Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

don't i know you from somewhere?

With the launch of the new Opinions section at washingtonpost.com, we also rolled out a new style for columnist sigs — the banners, thumbnails and assorted other-sized images used to promote columnists and bloggers whose work appears on the site. Implementing this style has been mostly my responsibility, which has resulted in days spent staring at strangers’ faces on my computer screen.

Do enough work with people’s photos and you begin to feel like you sort of know them. It was actually worse when I worked at azcentral.com, where we were housed in the same building as The Arizona Republic. I’d run into, say, E.J. Montini on the street and almost say something, only to stop short, remembering that he had no idea who I was. And “I’ve stared at your photo for hours” — even if you were only doing it for work purposes — is kind of a creepy way to open a conversation.

I guess it’s good that the Post’s online and print newsrooms are totally separate: It means I’m much less likely to embarrass myself in front of the likes of, say, Howard Kurtz.