McDonald excited about student design | News, Sports, Jobs

McDONALD – The village fire department has a new, bold look that debuted on uniforms and shirts.

The new artwork in the form of a patch was designed by James Hipple, a twelfth-grader at McDonald High School.

Jaclyn Napolitano, a high school media editing instructor and former graphic designer, said students in media courses work on many projects that they would also implement in the workplace.

“I design my classes more like a workplace than a school. As a graphic designer, I know the ins and outs of the working world. I bring those skills into the classroom so students can see how things are done when they work in that field,” Napolitano said.

She said Kevin O'Connell, superintendent of McDonald Local Schools, told her the village fire department was looking for a new logo and she thought she could incorporate it into a class project.

“I want the classes to do projects for the school and the community. We get requests from teachers and school administration to work on. They are all real-world projects,” Napolitano said, adding that students have designed logos for health fairs, school posters, schoolyard signs, event invitations and logos for school clubs.

Last school year, she gave 17 students in the media editing class the task of designing a logo. When everyone had finished, the class voted on the top five.

Napolitano sent the five pictures to Fire Chief Fred Marcum, who was to select the best one.

“I was very impressed with the work the students did. I did a lot of branding assignments and projects in this course with logos, websites and apps. They have a lot of experience with branding,” said Napolitano.

She said the top five images were colorful and featured unique typography and fire imagery.

The students had four days to design their creations, which was a lesson in meeting real-world deadlines, Napolitano said.

“This project showed the students what they needed to create by looking at different colors and elements. They showed me how they combined different elements and certain fonts and types to match the mood of the project,” she said.

DESIGN PROCESS

Hipple, 18, said he looked at various pictures of the fire department and wanted to include an eagle to create an image that would tie it all together.

“I remember seeing the shape of the patch. I wanted to incorporate the founding date of our fire department and the different tools they use as firefighters. I wanted it to have a patriotic theme,” Hipple said.

He was surprised when he was chosen among the top five, and even more surprised when his picture was the first choice.

“I couldn’t believe it when they chose my logo,” he said.

Although he has no plans to study media studies at university, he works part-time cleaning windows and designing logos.

The last image included the words “McDonald Fire Department” and the year “1920” – when the department was founded. There is also an eagle, fire axes, a fire hydrant, a hat and a fire extinguisher.

FIRE CHIEF SELECTS IMAGE

Marcum said he was impressed by the five images presented to him.

He said that when working with companies, they would use their own stock artwork.

“This logo will appear on all of our uniforms and embroidered items,” he said.

Marcum said that while there were some changes from the originally selected piece, the ideas remained the same.

Marcum, who showed the selected patch image at a recent council meeting, said the image used by the fire department was outdated.

“I wanted something new that

will be around for years to come,” he said.