. That old-world glamour that once defined Gevril was nowhere to be found. People visit Gevril's website to discover the brand — to understand what it is and why it matters. The site needed to function as a brand experience first: a place that makes people feel the weight of 250 years of watchmaking, and want to be part of what comes next.
Honoring heritage, elevating everything else.
Every design choice needed to bring out the old-world glamour that Gevril once embodied — updated for how people experience brands today. We made a deliberate decision not to touch the Gevril logo; the mark carries decades of equity and recognition. Instead, we built the rest of the brand identity up around it. The typography, rich color palette, and overall visual language were designed to evoke depth and luxury.
We also art directed a full photo shoot with photographer Dani Diamond, whose work brought exactly the refined quality we were after. The imagery captures an old European glamour — rich in texture, moody in tone, cinematic in composition. These photographs don't just show watches; they communicate a feeling, a lifestyle, a world that Gevril belongs to.
Making watch discovery intuitive.
The previous site organized its watch collections by name — Avenue of Americas, Houston, Tribeca — which meant nothing to someone encountering the brand for the first time. You had no idea what a watch looked like until you clicked through. It was a friction point that undermined browsing. We redesigned the navigation to be highly photographic. Every collection in the menu is represented visually, so visitors can see the watch style they're selecting before they commit to a page. This seemingly simple change fundamentally improved how people explore and discover Gevril's catalog.
Storytelling Through Animation
The About page is one of the most important pages on the site. For a brand where perception and story are everything, this page needed to do more than list facts — it needed to create an emotional journey. We designed an animated experience that walks visitors through Gevril's history, from Jacques Gevril's appointment as Royal Watchmaker in 18th-century Spain through to the brand's modern revival.
Gevril offers important services — watch repair, maintenance, battery replacement — but the previous site buried this information and presented it poorly. Visitors who needed service work had no clear path to understanding what was available or how to proceed. Motif redesigned the service pages from the ground up, laying out information in a clean, logical hierarchy.
The new Gevril site is a fundamentally different brand experience. It's darker, richer, more cinematic. It tells a story that stretches back over 250 years but feels unmistakably modern. Visitors arrive and immediately understand that this is a brand with weight, with history, with intention.
Photography: Dani Diamond
Development: Jay Friedman
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