The Edible Ampersand

Ashley Anastasia Howell

Ashley Howell is a freelance graphic designer born and raised in Toronto Canada. Ashley can be humble and at times shy although approachable with a down to earth outlook. She is an only child, who found her love at a young age and worked to build since she was a young teenager. Ashley has always been passionate about design. Ever since she found a stack of DIY magazine’s called Step-by-Step at a pawn shop, begging her mother to buy for her. She read them back to back. Ashley attended the best arts high-school in the city and graduated from Humber College in two thousand and four with a certificate in Advertising and Graphic Design and additionally attended a print production follow-up course in two thousand and five. After almost a decade, working for various corporations in the sports industry, she decided to make a change. In early two thousand and fourteen she branched out and started her own freelance business, tackling the food and beverage industry, an area she had been fascinated by for many years. She will admit, starting a freelance business was truly a challenge. It took many long nights hard work and perseverance to gain clients and a good reputation. A lot of clients came from word-of-mouth and still do to this day. In two thousand and fifteen, her work with the Julia Child Foundation has not gone unnoticed. To this day, her logo design is displayed in the Smithsonian Museum for the Award and she is truly honoured to have been a part of the project as she had the opportunity to meet some high-profile chefs, and names in the food industry. Ashley has also had the pleasure to be named Freelancer of the Year, twice by Toronto based studio, Co-op. They put on an annual event honouring ten great independent workers in the creative industry. Prior to this award there was few to if not no freelance recognition awards, so the recognition meant a lot to Ashley, especially being only a few years into her freelance career. Her work has become focused in brand identity design, including menu design, packaging and online marketing for both large and small clients. This became possible with Ashley’s strong background in both print and digital, along with becoming familiar in various hands-on activities like screen printing, photography and as of late, film. Over the years, she has won several awards, met some amazing people and hopes to retain a healthy amount of success. Although, her main goal is to simply be the primary go-to for all her food-based clients for any of their creative needs.