Today’s guest for an unmatchedstyle chat session is Brad Colbow (@bradcolbow). Brad has been a freelance designer and illustrator for the past few years who recently to the plunge back into full-time “corporate” type employment. He’s had some pretty epic comics posted around the web so you’ve probably seen his work before. So, aside from being a big fan of his webcomic “the Brads” I thought it would be cool to ask him what he’s up to and why making this change in employment was right for him. After all, most of the talk you hear on twitter and on web design sites is usually all about how cool it is to go freelance or to start out on your own. The flip of that conversation seems interesting to me right now.

For Brad the transition was pretty natural, coming directly from a project he’d been working on with his freelance business. As this project got more and more involved for him he shed other freelance business to focus on this one main project. Truly great situation, but I wonder about just how many of us could find ourselves in similar circumstances.

Illustration vs. Design

I asked Brad how he balances the illustration with the web design. His answer was one that’s quite natural, where he’s always been someone who loves to draw and having picked up HTML/CSS on the job later on in his career it all just flows together. Once you have that desire to draw comics it never leaves you!

What does freelance experience help you with on a full time job?

I asked Brad if he could tell me the one thing that he feels that his freelance experience brings to the table with his new full-time job. “Experience” – really, having experience working with various different types of clients and time frames it really helps him have a full view of what he needs to get done and where his employer is coming from when they ask for certain things. I couldn’t agree with that more, running your own freelance business for a few years will give you more experience than you could likely learn in several years of corporate type employment doing the same basic job. Because, you really have to do it, or you’ll go hungry what better motivation is there?

Make sure and follow Brad on Twitter @bradcolbow and check out his web comic at bradcolbow.com!