Patrik Hänggi, photographer
WEB-REFRESH

Web-Refresh

Bringing your website into today — without a rebuild.

The website has aged — the whole thing looks like the day before yesterday. You are losing customers, and applicants above all, without noticing. But there is no time, nobody to do it, no spare capacity — and certainly no appetite for starting the whole thing again.

That is where I come in: not a rebuild, a refresh — with the logic and the tools for a website that takes work off your hands and makes you attractive to customers and applicants alike.

As a photographer and filmmaker I already know how you look: the pictures, the films, the visual language — and the words. That is the eye I now bring to the website itself.

ASK FOR A WEBSITE CHECK
WHERE THIS COMES FROM

The logic of back then is still in there

Around the turn of the millennium Swiss companies got their first websites. They were built by whoever could — from the shrewd technician to the digital nomad. Each in their own way, and for the time it was pioneering work.

The webmaster decided the content. For him the technology made the rules: little text, small pictures, everything had to squeeze down a narrow line. What was in was in.

Back then I asked photography clients to please have their phone number put on their contact page. Not once. Several times. Their webmaster eventually did it — reluctantly.

An extreme example. But that stubborn webmaster logic of the 2000s is still inside a lot of websites. You do not see it straight away. You notice it because you have to search, do not find what you came for, do not feel at ease, do not want to stay.

What has changed: a website used to be information and advertising, pointed outwards. Today it is also the place where it is decided whether someone knocks on your door at all — as a customer or as an applicant.

A refresh does not rebuild the site. It teaches it today’s logic and design — and shows what a website can be besides a shop window.

POSSIBLE TODAY

What a website can be today

  • A tool that calculates. Price calculator, configurator, quantity estimate — the visitor gets a figure without picking up the phone.
  • A switchboard for enquiries. Quotation, application, complaint, press — each goes straight to the right person instead of being sorted by hand.
  • An archive of evidence. Projects with pictures and figures instead of a list of references. What your team did is something you see, not only read.
  • An employer presence. The place where it is decided whether somebody presses the apply button. How far the application goes is up to you.
  • A filing place that also works inwards. Data sheets, instructions, forms — for customers, fitters and suppliers. A website does not only have to work outwards.
  • A proof of standing. With tenders, banks and public bodies, somebody looks at the website afterwards. What they see counts.
  • An answering machine. When somebody asks their AI assistant «what does … cost?», the answer either comes from you or from nobody.
  • A stage for the people who do the work. Faces instead of logos — which needs a photographer anyway.
THE PROOF

What does that look like? You are on it

The current website patrikhaenggi.ch — the Film & Video page
Today — same hand, new logic.

Film and scroll cinema. A price calculator that gives a figure at once. An enquiry menu that puts the request straight into the right inbox. Search across the whole site. A WhatsApp button and direct dial — one tap, no hunting. Preview images on hover, page changes with no loading pause. Findable for search engines, readable for AI assistants. And a few things that are not listed here.

All of it built, none of it claimed.

And I know what the other side looks like: for twelve years I designed and maintained my own website myself. It was good — for its time.

Archive image: the former website starportrait.ch as it stood in 2012 — my studio-session site at the time, no longer in service. Screenshot of the whole page. ▾ Tap the image: whole page
Archive image 2012 · no longer in service starportrait.ch — my site for studio sessions. The business side ran separately, on patrik-haenggi-fotograf.ch. It was the era of the big sessions. Up to three make-ups in one shoot, changes of clothes, rebuild the lighting, carry on. Outdoor, horses, pin-up, set cards, maternity — a separate page for every subject. A great time. I built it and kept extending it myself. Against the spirit of the age: long texts, a long navigation list, a blue title bar, small type, rigid rows of pictures, black and grey pages. And all of it for a monitor only. For its time it was good.
GOOD TO KNOW

How it runs, briefly

What a refresh is
First I look at what has substance — usually more than people think: content, pictures, structure. Then it is refreshed selectively: existing pages brought up to date, processes made simpler, individual areas rebuilt. As good on a phone as on a monitor — that is where it is decided whether somebody stays. Bilingual on request; without English you drop out of the running early and never find out why. The effort stays in proportion.
How it runs
One: the website check, with no obligation. Two: a clear proposal with an order of work and the effort involved — no contract, no commitment. Three: the work itself, step by step, each step finished in itself. Four: photography and film once the basis is in place. After every step you decide whether the next one happens.
What I do not promise
I am a photographer and a filmmaker, not a software house. Shops, databases and anything larger only work with my technical partner — I bring him in rather than promise you something I cannot solve myself.

Let us look at your site

No obligation, seen with a photographer’s and filmmaker’s eye. Afterwards you know what is possible — and what it takes.

ASK FOR A WEBSITE CHECK