Student's banner is tops at Northeastern
By Kate Daly Contributing Writer
Detail of one of Ashley Seto's award-winning banners. SUBMITTED

Shrewsbury - Art and computers combine in Ashley Seto's family - her mother is a crafter and her father works with computers. By the time she was 12, Seto was teaching herself to use graphic arts programs and developing her drawing skills.

Still, when she learned she won the Northeastern University Creates prize, she screamed.

"I first found out by e-mail and I just jumped around screaming and woke my mom up and ran to tell my dad," she said. "He was on the phone and he just told me to shush and I was screaming."

The university-wide competition is a big honor, Seto said.

"It's really awesome to have been picked. It's also really strange because teachers are congratulating me. The department sent an e-mail to everyone. Everyone, my teachers and classmates are congratulating me," she said. "I didn't actually know the email went out 'til one of my classmates pointed it out on her cell phone."

And everyone will see her work, too. Her designs are to hang in the full-length windows of one of the campus buildings through March 2009.

"

Seto heard about the contest from her art history teacher, and began drawing right away, planning for one banner. When she learned the competition required a series of seven banners, she just kept working.

Her panels represent the four seasons and three "hybrid flower girls," one in the morning, one in the evening and one in the rain. She spent 15 to 20 hours on the project, she said.

A fan of anime, a Japanese style of drawing and animation, influences her work, she said.

"I originally drew the pictures on paper, smallscale versions," Seto said. "I scanned them in and I used the program Adobe Illustrator to put in the colors."

The completed posters are printed on a special paper that lets light through as they hang in the windows, she said.

Seto is a junior, pursuing a double major in graphic design and multimedia. But a lack of degree has not stopped her from stretching her professional wings. She designed posters and compact disc covers for a record company in Beverly during an internship this summer, she said, and she does graphic design for a catering company in Boston. In January, she will start her Northeastern cooperative semester.

So far, she is on target for her career goals.

"I'm hoping to either work in print advertising," Seto said, "or possibly doing my own freelance graphic design work."