This wasn’t the first official comic (the larger image is easier to read) but it was a start. I whipped out my cheap little Wacom and sketched this out in about 5 minutes and got it on Twitter as fast as I could.

I started The Brads (or Bradz with a Z as it was called early on) to make my friends laugh. There was no schedule, I didn’t do any of the things professionals recommend doing before launching a web comic like having a months worth of comics in reserve, befriending other creators or developing a consistent look to the art and charicters. I was just winging it.

The very first comic, seen above, is still one of my personal favorites. I had been freelancing for about a year at that point and I really wanted to move into doing more illustration. Drawing a comic for my blog was a great way to force myself to draw on a regular basis and improve.

After a couple months this blog was no longer a web design blog but was becoming a real web comic with real readers. I also thought it was sending mixed messages to potential clients who were visiting the site, it was time to move the comic to its own domain.

This took a little longer than I wanted it to. About 3 months longer. I was having fun drawing the comic and people seemed to be enjoying them so it was time to take it seriously. After the winter Hiatus the comic was relaunched on its own site at the end of February.

I have a couple comics stored up for the future in case I am to busy to draw a new one each week, but I do like to keep those in reserve and run a fresh one if I can.  After the relaunch I really wanted the comic to be able to jump on the issue of the week. The first comic that dealt with a time specific issue was the Diggbar comic and it’s still my favorite. I also like how the joke would only work as a comic.

Growing up I read anything that was in comic format: comic books, comic strips, bubble gum wrappers, cereal boxes, everything.  My senior year of high school I picked up Understand Comics by Scott McCloud. At the time it was just another comic book. After I saw Scott’s work on the Google Chrome comic last year I went back and reread some of his other books and it was a revelation. Several people have pointed out the similarities between some of my info-comics (Misunderstanding Markup and Contrast in Design) and Scott’s work. They’re right, he has had an enormous impact on the way I think about comics and on design in general. I would recommend it to any designer even if you have no interest in drawing comics.

With one year of drawing The Brads under my belt I want to thank all my amazing friends old and new who have encouraged, helped, tweeted, commented on and proofread my work over the last year. I’ve had a great time and I’m excited to see where I’ll be a year from now. Thank You.

I’m not sure why, but over the last few weeks I’ve gotten several requests from design students to do interviews. Since it seems to be a popular topic I figured I put up some questions I received yesterday along with my answers.

1. What skills/education did you acquire to obtain your current position?
I went to Kent State university in Ohio and takenstudied Advertising and minored in graphic design. Before going solo and starting my business I spent several years working at agencies building up my portfolio. Even as important was joining local groups and associations where I could meet other creatives and marketing folks who helped me grow as a designer and help me find work and clients over time.

2. How long have you been in the graphics career?
I graduated almost 9 years ago.

3. What was your hardest part in finding a job?
Early on it was the lack of work to show. twilightMy first full time web design position came as a result of designing my church’s website. My future boss was impressed that I wanted to spend my free time designing websites even though that design I was showing was absolutely terrible.

4. How did you find out about

your current position?
In Cleveland where I live the agencies don’t pay much (relatively speaking). Many of the good designers in this area usually leave town after a few years. The other option is to get out from company life and start your own. With a good portfolio and some know how it’s pretty easy to set yourself up as a freelancer.

5. What do you think was the most important thing that helped you obtain your current job?
Meeting people. I spent years going to work in the morning and leaving 8 hours later. Once I started networking after work and got out to meet other people dragonball evolution in my field in my spare time a lot of opportunities opened up. It took years to build a network but it’s been the most valuable thing I ever did.

6. What type of portfolio do you have?     Case?       Electronic?      Web Site?
I have a website. It doesn’t matter what you design, t-shirts, posters, print, web. You NEED to have your work online. Even if you don’t have your own domain it’s so easy to get a

Flickr account or post work on a site like Behance. At my last job I would scout talent at the local colleges and if we got a resume without any work we never contacted them.

Over the last couple months my writing has gone down quite a bit as I’ve spent more and more time drawing The Brads, my not so weekly comic strip. I’ve really enjoyed working on the comic, it’s a fun outlet or my illustration. I’ve enjoyed it so much I’ve been working on getting the strip it’s own home online.

The site you’re reading now is my businesses’ website. As I added more and more comics I felt like it was sending mixed messages to new visitors who were looking for website design.  To clear things up I moved the cartoons over to BradColbow.com. Over the next few months there is a lot I want to do there. I’m going to add an illustration portfolio and maybe a little bit of ecommerce.