On January 15, 2015, Tina Hayes ’17 checked her Snapchat story feed. As she watched more and more of her friends’ stories, she noticed something familiar repeatedly appear: the Marlborough School geofilter (a special overlay for Snapchats that can only be accessed in certain locations) she had designed a couple days earlier.

Hayes employed the Adobe Photoshop skills she had learned from the digital art classes at Marlborough, instruction that she has been receiving since eighth grade, when creating her geofilter.

“Since all of [the digital arts classes] are based on Photoshop, I’ve gotten pretty good at the basics, and I just decided to draw [the geofilter design] one day!” Hayes said.

Hayes knew that fellow Los Angeles schools Crossroads and Windward had geofilters for their schools and thought it would be fun if she made a Marlborough one.

Hayes took her design inspiration from Marlborough-themed clothing that is currently sold in the student store.

“I have this polo with the ‘M’ on it, and I just decided to [use] that,” Hayes commented.

The design took her about 30 minutes to draw. She drew it one day but was too nervous to send it in to Snapchat in fear that she would get in trouble, since Snapchat does not allow geofilters to be copies of logos.

However, a couple of days later, Hayes made up her mind and submitted the design. She found out the next day, through email, that it had been approved.

“I was very excited! I didn’t think it would actually be accepted. I just laughed a lot. It was really funny…. I’m glad it was accepted!” Hayes exclaimed.

As for future geofilter plans, Hayes has always wanted one for her neighborhood, Toluca Lake.

“I wanted to make one for my house, but my dad said I couldn’t because we would get kidnapped,” Hayes remarked.