A career Graphic Designer/Director (and occasional music producer), I've had the good fortune of working with some of the best and most reputable companies in the world — leaving each one in better, more profitable shape than it was when I arrived.

My first artistic achievement came at the age of 10, winning a government-sponsored illustrating competition called Operation Eau Propre. The ensuing media exposure helped open the door to regular illustrating assignments with popular consumer protection magazine Protect Yourself (Protégez-Vous). By 16, I was authoring a weekly comic strip in local paper Le Point; while representing my school, city and province at various art competitions. This was also the year I accepted a Montreal Board of Trade Academic Achievement Award  for the body of my academic & artistic work, an honor presented to me by representatives of Bombardier, my sponsors at the corporate event.

I went on to study both Graphic Design and Fine Arts at the College level, while moonlighting as a part-time educator at Montreal’s CISM – a special ed school for teenagers – as well as composing theme music for both CFCF and RDS television. After a brief stint at the head office of Château Stores of Canada, I joined software designers Vircom Inc as Lead Graphic Artist in 1996. For the next couple of years, I was responsible for the company’s visual identity and graphic collateral needs – as well as scoring the soundtrack to « The 4th Coming » video game. This period was marked by unprecedented growth for the company, which jumped from 5 to 25 employees, relocating in larger offices to accommodate.

 In the years that followed, I went on to work alongside such brands as Virgin Music (France), Suzy Shier Fashion Stores, Glaxo SmithKline (Aquafresh™, Nicorette™), Procaps Inc (Diablo™), Strategy First (Disciples: Sacred Lands™), Golden Palace Online Casino, and EasyClip Eyewear (Cartier Group). I’ve also had the chance to create movie posters as well as soundtrack music for American films like Kevin Kangas' « Fear of Clowns », distributed domestically by Lion’s Gate Home Entertainment.

In July of 2003, I was behind a viral marketing strategy aimed at giving music project Unfaith a little exposure. Dubbed « The Metallica Hoax », the initiative consisted of exploiting online media's irresponsibility and unaccountability, by literally giving them the stories they were looking to print (in this case, an absurd account of Metallica copyrighting the "E" chord, and suing Unfaith for using it) in order to both prove a point, as well as give the band the exposure it was looking for.

	Related Links: YAHOO! article (USA) GUARDIAN article (UK) ROCKSTAR article (ITALY) NET.NANA article (ISRAEL) DAGBLADET article (NORWAY) NETZEITUNG article (GERMANY) etc.

By the time CNN and Rolling Stone came calling, Jimmy Kimmel had already referenced it twice on two consecutive nights; and the whole thing turned into one of the biggest hoaxes to ever hit the internet. It was covered (and praised) by virtually every industrialized country on the planet, in a host of languages. The members of Metallica themselves hailed it as both brilliant and hilarious, while American institutions like M.I.T. made the subject mandatory reading in their on-campus contemporary media curriculum. A few months later, Unfaith won the ISC Songwriting Competition's People's Voice award, due in no small part to the exposure brought on by the previous year’s viral campaign.

 In 2004, I joined a small upstart web design company called Belmont Web Services as Senior Graphic Artist / Art Director – answering and overseeing the company's graphic needs for the next three years – and helping to build what Nielsen eventually dubbed the fastest growing internet dating site in the world. During my tenure, the company prospered from 6 to 50+ employees, traded cramped quarters for luxurious new accommodations in the heart of the city, while watching membership on its main site jump from 1 million to over 22 million subscribers.

I left the company in late 2007 to pursue other opportunities, and am currently working as Art Director at an advertising agency.

Erik Ashley
January 1st, 2009