Sweet, well-mannered Ashley LaFarge was a third-year design student at Alabama’s Auburn University when she worked for Veer. While she may have been with us for only one summer, her work has had some staying power.

In her time at Veer, when Ashley wasn’t working on catalogs, she designed one of Veer’s most beloved merch items: the Kern zip-up. This fleece jacket with a built-in typographic demonstration has garnered a whole lotta love. It was featured in Print magazine (Jan ’06) and won for best miscellaneous design in the 2006 Design Annual of Communication Arts, one of the world’s most exclusive graphic design competitions.

Ashley’s work is often described as clean and smart. While she admits to being a perfectionist and takes pride in her work, she believes it’s important to be humble about your achievements. Good thing, because she’s already won two other design awards, from Auburn and the Mississippi State University AIGA Design Competition.

We caught up with Ashley at her home in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2007, before she headed off to Colombia to travel and study Spanish at the Universidad Javeriana.

Veer: When you graduated from Auburn in 2006, you were A/commended. What the heck is that?

Ashley: It’s something they only do at Auburn. My professors all gave me an A on my final project. It was quite an honor, because they were tough. They have a really good design program at Auburn – very selective.

Veer: Will you specialize after you’ve finished your studies in Colombia?

Ashley: No. I’ll just take things as they come. I’m up for anything. I’m still very much a roamer. I definitely have the travel bug. I like learning about new cultures and experiencing new things. If there’s a challenge, I want to take it on.

Veer: What is it about design that moves you?

Ashley: I like the problem-solving aspect of it. I get these jobs and I have to figure out how to make it right for the client. And I like that you can’t really do anything wrong. The only thing that limits me is me and how far I want to push it. You get a lot of freedom and there are so many possibilities. I like to be challenged, too. That’s why I was intrigued by a job I had in 2006, in the Caymans. I was the only designer on one 150-page magazine and another 200-page magazine, and we did them both in 10 weeks.

Veer: What was the highlight of working at Veer?

Ashley: The whole experience was a highlight … I almost didn’t apply for the internship because I put Veer so high up on a pedestal. I was pretty intimidated, but I found everybody at Veer humble and down-to-earth. It was a comfortable environment to work in. I learned a lot.

Veer: How did the Kern zip-up come about?

Ashley: Sheldon [Popiel, Veer’s creative director] suggested I do a jacket for the merch store. He pretty much gave me free rein, only reminding me to think along the lines of “Creatives Understand.” I was so nervous because everything at Veer is so cool, but I thought back to the basics I’d learned in typography. Tracking, leading, kerning, the anatomy of letters … very basic things. Somewhere in my sketches KERN met zipper and it just clicked.

Veer: Anything about the job itself that inspired you?

Ashley: Sitting around the table and brainstorming with really great creatives was a cool experience. To see where the ideas come from … Definitely one of my favorite things was the way you guys approach your projects. It’s such an “anything goes” kind of environment.