By: Karen Maserjian Shan, Poughkeepsie Journal

eve

For Eve Ashworth, it’s about creating fresh designs that help businesses grow.

Every single client is like a new job,” said Ashworth, 35, co-owner and account director of advertising company Ashworth Creative in Poughkeepsie. “Nothing that we do is template or cookie-cutter at Ashworth Creative.”

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports employment of advertising, promotions and marketing managers is expected to grow 14 percent from 2010 to 2020, with those expert in Internet-based advertising having the best prospects.

Ashworth grew up in Warwickshire County, England, where she studied human biology, communications and general art at King Edward VI College. At first, she was undecided on her career choice.

“I do really like the science of the human body and how it works to achieve movement, and I was really fascinated by that,” she said.

In the end, it was print and digital designs that won out.

“I definitely wanted to go into communications,” Ashworth said. “(It was) the creativity of it. It wasn’t really bound to any one medium.”

She came to the United States at 18 with her parents in 1996, settling near relatives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

There, Ashworth got a job making dental models with a large dental lab, Ultradent Products. Before long, she moved into the company’s communications department, traveling the U.S. for distribution and marketing work.

By 2002, she’d married and moved to Yorktown Heights, Westchester County, and in 2005, established Ashworth Creative with her graphic designer husband, Isaac, out of their apartment.

Their first client was retail and mail order company Lillian Vernon, for which the couple photographed products and laid out catalogs.

The Ashworths eventually moved to Dutchess County, buying a home in Salt Point and working from there.

Business grew as local companies became clients, such as the Kirchhoff Companies and Health Quest, along with New York University and Columbia Dental School.

“We were doing a lot design work, mostly print design,” Ashworth said of their early projects. Then the demand for digital work took hold. The Ashworths expanded their services, thanks largely to students-in-the-know from Marist College.

“Partnering with the school here has contributed majorly to our business,” Ashworth said. “Working with the kids has been awesome. It really fueled our business for a long time.”

Now the couple live in Rhinebeck with their four children and run Ashworth Creative from an office in downtown Poughkeepsie where a staff of eight work on some 30 to 40 identity, Web, print, advertising and public relations projects.

“I’m no good without the team behind us,” Ashworth said. “If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be who we are today.”

Senior project manager and family friend Chase Evans of Poughkeepsie joined the company six years ago because he liked the Ashworths’ excitement for their growing company.

“(Eve Ashworth) is very good at getting things done and leading conversations, leading meetings,” Evans said. “She’s good at taking control and then just moving forward.”