Joe Clark: joeclark.org (E-mail)

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The Joe Clark FAQ

Updated 2000.05.12

Why is this site so low-tech?
My priorities in Web design are accessibility, usability, and standards-compliance. My background is writing and editing. So I remain unfashionable and produce pages that any browser can read. In my defense, though, I'll point out that I do use HTML 4.0 features; it's just that I opt for a text-only or mostly-text presentation. Future upgrades may include some jazzing-up, but universal compatibility will remain paramount.
Your homepage sure is major-ass long.
Yeah, I know. I write, OK? And the archive of Weblog additions is even longer. Page-loading times are worsened by the fact that I now use tables for layout after enduring years and years of complaints that my fast-loading pages were too "undesigned." I think you'll just have to live with it.
Why isn't your site located at, say, joeclark.com?
As I covered elsewhere, I have an agreement to take over the domain name joeclark.org; it's purely a question of money. It should happen in the year 2000. I agree, it's undesirable not to own one's own domain.
If you're so interested in graphic design, why is there no graphic design on this site?
I have indeed been following typography and graphic design for more than 20 years, and have worked in the type trade (slogging in the trenches of code-driven phototypesetting), and have written on graphic design for more than a decade in all the leading specialist magazines and for general-interest newspapers, but I am not a registered graphic designer and don't pretend to be. I have good design skills, actually, though they are more typo than graphic. My emphasis is on editing and improvement of graphic design, not origination.
If you're a writer–editor, where have your articles appeared? What have you edited?
I've been published 389 times in about three dozen periodicals: Applied Arts, Axess, Bicycle Retailer & Industry News, Billboard, BusinessWeek, De Wereldfietser, Details, Disability Rag, the Economist, Entertainment Weekly, Eye, the Globe and Mail, I.D., MacUser, McGill Daily, Men's Journal, NetGuide, OutWeek, Performance (Canada Post organ), Physician's Fitness, Playback, Popular Science, Print, Publish, Ray Gun, Rehabilitation Digest, Serif, SOCAN Probe, Technology Review, The Face, This Old House, Toronto Computes, the Toronto Star, Vibe, Vibrations, the Village Voice, Xtra, and Xtra West. I've edited books (on design), magazine articles, scientific questionnaires and manuscripts, and Web pages.
Done any writing online, apart from this site?
Not a whole lot. Have a look at my article on personal domain names over at A List Apart, and the more-recent piece on crappy E-commerce content.
Where do you live, and where are you from?
Toronto, for 13 years now. New Brunswick.
What other information is available about you online?
I am not extensively documented online. That may change in 2000.