The Atelier Stoess is one of the leading jewelers in Europe. Since its beginning in the 19th century, it has been owned and managed by the same family, now in the fourth generation. In 1886, Wilhelm Stoess founded the eponymous atelier in Berlin, where his customers included Tsar Alexander I. Walter Stoess transferred the business to Wiesbaden in 1925, but the atelier was later closed by the Nazi government. The company was revived after World War II, and under the leadership of Wolfgang Stoess, who succeeded his father in 1962, the Atelier Stoess won first prizes in European jewelry competitions. In 2002, after his goldsmith studies in Geneva and Zürich, Wolfgang Alexander Stoess became the fourth member of the family to lead the atelier. Thirteen years later, he commissioned Q to create a new website.

Our information architecture provides plenty of room for all important aspects of the Atelier Stoess: precious stones, jewelry, watches, and the creative process. For example, the site follows a project from an original aquarel sketch to the final piece of jewelry. The site also offers: digital dictionaries that explain terms from Amethyst to Zircon, a comprehensive search function, summaries of the atelier’s jewelry and watch brands, videos, an online catalogue, and recent company news. The responsive website was completely created in WordPress, taking full advantage of all of its open-source options.

Because we believe that websites should be easy to manage, we ensured that Mr. Stoess can use the Wordpress content-management system to maintain and update all of the site’s text and images without relying on expert technologists.

The website not only made our client happy by supporting his sale and adding credit to his image. Furthermore, it was designated one of the 10 best websites in our state by the jury of the Hessische Website Awards 2016. Together with Wolfgang A. Stoess and his team, we are pleased that our work was included on the top ten list – among 300 competition entries.  

The Hessische Website Awards – organized by the Chambers of Industry and Commerce – honors the best websites of small or medium-sized companies in Hesse with annual revenue of not more than 50 million Euro. Spanning various classes of business, the award acknowledges the achievements of companies that achieve excellent online communication despite limited financial and temporal resources. It assesses all relevant website aspects such as design, content, ease of use, search engine optimization, smart integration of social media, and compliance with legal requirements.

“Q has done an outstanding job! From the first concept until the final implementation, they provided a great service. Even after going live, we still work closely together and achieve wonderful results.”

Johanna Giesecke, Atelier STOESS