It was once again time for changes. 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 all very differently – creatively and imaginatively.

For version 10, I created an informative website without much frills: The website gets straight to the point right on the homepage, shows some websites developed by me, skills, client feedback and Client Locations (world map) – all on one page.

A modern website has to get to the point quickly and compactly. And answer possible questions from visitors.

1.) Layouts and Typography

I optimized the layouts throughout and generally added more white space. Since many users today surf on huge screens, I designed a subtle background graphic that fills the white space on the right and left.

The web design trends of 2026 are clearly moving towards a uniform pattern, because it has proven effective with users: a simple logo at the top left, below it a summarising claim in large type, below that 2 CTA (call-to-action) buttons, colour gradients in backgrounds and headings, card design with rounded corners, count-in pills, 3 columns, lots of CSS slide-ins, especially readable fonts etc.

Many new websites come with black backgrounds, tons of animations and page elements flying in. All of this is supposed to look "cool". Everything twitches and moves, it's supposed to be surprising! But: Today's hectic world is shaped by sensory overload. At every turn, we are flooded with advertising and visual effects. And more and more older people are on the internet. What are they supposed to do with this whole circus? I don't chase every trend—I never have. I do study the trends, but I only implement what seems sensible to me and tolerable for users.

Regarding typography, I chose the very readable font "Acumin Pro" for copy and the font "Quicksand" for headers.

2.) Mobile Layouts

Based on mobile devices, I developed new, very compact layouts for small screens with Responsive Web Design.

3.) Dark Mode

My website now has a "Dark Mode" with a theme switcher (on desktops). Today this is a need for many users. The color scheme in dark mode is different, e.g. 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 built a page footer that displays the results of the official website quality tests (Google "Lighthouse" resp. "PageSpeed Insights"). As expected from me: 4 x 100%.

5.) Interface Details

Good web designers can be recognized by the details — especially by user-friendliness. Meaning, the users matter to you! For example:

• My language switcher makes it clear to every user which language is selected
• My menu items have a subtitle so that one understands what one is clicking
• The feedback box shows with an orange "Progress Bar" how long it will still take
• One page has several subheadings that I designed with a subtle 3D effect



In my page footer, I offer a sitemap so users can click directly to continue, instead of first having to scroll back to the top of the page (where the top menu is). For modern user-friendliness, every website should offer a compact sitemap at the bottom right:

6.) Loading Times

Websites can actually never load fast enough. That is why I optimized the loading times of my webpages with the latest methods — a measurable difference.

7.) SEO

I updated the search engine optimization of my website. The index.php is cleanly structured from an SEO perspective: Dynamic titles/descriptions, canonical, hreflang (de/en/x-default), suitable robots rules and JSON-LD are active. The Google Sitemap is controlled by a sitemap.php generated from the database and delivers lastmod, changefreq, priorities as well as language alternatives for Google. The robots.txt is clearly Google-friendly, blocks only irrelevant areas (e.g. admin, filter URLs) and correctly references the Sitemap. In .htaccess, 301 canonical redirects, sitemap rewrite and caching rules secure a modern foundation, so that the SEO is now up to date and Google-friendly.

8.) 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 ended up with 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)

9.) Client Logos

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

10.) Projects Page

For my client projects, I had the category "Social Networks". But what I developed were correctly "Social Websites" (mainly online club platforms and dating platforms). That is why I changed the category.

11.) Skills Page

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

12.) Feedback Page

Since I received great feedback from clients and Swiss media, this page also had to be renovated. Now with better typography and better layout www.greg.ch/reactions

13.) Photo Page

I made my photo page www.greg.ch/photos more consistent – the photos are now all the same width. As the son of a former professional photographer, I built in a black-and-white effect. With this page I wanted to show that a software developer does not just constantly sit in front of the computer.

14.) Music Page

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

15.) Doggy Page

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

16.) SWB

I 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.

17.) A.I. - my take

The modern and in many ways more important topic is artificial intelligence. My views on it.

18.) Project HeartOpera

For a private web project of 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 partly the texts in German and English.


The subject of the website is modern performance art and experimental music in connection with the Zurich University of the Arts (zhdk.ch). That is why 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 subject, be unique, and still be bookable as a web domain. My best idea was "HeartOpera", because the doctor is involved both with medicine and with opera.
• Secondly, I developed the logo. This also had to be unique and convey both core topics. On the one hand medicine: the heart as the most important organ ➾ pulse ➾ ECG. And on the other hand the opera ➾ grand entrance, drama, glamour ➾ a large "O" with glamour. To make the logo appealing, I designed a short logo animation that runs (once) on every page change:
  
  
• Thirdly, I edited the content: This website currently contains 18 different projects — predominantly 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 website's varied offering to the point.
• Fifthly, I developed a website design suitable for modern art, designed all layouts and selected the typography (fonts and font presentation).
• After that, only details remained to be done, such as scripting the responsive web design for display on mobile devices such as smartphones, optimizing the loading times etc.



• The finished website: www.heartopera.ch

FB

PS: on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/lemmenmeier there is something new 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 fascinated again by the new possibilities and technologies on the web! My joy in experimenting has been awakened again, and I am playing with ideas.

As the son of a successful business consultant Swisscoaching and brother of a self-employed software expert and IT supporter MacSimum Support, I know that professional independence is a real challenge... and that I gave up my second career in 2011 in order to devote myself to other things.

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

And yet I was only 1 guy with 1 PC and 1 coffee machine.

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