Sarah Dierker, a Marketing major with Art and Art History minors, recently designed a Northeastern University Snapchat geofilter, a photo overlay that is only available in a specific geographical location. If you haven’t used it yet, be sure to check it out!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and I’m currently taking summer classes after finishing my first year at Northeastern. I’ve always had a strong pull towards visual arts, and I’m hoping to learn more about visual communication through my Marketing major and my Art minor. I’m currently a member of NUSci Magazine, the campus science publication, and I help run social media and marketing for it. I’ve also worked with Artistry, another campus magazine, both as a designer and as a writer.

What inspired you to design a geofilter?

As soon as I saw that Snapchat was giving members of the community an opportunity to design geofilters, I immediately thought of making one for Northeastern. There are a lot of different geofilters in use around Boston, such as ones for Newbury Street and the Boston Harbor areas, and they’re a fun addition to the Snapchat application. I thought that it only made sense that our large school community have one as well.

Tell us about the design inspiration.

As far as the design of the actual geofilter, I went with something simple. I ended up creating a handful of different designs, but I think that the one Snapchat chose accurately sums up Northeastern. Definitely a part of the urban Boston area, but it’s own place nonetheless.

What other projects are you working on now?

I’m currently taking a couple of art courses during the Summer 1 term, a digital class and a studio class. I’ve been working in pen and ink to create a series of large drawings, and I’m excited to continue to work on design projects around campus when the fall semester starts back up. I actually just had a sample of my work featured on an online gallery called Radiozoa, which was created by Northeastern alumna Abbey Yacoe, who lives out in San Francisco. It’s exciting to make these kinds of connections within the alumni network.

Visuals courtesy of Sarah Dierker