Creative foundation.
MBA student Seun Ajewole incorporates creative skills into his job and gives back to his community through projects supported by Adobe Creative Cloud.
Learn new skills by downloading any app
Products:
Objectives
Gain career skills by developing creative and collaborative abilities
Apply creative skills in business and academic settings
Contribute to projects that give back to the community
Results
Learn new skills by downloading any app
Bring creativity and collaboration to work
Give back to the community of Boston
Switch between apps with seamless workflows
“I’ve always been interested in art and drawing, and Adobe Photoshop really opened my eyes to what could be done in terms of digital artwork and design.”
Seun Ajewole
MBA Student, Northeastern University
Lagos born, Boston raised
Education has always played an important role in the life of Seun Ajewole. The son of a teacher and a nurse, Ajewole and his family immigrated from Lagos, Nigeria to Boston, Massachusetts after his father received an academic fellowship from the World Bank Group. High exam scores helped Ajewole gain entry into the Boston Latin School, a public exam school rated as one of the top high schools in the United States. He attended Boston College for a dual degree in Finance and Marketing. Currently, Ajewole works as a healthcare analyst for Tufts Health Plan while studying for his MBA in Technological Entrepreneurship at Northeastern University.
“I’m proud to be a Nigerian immigrant who grew up in Boston,” says Ajewole. “It’s a city that took me in and helped make me the person I am today.”
Creative discovery
Boston Latin School was particularly foundational in helping Ajewole prepare for the future, supporting both his academic and creative education. It was there that Ajewole encountered Adobe Photoshop, which was his first experience with professional-level creative software.
“I’ve always been interested in art and drawing, and Adobe Photoshop really opened my eyes to what could be done in terms of digital artwork and design,” says Ajewole. Throughout high school and college, Ajewole continued working with Adobe creative software to develop photography and videography skills that have led to voluntary and paid projects with the City of Boston, Company One, the YMCA, and the ACLU of Massachusetts.
For years, Ajewole expanded his creative skills by trying programs on friends’ computers and buying individual pieces of software. He discovered Adobe Creative Cloud while at Northeastern University as the university provides access to the software for students.
“I’ve worked with various pieces of Adobe software over the years, but it’s so ingenious to have access to everything through Adobe Creative Cloud,” says Ajewole. “I can try any app that I want and keep building my skills. By learning to think creatively, I’m contributing to my job, studies, and the community of Boston.”
Balancing creative and corporate
Like many young people entering the business world, Ajewole first found it difficult to balance his creative and corporate lives. “I’ve always thought there was a wall between the business world and the art world,” says Ajewole. “But I’ve discovered that there are more opportunities to apply creativity in the corporate world than I thought.”
Almost any career requires effective communication. However, being able to effectively communicate in a visual way is becoming more and more critical in an increasingly digital world. Experience with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator helps Ajewole design flyers, logos, and presentations for work and MBA classes that better illustrate his ideas. Working on creative projects also helped Ajewole learn to be a more effective collaborator, a skill that is valuable in any position.
But Ajewole also discovered a more direct use for his creative skills in his job. After Ajewole’s boss spotted him taking photographs at a company event, he was enlisted as a photographer for Tufts Health Plan’s volunteer events. He’s slowly building a library of images that are used in corporate communications.
“I wasn’t always open about my creative background because I didn’t think that it would be appreciated, but my boss has been very excited to see what I’ve been doing,” says Ajewole. “It’s great to realize that there’s a space for creativity in a corporate environment.”
“I like that you can jump from app to app whenever you get a good idea, and Adobe Creative Cloud never holds you back.”
Seun Ajewole
MBA Student, Northeastern University
Expanding skills for greater opportunities
With Creative Cloud, Ajewole can download and learn any Adobe creative app. All apps share similar interfaces and workflows, making it easy to figure out new apps without intensive training. While Ajewole expands his digital and design skills with the latest versions of old favorites such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Photoshop, he is also discovering new apps such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which uses presets to make photography editing more efficient than ever.
Adobe Creative Cloud also allows Ajewole to pick up entirely new creative skills. Although Ajewole had little experience with video editing, he quickly learned to use Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition to create a video for a friend.
“Some people I talked to were fans of Final Cut Pro, but Adobe Premiere Pro made so much more sense to me,” says Ajewole. “The controls were intuitive and there was a great workflow that allowed me to switch between other apps, such as Adobe After Effects and Adobe Audition, seamlessly. I like that you can jump from app to app whenever you get a good idea, and Creative Cloud never holds you back.”
Referred by a friend who was involved with the Interaction Institute for Social Change, Ajewole put his photography and videography work to use for a paid project with the City of Boston and its Boston 2030 project. In a series of interviews with fellow Bostonians, Ajewole helped draw out ideas of what people wanted to see in the future of their city. “It was really interesting to be involved in the Boston 2030 campaign and to see how we can use photographs and video to give people a voice in the future of our city,” says Ajewole.
Giving back to the community
Ajewole expertly balances work, studies, and art projects, and the skills he gains through Creative Cloud contribute to all of these pursuits. Although Ajewole is primarily self-taught, he participates in events such as the MIT Hacking Arts 2016 Hackathon to learn more about new ways to use art and technology to change the world around him. Ajewole would like to use all of these experiences to benefit the people of the city that shaped him.
“People are starting to understand and appreciate the benefits of creative thinking in every walk of life,” says Ajewole. “I want to give back to Boston by helping underprivileged kids find the skills they need for the future, especially through the arts. You can be anything you want, but you need to understand the tools at your disposal. Adobe Creative Cloud is one of my most valuable tools. It’s the canvas that allows me to express myself and build ideas that positively impact my community.”
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