mcville: John Oxton Interview

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John Oxton Interview

Nov 1, 09:47 AM by Marko

Interivew with John Oxton joshuaink.com

Marko:Hello John !
John:Hello Marko!

Marko:For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself?
John:When I was about 14 I shot a Robin Redbreast at close range and have felt guilty about it ever since.

Marko:How are you doing these days?
John:Actually Marko, I am glad you ask because I am pretty stressed these days. There was a time when my life was one big hedonistic party but sadly those days are gone… hey ho, it was fun whilst it lasted.

Marko:When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?
John:I guess I must have been around 12 or 13 when my Mum and Dad got me a BBC Microcomputer. I should have known right then I was gonna get addicted; That Christmas I stayed up all night, and all day the day after, playing games and working through some of the BASIC examples in the manual.

Marko:What is your favorite art work /website!?
John:Difficult, very difficult. I am going to have to give you a few:

2Advanced version 3 was one of the sites that truly inspired me, I remember my jaw just dropping when I saw it. It’s also why I, naively, thought I could become a Flash designer. Once I had been totally blown away by Joshua Davis‘ genius, though (check out stardust.tv), I knew I simply didn’t have the artistic skills to be that good and lost interest in Flash.

Moving to web standards-based design, one of the first truly exciting sites I came across was Hicks Design. Simon Collison, aka Colly, is also someone whose design skills I envy, a lot.

No list of my favourite sites and their designers would be complete without 456 Berea Street. For me 456 is as much about the code underneath as anything, Roger is a man possessed when it comes to good, clean, accessible code and all of us can learn from him. I also hear he is great in bed and spends his weekends looking after homeless puppies, or was that Scrivs? I never can remember.

My favourite piece of art? The charcoal drawing of a leopard hanging on my living room wall. My girfriend’s old boss gave it to her as a leaving present, it’s beautiful and you are just waiting for it to come to life and jump out and grab you, well that’s what I scare the kids with anyway.

Marko:What do you do in your spare time (I do realize that spare time, in this context, is pretty relative)?
John:Spare what now? I have two kids, a nymphomaniac for a partner and I am self-employed; in my spare time, I sleep, or sit in a dark corner rocking back and forth.

Marko:Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?
John:Coffee and I drink it by the bucket load, though these days I drink decaf.

Marko:Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for John Oxton?
John:I usually start with a jacuzzi and a back massage, followed by smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and champagne for breakfast. Then I usually wander in to the office, read the papers, do about half an hour’s worth of work, then go back to bed. Such is the life on the cutting edge.

Marko:I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
John:Really through people’s complete ignorance about what constitutes good interface design for the web. I am fortunate that nearly all of my clients are clueless and have extremely low expectations when it comes to web design (with the important exception of anyone I am currently working with of course, who, if I haven’t sent them the final invoice yet, are extremely clued up about the whole process), else I’d be screwed and have no work at all. That and word of mouth and trying to develop an open and transparent relationship with my clients. It’s not who you know, it’s how you treat the people that you do know that counts. That and several other cliches I have at hand.

Marko:Who are some of your biggest influences?
John:Jon Hicks, Jeffrey Zeldman, Doug Bowman, Andy Clarke, Simon Collison, Roger Johansson, Jason Santa Maria, Molly Whatshername, oh there are so many. The whole web standards community influences me, famous or not famous, and though I have a bit of a tendency to mock it at times (well why not I say, they are all laughing at me!), I am really very grateful it’s there… I love you all, sob!

Outside of web standards Joshua Davis, Colin Moock, Brendan Dawes, Paul Neave (seriously clever guy), Tom Yorke, Michael Franti, Matt Groening, Eddie Izzard and George Bush. I mention George Bush because he reminds me, daily though not personally, not to take life too seriously.

Marko:Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like? How did that take place and why?
John:Graphic design, no, food design, yes. Which is a very pretentious way of saying I used to be a chef, in London, for many years. I had a slight break from computers whilst I went off to discover beer and women but once I’d got bored of those two things, it was inevitable, given my childhood addiction to my BBC Micro, that I would return to the keyboard.

Much to my delight I discovered I could now plug my phone in to my computer and get the interweb, which I believe was invented and is owned by Steve Ballmer?

From there it was really just through looking at websites and thinking, pffft! I can do much better than that, that I decided to start doing it. My first website was designed in MS Word, had a million fonts, and my quarterly phone bill was about 400 UK pounds, it was genius, I would be broke in a year, I loved it!

Marko:If you where not a designer/programmer what would you be?
John:I am hoping to be a Sugar Daddy at some point in the future, it’s an ambition of mine.

Marko:How do you like our site mcville.net?
John:It’s not bad, bit too much whitespace up top for my liking and that side navigation script isn’t working too well for me in Safari (like anyone cares about Safari, right? ;-)). Like all sites, though, I am sure it’s going to progress and get better and better as time goes on.

Marko:What kind of music do you fancy?
John:All sorts as long as it’s alive. I am a big Radiohead fan and have recently discovered Elbow. Beyond that it is mostly old skool electronic and mellow hip hop. Spearhead, Massive Attack, Morcheeba, Air, Imogen Heap, The Prodigy, Aphex Twin, Air Liquide, Autechre, the list goes on. I used to be in to nasty hardcore techno and drum and bass as a yoof and I can still listen to a bit of that too when I am in the mood. I hate pop music almost as much as I hate comment trolls though, corporate crap.

Marko:What’s your favorite food?
John:As said, I used to be a chef, so I love all kinds of food as long as the ingredients are fresh and it is expertly cooked… Oh alright then, I admit it, grilled sausages, baked beans and mashed potato, no really, yum!

Marko:Where do you get out on Saturday’s?
John:See “what do you do in your spare time?”

some relaxing question to follow

Marko:Chinese or Thai (food)?
John:Thai

Marko:Coke or Pepsi?
John:Coke

Marko:html or asp?
John:HTML

Marko:Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
John:I watch only a little TV and my favourite was Futurama, until they pulled it but it’s coming back, to comedy central I believe, in 2008, I can’t wait._

Marko:What would we find in your favorites bookmarks_bar?
John:Why don’t you take a look, http://del.icio.us/johnoxton_

Marko:What inspires you?
John:Time. Seriously, having time to do stuff is such a luxury for me these days that I get incredibly inspired to do stuff when I have time to think about it.

Marko:Thank again for having this interview, cheers m8!
John:Hey, no problem Marko, thanks for having me :)

— Nathan Pitman Nov 3, 12:37 PM # HTML or ASP, is that a valid question? Anyway, I guess the real answer is XHTML. ;)
— Marko Nov 3, 11:50 PM # haha yeah it was supposed to be html or css ;)

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John Oxton Interview

Nov 1, 09:47 AM by Marko