January 8, 2010
How These Things Happen
Obama in Bushwick.
1. Early in 2004, I began entertaining myself by sending goofy pictures from the White House website to a friend in Tokyo.
2. So I wound up writing my Metropolis column about the Bush administration’s use of its website, “A President And His Dog”, published in August 2004.
3. The column was included in Looking Closer Five: Critical Writings in Graphic Design, published in 2007.
4. For some reason, Gong Szeto, an old friend and a brilliant web designer, read that column in August of 2009.
5. And, in September, he suggested to Julie Lasky, editor of Change Observer, that she commission a sequel, an essay about the Obama administration’s website.
6. So I wrote one. In December. And it’s now up at Change Observer.
7. Not that I’m nostalgic or anything, but the Bush website made for a more amusing essay.