It was time for a change once again. My successful personal website www.greg.ch, currently in Version 10, began in the middle of the first internet boom in 1999. I designed versions 1 to 9 in very different ways – creative and imaginative.

For Version 10, I created an informative website without much fuss: the website gets straight to the point right on the homepage, showing several websites I developed, customer feedback, client locations (world map), and skills – everything at a glance!

A modern website must get to the point quickly and compactly. And answer the potential questions of visitors.

1.) Layouts and Typography

I have optimized the layouts throughout and generally added more white space. Because more and more users today surf on huge screens, I designed a background graphic. The website remains compact (and thus clear) in the center, but to the right and left of it, the previously white area looks more appealing due to the subtle background. I incorporated some current CSS effects. And for the typography, I chose "Gregfont6" for copy and "Gregfont5" for headers. I find these fonts very readable on all screens.

2.) Mobile Layouts

Based on today's popular mobile devices, I developed new, very compact layouts for small screens using Responsive Web Design.

3.) Dark Mode

My website now has a "Dark Mode" with a theme switcher (on desktops). This is a requirement for many users today. The color scheme in dark mode is different; for example, the dynamic red becomes a pleasant light brown. I also had to change various images so that they work on dark backgrounds.

4.) Lighthouse

I integrated a page footer that displays the results of the official website quality tests (Google "Lighthouse" or "PageSpeed Insights"). As expected from me: 4 x 100%.

5.) Loading Times

Websites can never really load fast enough. That's why I optimized the loading times of my webpages using the latest methods — a measurable difference.

6.) SEO

I updated my website's search engine optimization. The current index.php is cleanly structured for SEO, with dynamic titles/descriptions, canonical tags, hreflang (de/en/x-default), appropriate robots rules, and active JSON-LD. The Google sitemap sitemap.php gets generated from the database and provides lastmod, changefreq, priorities, and language alternatives for Google. The robots.txt is clearly Google-friendly, blocks only irrelevant areas (e.g., admin and filtered URLs), and correctly references the sitemap. In .htaccess, 301 canonical redirects, sitemap rewriting, and caching rules provide a modern foundation, so the SEO is now fully up to date and Google-friendly.

7.) Logo Redesign

Here you can see the evolution of the website logo from 1999 to 2026. I started at a time when complexity was cool and finally landed at simplicity. Most people today prefer minimalist logos. My logo became more modern with a dynamic "G" as a symbol.







(my workstation for programming + design + composition)

8.) Projects Page

For my client projects, I had the category "Social Networks". But what I developed were correctly "Social Websites" (especially online association platforms and dating platforms). Therefore, I changed the category.

9.) Client Logos

Client logos from my portfolio are now organized and on A4, good for printing.

10.) Skills Page

The summary of my skills was previously unclear, as different disciplines like webdev and trading looked the same. Now I have designed the graphics differently.

11.) Feedback Page

Since I have received great feedback from customers and Swiss media, this page also had to be renovated. Now with easy-to-read font and a better layout www.greg.ch/reactions

12.) Photo Page

I made my photo page www.greg.ch/photos more uniform – the photos are now all the same width. As the son of a former professional photographer, I also built in a black and white effect. I think the page is now appealing.

13.) Music Page

For my music page www.greg.ch/music I redesigned 4 CD covers (I made 8 CDs).

14.) Doggy Page

Since I have a new dog, there is now a new Doggy Page: www.greg.ch/joya

15.) SWB

I have streamlined my old but much-read newspaper article "Swiss Webdesign Business" (certainly over 300k impressions to date — including on paper); it is now more compact.

16.) A.I. - my take

The modern and often more important topic is Artificial Intelligence. My views on it.

17.) Project HeartOpera

For a private web project by a neurologist (doctor) in Zurich, I created a complete bilingual website including PHP8 programming, Javascript coding, HTML and CSS scripting, all new designs and layouts, some video and audio edits, and partially the texts in German and English.



The theme of the website is modern performance art and experimental music in connection with the Zurich University of the Arts (zhdk.ch). Therefore, I developed a modern, clear website design. Primarily, nothing should distract from the art performances shown.

• I began with the development of the name: it had to fit the theme, be unique, and still be available as a web domain. My best idea was "HeartOpera" because the doctor deals with both medicine and opera.
• Secondly, I developed the logo. This also had to be unique and convey both core themes. On the one hand medicine: as the most important organ the heart ⇛ pulse ⇛ ECG. And on the other hand the opera ⇛ grand appearance, drama, glamour ⇛ a large "O" with glamour. To make the logo appealing, I designed a short logo animation that runs (once) with every page change:
  
  
• Thirdly, I processed the content: this website currently contains 18 different projects — mainly public performances. For each project, there is multimedia content (video or audio), for which I edited and cut several videos and audio clips. Furthermore, there are bilingual texts for each project, for which I translated between German and English.
• Fourthly, I looked for suitable ideas for the homepage (i.e. the start page), combined several video scenes as a "teaser" and developed an intro text (advertising text) that gets the diverse offerings of the website to the point.
• Fifthly, I developed a website design suitable for modern art, designed all layouts and chose the typography (fonts and font display).
• After that, there were only details to be done such as the scripting of the responsive web design for display on mobile devices like smartphones, optimizing loading times, etc.


• The finished website: www.heartopera.ch

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PS: on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/lemmenmeier there is news from time to time.

...Conclusion

Updating my website www.greg.ch to Version 10 was fun. After a 15-year break as a web worker (programmer/designer/copywriter), I am now once again fascinated by the new possibilities and technologies on the web! My joy of experimentation has been reawakened, and I am playing with ideas.

As the son of a successful business consultant Swisscoaching and brother of an independent software expert and IT supporter MacSimum Support, it is clear to me that professional independence is a real challenge... and that I gave up my second career in 2011 to devote myself to other things.

Sometimes I miss the old times. Back then, what feels like 100 years ago, I was an internationally successful web designer with customers on five continents and appeared 12 times on television — on SRF1 and 3sat including reruns. Or back when greg.ch was presented as website of the month by the Brazilian "TV Cultura" (70 million viewers) — and then my mailbox exploded. Or back when the business magazine "Bilanz" included me in the list of Swiss "Internet VIPs" — but expectations of me kept rising...

Yet I was just 1 guy with 1 PC and 1 coffee machine.

Today I take care of... my dog. What a simple life!