Update: the new White House Website is launched!
The new White House website design: what to expect?
We know who President-Elect Barack Obama’s web designers were: SimpleScott, and later Walker Hamilton too. My sources tell me (don’t you have sources? 
) that Scott Thomas and Walker Hamilton are no longer working with the Obama or Change.gov website. Scott Thomas is busy working on an art collective project (VERY cool stuff).
Change.gov web design
The Change.gov site is basically BarackObama.com restyled a bit. The Change.gov site uses many resources from the barackobama.com website, including most of the main CSS file. The Change.gov website was designed by Matt Ipcar. The Change.gov website’s back-end (just like the Obama website) is being handled by Blue State Digital.
What can we learn about the WhiteHouse.gov web design?
If the Change.gov web site is any indication, we can extrapolate the following:
- Obama’s web designers are going to stick with the dark background and white content area.
- The new blue is here to stay. Gone is the youthful, buoyant blue — replaced by the somber, presidential blue.
Senator Obama Blue
President Obama Blue
- The blog will continue to be on the home page with a content slider
- For consistency with the current White House web site, I predict they will make some concessions, including perhaps moving to a three-column design. This may be temporary, if only to create a smooth transition from the past site to the new website.
- There will be landing pages that will provide focused information for the user. This is currently not being done on the White House website.
Anyone want to be the President’s web designer?
It must be quite an exciting time for Scott Thomas, who (I presume) is about to be the web designer for the most influential man in the world. Congratulations, Scott!
I look forward to seeing the (no doubt) beautiful redesign of WhiteHouse.gov – but not quite as much as I look forward to President Obama coming into office.
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I’m not really sure if the blue state digital is the one behind the back end of the change.gov website. As far as I know, the change.gov website is powered by movable type and that doesn’t need any external back end, perhaps just a small functionality . I’m wondering if the new site is powered by movable type too. That would be a big advertisement for movable type.
It will definitely be interesting to see the new website direction as a new web designer takes over the changes.
Web design is an effective tool that can really deliver its own message. A great website will bring people in and then bring them back time and time again.
-Timothy
@Harris Blue State definitely did the MyBarackObama.com work: Obama for America 2008 Case Study, and I have it from a solid source that they were involved in Change.gov as well.