Frederick O'Brien

Work

NCTJ qualified journalist and copywriter. Experiences include running editorial at a hyperlocal magazine in east London, co-leading a sustainable development expedition in Nepal, and mucking out horse stables in Hertfordshire.

Smashing Magazine

• 'What newspapers can teach us about web design'
• 'The split personality of brutalist websites'
• 'What does a foldable web actually mean?'
• 'Baking structured data into the design process'
• 'Use readability algorithms as tools, not targets'

More Smashing Magazine articles →

Roman Road LDN

• 'Portrait: how a single mother's world was shattered by hostile immigration policy'
• 'Frank Wang's last stand: support independent coffee in Bethnal Green'
• 'Blood and solidarity at York Hall boxing'
• 'Eddie Brown's mental health story: surviving a lifetime of archaic medical treatments'
• 'A morning at Bow Police Stables'

More Roman Road LDN articles →

New Scientist

• 'AI hotel assistant persuades guests to use less water and electricity'

The Quietus

• 'A new hope: how X-Men sparked the superhero genre'
• 'The Quietus' top 50 needle drop moments in film' (Contributor)

Citizen Obsessed

• 'Ad-centric revenue models will always create a race to the bottom'
• 'Will a non-partisan crowdfunding platform please stand up?'
• 'Facebook is not the answer to lying politicians'
• 'OK boomer is lazy language'
• 'A global pandemic of empty gestures'

More Citizen Obsessed articles →

Play

Audioxide

I and two friends run a music webzine called Audioxide as a hobby. We review an album a week and write the occasional article. We've reviewed more than 200 albums since starting in 2015. My average score is comfortably the lowest.

The Whale-Lines

I run a fake news paper called The Whale-Lines. It's a highly unsophisticated static site coded by me and hosted on Netlify. I hope one day to distribute physical copies on Speakers' Corner while being pelted with rotten vegetables.