Rebranding Bijouterie Ex Aurum (Jewelry Store)

Last year I was approached to help give a face-lift to one of Montreal's premiere jewelry stores, Bijouterie Ex Aurum.

Ex Aurum has been in business since 1989 and their website was getting a little stale (especially for such a fashion-conscious industry like jewelry). They wanted something that better reflected their brand, which caters to clients who want the highest quality engagement rings and other diamond jewelry. They compete with stores like Birks, Tiffany's and Blue Nile so they need to make sure that their image properly reflects their high standards and customer service.

Their old website was a little too dark and did not compete well (style-wise) with their competitors, who are all contemporary in design.

(above, old website home page)

(above, old engagement ring catalog)

(above, old contact page)

(above, old Ex Aurum logo)

I started the re-branding with the logo. The old logo used a font that was a little too thin and lacked the strength of the unicorn mark. I decided to continue with a serif font, but make it thicker, richer and stronger in appearance.

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(above, new logo ... three versions)

The updated logo, with its thicker font, now is better balanced with the unicorn mark and has a much richer and stronger overall appearance. I also created a vertical version to be used in certain situations, like on the jewelry boxes.

Next, the website. 

I thought that a white website would be a better choice to Ex Aurum, as their primary business dealt with bridal jewelry (engagement rings) and as such pure white would be a more appropriate shade than black. White was also chosen in order to convey an aura of purity, perfection and of being new.

The new website needed to showcase the standards of high quality workmanship that Ex Aurum jewelers did their work and to show the visual beauty of their wide range of products. Exaurum.com was designed with a rotating product banner to highlight products and promotions that the store wanted to focus on. Below that, I added a grid of many of the most popular rings and other jewelry pieces. I did this because many people will browse for a bit on the homepage and then leave if nothing catches their interest. In order to keep them on the site and to help increase 'stickiness' of their stay, I deliberately chose some of the most popular products.

I also added a lead capture form in the footer, across the website, in order to encourage people to sign up for future news and promotions. This was integrated with MailChimp's service.

Ex Aurum also has many video clips of their products and I decided to show these in a loop. 

I then adjusted to the presentation for their products to really focus on the images of the products themselves. The old website had a text overlay of the product names (which meant little most people) on top of each product image. This obscured the beauty of the jewelry piece itself.

On the contact page, I added a contact form and a Google Map window showing the store's location and reviews. I also added the store hours.

These changes has lead to a significant increase in many visitor metrics including time on site, pages visited and conversions. The new site has significantly outperform the old one and with continued work, my aim to to keep improving the user experience for visitors to this store's website.