The task
Villa del Divos is a club residence on the first coastline of Dubai Islands by Mr. Eight Development. 96 apartments from one to five bedrooms, a grand lobby furnished by Tom Dixon and Minotti, beach views from the windows. A one-off building with a buyer to match.
This is the second site we built for Mr. Eight. The first was Interstellar, a digital showroom where you pick a floor straight off the façade. A client coming back sets the bar: repeating the previous project is not an option, and the level has to hold.
The brief came as a contradiction that almost every premium property runs into. The site has to look expensive — otherwise it does not match the price of the apartment and costs trust before the first conversation. At the same time the buyer arrives with concrete questions: when is handover, what formats are there, what does it cost. Premium property sites usually sacrifice the second for the first: a beautiful cover, with the facts hidden behind an enquiry form.
The solution
We refused the trade-off and put the answers on the first screen without breaking the presentation.
The top of the page works as a cover: a fine serif logotype, a full-bleed render looking from the terrace out to sea, as little interface over it as possible. The building is still going up and no photograph exists — a render is the only honest way to show the view the buyer is actually buying.
Over that image runs a line of facts: location, handover date, the range of formats, the starting price. A visitor gets the answers without scrolling and without leaving contact details. A first screen like this filters out the wrong audience before they take up the sales team's time, and removes the main objection for the right one — the sense that the price is being withheld.
What we did
First screen. Name, location, handover date, apartment formats and starting price — all above the fold, over the render.
Visual language. A fine high-contrast serif, a muted palette, plenty of air. Photography and renders carry the page instead of decorative elements.
Mobile. The first screen is built so the facts fit on a phone without being cut: in Dubai most of the traffic arrives from mobile.
Continuity with Interstellar. A different metaphor and a different structure, but the same recognisable quality — the client sees one level across both projects.
The result
The site does the job it was built for: it shows the level of the property and answers the buyer's questions before any capture form.
Sales figures sit with the developer's sales team. What shows from the outside: Mr. Eight Development came back to us for a second project after Interstellar.
