He later worked as a consultant for the American Type Founders and as an editor for Collier's Weekly. He worked briefly with children’s books, then for William Randolph Hearst’s film division as a supervising art director and assistant director on the Wharton Brothers' serial films Beatrice Fairfax (1916) and Patria (1917).^[4] After the latter, he founded his own production company, Dramafilms, and went on to write, produce and direct his own films, including Bitter Fruit (1920),^[5][6] Moongold (1920) and The Tame Cat (1921).

In 1954, The Typophiles published a memoir of Bradley's life called Will Bradley: His Chap Book, though only 650 copies were ever published. The same year, he won the AIGA medal, the highest honor for graphic designers. He was a prolific artist and designer up until his death at age 94.

William H. Bradley was a prolific designer who is probably best known for his graphic work, creating many designs for book covers, (book) illustrations and posters. He worked in an alluring and very recognizable style combining elements from Art Nouveau, Symbolism and Medieval book illumination into swaying compositions, often with a dark or symbolist undertone. His furniture designs are less well known, although he seems to have been very enthusiastic about interior decoration at the beginning of the twentieth century. In this period he created a series of interiors and furniture designs for ‘The Ladies’ Home Journal’. They are inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement and combine simple, elegant structures with stylized decorations based on nature.

In November 1901, Will Bradley began an eight-part series for the Ladies’ Home Journal with designs for a “Bradley House.”  Bradley had no formal art education, much less architectural training, but the publication’s editor, Edward W. Bok, believed that Bradley could deliver designs for a $1,000 house that were inspiring and original. The individual installments comprised a “Breakfast-Room,” “Library,” “Dining-Room,” “Nursery,” “Reception or Living Room and the Hall,” “Boudoir,” “Chamber,” and “Exterior” with landscape gardening ideas. Each part featured a large illustration of the completed room, a floor plan, and Bradley’s original furniture ideas, along with a written description. The text for the introductory installment emphasizes the purpose of the series: “It is not his hope that any one will build a house completely as he designs it; he hopes rather to influence through individual suggestions – through pieces of furniture, draperies, fireplace accessories, wallpaper designs, all of which can be independently followed and detached from his entire scheme.”  In 1905, Bradley produced three more single-installment ideas for $1,000, $1,500, and $2,600 houses. His final article for the Ladies’ Home Journal came in 1908, with “The Low-Priced House in the Country. A Quaint Little House with a Pergola for $3000.