Catching up with Brad Frost

April 4, 2013 — Jake Bresnehan

Brad Frost is one of those web developers that always seems to be one step ahead of the game. His personal site is a hive of interesting thoughts, especially in the responsive design arena. All his side projects are super helpful and his passion for our industry is contagious.

I fired a few questions over to Brad and he kindly sat down with his good pal Ziggy to give us all some sound advice.

Here’s what he had to say.

Do you have any big goals or plans for 2013?

Yeah! Yes I do.

I recently set out on my own. Started my own business. So I am doing a whole lot of different stuff. I’m doing web design and development, I’m doing some consulting, I’m doing workshops, I’m doing some speaking gigs, I’m doing some writing and all sorts of different stuff.

I’ve got a full load already this year. It’s been really, really busy, but also really, really fun. I’m looking forward to writing and talking about all the cool stuff that I’m up too. Yeah, certainly an exciting year.

What is a typical day for Brad Frost?

I’ve actually been doing a lot more travelling than staying at home this year, so I don’t really have a typical day. One day I’m doing a consulting gig; another time I’ll be doing a workshop. I’ll be hunkered down on planes, on the couch, in my bed just doing a lot of design work and stuff like that.

It really varies from day to day. I definitely think as far as my productive time goes, I am probably most productive between 10am-2pm in the afternoon and then between 10pm-2am in the morning. So it’s sort of interesting. The afternoon lull definitely hits but I find myself being super productive in the night when there is less noise and less clutter going on.

Do you have any advice for people who are just getting into the web industry?

I sure do!

I definitely think it’s really great to start with the basics. Learning the in’s and out’s of HTML and CSS and stuff like that; like how web design works.

I have been progressively enhancing my career, meaning that, in the past, I have been doing a lot more JavaScript kind of stuff, but I still don’t feel as comfortable with that as with HTML and CSS, and I think that’s alright. It takes time. It’s a different sort of skill set but having a good sense of the foundations and fundamentals are really important. Designing with web standards is a pretty good place to start. It definitely gets you to set out on the right path.

Also, be on the pulse.

Follow the people that are doing great stuff, and talking about the right stuff, and moving things forward.

You seem to have the ability to crank out top quality work at an alarming rate, how the hell do you do this? And where do you get your inspiration?

It’s funny even whenever you produce a lot of stuff, you always feel like you are behind and that’s certainly how I feel right now. Again, I feel productive at night. I think carving out some time to do some personal projects and just genuinely getting excited about things makes it easy to crank stuff out when you feel very passionate about something. That’s with life in general, not just web design.

Whenever you are doing things that you love to do, it’s easier to get lost and loose track of time and that’s exactly where you want to be. If you don’t feel like that, if you feel like your really spinning your wheels with this whole web design thing, maybe explore some other stuff. Maybe it isn’t the thing that turns you on, or look for other aspects of web development that you might be better suited to.

It’s easy for me to get work done because I don’t really consider it to be work, and that something to really shoot for.

Within the industry, it’s just an amazing group of people, an amazing community we have, and there is a lot to be inspired by. I think we are in a very unique industry where the mentality is to be open and collaborative by default, and so as a result, the more willing you are to share and genuinely cooperate with other people, the more successful you are more likely to be. So many other industries play things really close to there chest.

Do you have any ideas on where you will be or what you’ll be into in 5 years?

It’s hard to say, looking back again I’m only 5 or 6 years into this industry myself so it weird to double the timeframe what that will look like. It’s hard to know what I’ll be working on because this stuff turns on a dime like crazy.

What is the one thing you wish people to always know you for?

Having an awesome skate-boarding bulldog!

I’d really like to be known as somebody who cares a great deal about what he does, that tries to empower other people. That really gets people excited about life, about what you do and also tries to help in some small way to shape the direction in how things end up with the web. It’s something I care a great deal about, so I would like to have that attached to me, I guess, in the long run.

Yeah you know, someone who is honest, moral, cares and gives a shit. That’s not too much to ask right?

Find out more about Brad

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