Rendering on the right. Photo on the left.

Q: What was one of your biggest challenges at Freeman?

We had an office in New Orleans that was about to lose a big exhibit account because the designs they submitted to the client were just not cutting it. My boss gave me this project which involved creating all of the signage, banners and graphics. It was a big project for me because I never did that kind of design before. I mostly did structural design, not display graphics per se. This was for a big conference, not an individual booth

Anyway, I was fumbling with this project for about a day and my boss would look over my shoulder and shake his head. I knew I was in trouble. I crashing and burning really fast. On the second day, I stayed at the office late trying to hammer out this design. Everything was turning out like crap. I just could not wrap my head around this project.

Finally I inverted the colors of the design I was working and then a revelation came to me. After that, I knew exactly what kind of design I wanted to do. So, I stayed at the office until about 1:00 am and hammered out the aisle signs, their overhead banners, kiosk signs, everything. My boss came in the next morning and said, “You know, Ash, I was thinking…” He says that when he is about to hand off your project to someone else, then he saw my design on my computer and stopped immediately, and said, “Hey, let’s get these over to the client right now.” I felt pretty good about that. Later I found out the client accepted the designs without changes and the client stayed with Freeman Companies. So, I essentially saved the client from leaving our company. It really was that close. Seriously. I’m not kidding. I’m not. Get that smile off your face.

Later, I was given a lot of other projects that were similar in nature.