Please note that you may have been redirected (you might like to make a note of the URL in the address bar of your browser and update accordingly) This is a permanent archvie but is no longer actively maintained. Please visit http://joshuaink.com for the latest updates.

About me and this site

Thursday April 14, 2005 [last update ]

John is an 33 year old web developer based in the Cotswolds, UK.

I have been designing and developing websites since 1999, previously I was a chef based mostly in London, having moved there when I was 16. I have met some very famous and beautiful people in my time, which was nice.

I myself was beautiful once but those days have long since passed and so there seems little point in placing a picture here, simply Google for Hagrid.

My most memorable celebrity moments are: Selling Michael Barrymore a lobster, having Bridget Nielsen comment on the big blue penis someone had kindly drawn on the back of my chef's jacket and nearly splitting my mouth open through excess smiling when Kylie Minogue talked to me. No, I do not know what she actually said, I was too busy trying to discreetly stare at her bum. Lesser moments have involved smiling at Lenny Henry through a window, cooking a beef burger for Michael Jackson, slagging off Paul Weller's taste in food and chatting in my living room with the lead singer of the Longpigs, Crispin Hunt. I am not one for name dropping.

In 2004 I began developing with web standards and it is, without doubt, the best decision I have made since ditching Microsoft Word in favour of Dreamweaver.

I live with my partner of many years, Esther, and our three young children, Joshua, Charlotte and Daniel. Despite many proposals, Esther refuses to marry me on the grounds that I am unmarriable. She may, however, change her mind when I show her the tax breaks we could get. Collectively we are know as 'those bloody Oxtons'.

I work from home which can make the balance between home life and work a little difficult to manage. On the whole though, I much prefer it to hauling my ass out of bed at 7am every morning to join the rat race.

I spent 2 years looking after my son whilst Esther went out to work. I refuse to change any more nappies. I did websites at night back then, I was generally very very tired. Don't ever call me a new man. It is not unknown for me to take a nap in the afternoons.

My heroes are Homer J. Simpson and Philip J. Fry and not, as many would like to believe, Jeffrey Zeldman and Jon Hicks. I am, technically speaking, a geek, though it hasn't always been that way. I love olives. My favourite colour is blue or, if you are an citizen of the United States, my favorite color is bloo. I am quite a bit overweight but, in a refreshing break from the normal excuses given by chubbies like me, I freely admit it is because I eat too much and spend most of my life sat on my fat arse. Deep down I am probably desperately unhappy but tend not to look that far. I have a bicycle, which I bought a year ago, I have ridden it twice, on both occasions to cycle the half mile to the shop to get some cigarettes. I would be a vegetarian but I love bacon sandwiches far too much. I think European people are very nice but the Dutch are a little bit too bloody relaxed for my liking. I would happily go and live in France. I don't speak any language other than English. I think most French people speak English, though they pretend not to. If you really got to know me you would discover that I am very boring. I was born in Wales, which makes me Welsh, not Scottish, though Glasgow has to be the friendliest place I ever did live. It has not been unknown for people to call me a stupid [insert insult], the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me was by fellow Brit, Pete Lambert:

...you perk up when you see a comment from Hicks or Oxton... this doesn't always count with Oxton, who 9 times out of 10 will leave a shit comment.

My own portfolio site is due for completion sometime this century, meanwhile, please email me (john [at] joshuaink [dot] com) if you would like to see samples of my work. I do not generally hold references to client work on this site due to the excessive bad language present in most of my posts, it just doesn't feel right but I am not ready to give up swearing just yet.

I have an official entry on CSS Zen Garden called Centerfold, I am the only British designer to feature on the site, as long as you don't count the other dozen or so.

I am very passionate about, and committed to, my work.

This blog is only here to make up for the fact that I don't get out much anymore, to bolster up my fragile, yet increasingly large, ego and to entertain the unwashed masses, who, quite frankly, should find something more meaningful to do with their lives.

Hiring me will be the best thing you ever do, unless the project goes horribly wrong, in which case, you'll probably regret it and so will I.

About this site/ego

This site was built in March 2005 and was designed around an illustration commissioned from Denis Radenkovic, more information about the design process can be found here, here and here. The site is featured on Stylegala, CSS Vault, Unmatched Style, CSS Design, Style Boost, Devil's Details and was given a silver star by the Web Standards Awards. An earlier autumnal version also featured on CSS beauty. As yet, no one has sent me any money or free personal hygiene products as a result of all this publicity, all in all, a bit disappointing really.

I am a completely overrated desginer and only managed to fluke this design whilst eating pork scratchings and getting drunk on local cider.

If you would like to come by my house and knock me off my pedestal, please be sure to make an appointment with my PA, so I can be sure I am standing on it that day.

Joshuaink runs off the, ever so cool, Textpattern content management system, accompanied by about a million plugins.

For the most part the site validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict and one day I may decide to do the job properly and turn it over to XHTML 1.1 with content negotiation but don't hold your breath, tag soup is quite tasty. If you do find an invalid page, please take it away and give it a good home but don't feel the need to mail me about it, obviously I'm just not lovin' it as much as I should.

How to steal this design

If you decide to steal my design and claim it as your own please be sure to remove all hyperlinks pointing to before uploading to your server, else you are very likely to accidentally click on one, thus showing up in my referral logs, which I watch like a hawk. I will then send you and your host nasty emails and will turn off my browser cache and spend the night hitting the F5 button in the hope of eating up your bandwidth (well, there is fuck all on TV since they cancelled Futurama). Also I won't ever be your friend and may be tempted to punch you in the nose should we ever meet in the street.

Or you could make life easy for yourself and take one of my free templates instead. They are much nicer than this flowery rubbish.

And finally...

Joshuaink is named after my son Joshua who was 'ink'orporated in 2001, clever huh?

If you have really read all the way to this bit, may you be blessed with many children.

  1. Matthew

    1251 days ago

    Very amusing, John. Your unabashed vulgarity and sarcasm is much appreciated. Nothing irks so much politically correct behavior. Cheers and cheers. -m.

  2. Rob Mientjes

    1251 days ago

    When you open up an about-page, you hope to get the brief. This was, of course, quite the opposite.

    But the Dutch are too relaxed? No way man. I can’t stand being too relaxed. I have my moments, but those are when I a) sleep, b) drink coffee, c) listen to good music or d) insult Brits over Skype.

    Certainly one of the better about-pages.

  3. Andrew Hume

    1251 days ago

    And I thought I had you all sussed Oxton!

    I think you’ve inspired me to write a decent ‘about’ page on my site… I like your style, specially the ‘a bit overweight’ and hairy stuff.

    Although my missus doesn’t like it if I go even a few days without a shave, I’m really putting my back into the weight thing. Eating shit, drinking a lot of ale, and generally lounging about. Nothing better.

    Hey… and Barrymore pissed on my shoe once.

  4. jordan

    1251 days ago

    Bahaha…

    How is it that you UK-ers manage to be so damnably funny? Is it something in the rainwater?

  5. Deep

    1251 days ago

    The layout you have is just amazing…

    I wish you had kept this layout in our free templates section…I would have used it on my personal blog :)

    Regards
    Deep

  6. Keith Bell

    1251 days ago

    John, some of us (well, me) really need to know: how did you “discreetly” stare at Kylie’s bum while she was talking to you? Was there a serendipitously-placed mirror behind her behind? Or do you carry one of those ladies’ make-up mirrors in your pocket, just in case such an opportunity should present itself?

    This information could be very valuable to me if I ever find myself in conversation with Miss Minogue, as I don’t think “Turn around Kylie, I want to look at your bum” would go down too well, however sincerely expressed…

  7. Rob

    1251 days ago

    Well that was quite an about page, and now I see it as a lucky page as England just scored 3 goals whilst I read it (no I’m not a slow reader).

    Perhaps you should set up an elite opera (refresh tab every second) hit squad to punish design thieves! I’d be happy to help!

    Perhaps when I finish Uni and retire back to Oxford to consider my future I’ll hijack one of your designer lunches ;)

  8. Martin

    1247 days ago

    Awwwww… thats just beautiful man! Sniff! Excellent write up John!

  9. Ian

    1245 days ago

    I need at least a spare hour a day to read all these little sections I keep finding throughout flower power.

    ....may you be blessed with many children.

    If that chick rings from last night, it’s going to be your fault.

  10. Allegra

    1241 days ago

    I think your site is simply…beautiful….in a lovely….simple sort of way. I’m low on energy today, so my use of adjectives may seem a bit…unimaginative. Found your site whilst scouring through CSS Zen Garden sites on mezzoblue. I usually just glance at the sites to get visual ideas, but your writing was engaging and kept me reading. This is silly, but you said you’re a bit of a chub. More to love is certainly not always bad if it’s not shaving time off yer life (cuz ya got kids and all, and you seem to enjoy your time with them :o), but just in case you were interested in a fantastic…dietary regimen…...that could provide phenomenal results (bodily speaking).... and this is coming from one cook/food-lover to another….. you might consider the Carbohydrate Addicts’ Diet. Get the book for 7 bucks or so at Wal-Mart, and take the test. It’s a quick read. And it’s not a gimmick. And you’ll never have to stop eating the delectable foods you enjoy. It’s just all in the timing. I’ve never felt so UNdeprived in my life, but I’m looking slimmer these days (yeah, I have been quite the fluffy-puff). And if you’re not interested a’tall, then, well, just ignore that little blip on carbs, stay fantastically soft, and keep the sincere compliments on your site and your talents with writing.

    Cheers!

    Allegra

  11. JOEL

    1240 days ago

    Brilliantly done about page, and finally an answer to the name riddle.

  12. Aaron

    1230 days ago

    32? Web developer? Overweight? Egocentric? Love to cook? Surely I can’t be your American doppleganger, can I?

    I promise not to steal your template, but I may lift your banter and site architecture. Like every other web-based Aquarius whore, I tend to absorb everything I like in what surrounds me, and your writing style is excellent, sir. Your design skills are also quite wonderful, but as I’m clearly only a programmer who fakes design by reading books like “Grids” by German nihilists who lump everything into their teutonic sense of orderliness… well, the short point being that I’m not very good at making things pretty (other than children, and even that I owe to my wife from keeping me from bollocksing up the job).

    Cheers to you and your budding family and your beautiful site.

    -a-

  13. Cristian Tirsan

    1215 days ago

    man… indeed… this site has “more love than a bus full of hippies”... it is very very beautiful… i love it so much…

    best regards,
    cristian

  14. Benjamin Jackson

    1211 days ago

    This is the best “About” section. Love it!

  15. Larke

    1205 days ago

    I have vowed to attempt to re-create your gorgeous flower template for my very own! I may fail horribly.. which may result in continuous visits to your site while sulking in jealous rages. Maybe that’s what ‘skulking’ is…

    I LOVE your flower template. And thoroughly enjoyed your about page. I’ve bookmarked you so I can come back for inspiration!

  16. nick

    1205 days ago

    Not the first, and I expect not the last to say:

    Gorgeous design… it feels like everything’s about to spring to life.

    Absolutely excessive, yet refreshing – the perfect antidote to sites full of brushed metal, which, happily, I haven’t come across in quite a while. (And yet I still feel get chills just thinking about them…)

  17. finbarr

    1196 days ago

    astounding site… absolutely astounding. Its the middle of may and I’ve only just found this site – obviously slacking a little. But ‘tis a thing of great beauty and worthy of far more than a few measly words

  18. Alex Dukal

    1149 days ago

    Hello john! Thanks a ton for the link!
    I realise that there’s some new visitors that are coming from your site, that’s nice and hope to retrive this in my next re-design!

    Kind regards from Patagonia »

    Alex Dukal

  19. Gabriel

    1145 days ago

    Hi there, from Argentina, I am a graphic designer a say good luck for this site.
    Is good your design, I like.
    http://disenio.byethost22.com

  20. Matt Thornton

    942 days ago

    I hate people like you. You do such a beautiful CSS only design which only makes me realise that I have to redesign mine. Bastard. (In the nicest possible way, you understand).

    And you’re English. Well, Welsh, but the less said about that the better.

    Keep up the good work. Grr. Humbug.

  21. Rob

    940 days ago

    Just wanted 2 say you did an excellent job on:

    Recipe for Success
    http://recipeforsuccess.uk.com/


Cohorts

An, as yet incomplete, list of people whose sites I frequent. Many of them claim to read this site too.

This list is sorted by random and is limited to seventeen cohorts per page visit, refresh your browser to renew the list.

Erik Sagen
Cartoonist and web developer Erik has a real knack for taking an unusual subject and writing it about it well. One of my favourite places to go and relax.

Denis Radenkovic
Denis illustrated the flowers found on this website. Far too much talent for one man alone!

Kevin Leitch
Fellow Brit writes about autism and web development. Be sure to check out project: new.

Derek Featherstone
Former high school teacher turned web developer, speaker, technical trainer, accessibility consultant, and a long-time believer in web standards.

Martin Smith
Award winning graphic designer going by the handle, Martagnan. Hailing from somewhere up North [England], for some reason Martin has pictures of garden sheds on his blog.

Rob Mientjes
Quite possibly the strangest Dutch person you will ever meet.

Jon Hicks
Designer of the Firefox logo. Considered by many, me included, as one of the most innovative designers in the web standards world.

Anton
Anton at Spine Arrest does some amazing illustrations, quite a dark and moody place to be, I love it!

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