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Today WebM.ag is speaking with Ashley Baxter, Ashley is a lady of many talents, she is a Director, Designer and all round businesswomen. Ashley has been touted as a role model for up and coming designers and her name is often mentioned alongside some of the top female designers.

WebM.ag: So Ashley, Tell our readers a little about yourself and what you do?
AB: Yo! I’m Ashley, a 22 year old Director of a small business, and a hardcore 360 gamer. Essentially I’m a businesswoman who blows stuff up I wear many hats for my job, ranging from marketing to design, and most recently programming (though that is taking longer to master than anticipated).

WebM.ag: What would you say where the best and worse experiences of your career?
AB: I once lost my company £15,000 in a very bad marketing move. You could easily call that the worst! I think the best experience has yet to happen, but a few months ago I finally signed the paper to be promoted to Director.

WebM.ag: What technologies or softwares do you know little about, but would like to know more?
AB: Funnily enough I recently mentioned this on my blog, about how I’d like to spend more time with Photoshop. I design in the browser – I always have, it just feels natural to me. But I definitely want to get more acquainted with the beast that is Photoshop and really use it to its full capability.

Ruby is another one. I would love to heavily get involved with development. I have many ideas cooking in my head to take both my business and personal projects up a notch; it would be ideal to be competent enough with Ruby to make them a reality.

WebM.ag: What are your top three websites you like to gain inspiration from?
AB: Ember App is great for perusing what others have bookmarked for inspiration. Flickr constantly inspires me to push my creativity to new levels, though I have been slacking as of late on the picture taking front. Lastly, I’d even say Twitter. With all the great links that get posted in my stream I constantly find myself with something inspiring to read/look at.

WebM.ag: Your name has been mentioned a number of times, and referred to you as an Inspirational female designer, how does that make you feel?
AB: I don’t actually identify myself as a designer. I think once I have more experience under my belt then I’ll step up to that title. Even then web design isn’t something that comes easy to me at all. I have to work really hard with it, and definitely don’t have the flair that some others do. I also have a philosophy that you can’t call yourself a web designer if you’re using a commercial theme for your blog, which I am with ashleybaxter.net until I design one myself :p Having said that, I was super flattered. Since launching I Am Ashley people have taken an interest in what I’m doing, but I’ve always been very secretive about the sites I build because I have – up until now – separated my work from my ‘web life’. In the future I’ll hopefully feel more worthy of the designer title.

WebM.ag: After receiving the brief from the client what are your next steps?
AB: I build sites for my company, so I don’t receive briefs. I do of course have other people to please within the company, not to mention the most important users of all – our customers.

WebM.ag: Do you remember the very first site or project in which you were involved?
AB: I don’t specifically remember the first, but I remember when I first started delving into web design. It was cringeworthy. Even my work from a year ago hugely embarrasses me. But I think – in a roundabout way – that’s a good thing. It shows I’m improving and constantly learning.

WebM.ag: Outside of the web, what do you like do in your free time?
AB: Like I said, I’m a massive gamer. I own both a 360 and PlayStation 3, though the latter is used more so as a blu-ray player (Daniel Craig in high definition – hoo weeh!). Other than gaming I’ve recently gotten back into drumming after a 4 year break, so I can often be found behind my kit entranced in a groove. I also have an interest in taking pictures with my Canon 40D, though I’ve been slacking on that front as of late.

WebM.ag: Lets imagine we were to visit 2022, what is Ashley Baxter doing?
AB: Yikes, I’ll be 35. Scary thought! I’m not sure what direction I want to go in with my career. I’m having fun right now running the business and dabbling with other projects in my spare time. I definitely want to get into presenting a video game show, but I also see myself taking my current business to new heights. Making the most of my potential and achieving everything I possibly can is important to me. Why settle for anything less when you have everything needed to be truly remarkable?

WebM.ag: What advice would you give to a newbie starting out in design?
AB: I’ve not long transitioned from being a newbie myself, so I guess it’s perfect timing to answer this. Don’t be afraid to look stupid – ask questions! Twitter is perfect for this. If you’re stuck with something there’s a great community to give you feedback and suggestions, and I’m also lucky enough to have talented friends who give me direction. I’ve worked with Sam Brown numerous times over the past year, and this has been such a helpful experience for myself seeing how a professional works. I’ve taken a good look at his code and played around with it, but of course you don’t need to work with someone to do that. Look at the source code, play around with it, but don’t steal. The simplest thing you can do is get designing. With each site you build you’ll see an improvement from the last one.

WebM.ag: Tell us something about you that you haven’t mentioned in an interview before?
AB: I once road down the street on my bike butt naked.

WebM.ag: So what can we expect from you going into 2010 and beyond?
AB: I’ll continue pushing myself with my job, working hard, building up to what I want to achieve. It’s exciting to think what the future holds, but I’m not one to massively plan in advance. I don’t know what I’m eating for dinner tonight and it’s almost 6pm. With all that said and done, I know the future’s going to be good!

Quick Fire!

Music Of Choice? Ska
What are you reading? Crush It, Gary Vaynerchuk
IE6, love or hate? Hate, and then some.
PC or MAC? Mac
Facebook or Twitter? Twitter – that’s right, I would rather connect with strangers than my real life friends!

A Big Thank You To Ashley!

We would like to thank Ashley for taking time out to speak to us. If you want to view more of Ashley’s work, read more about her projects or find out more about what she does, you can at iamashley.co.uk , or you can contact Ashley through Twitter: @Rockers_Delight

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