Students logging in to Snapchat last week found two new Ashland University geofilters to adorn their selfies. For those who aren’t familiar with the brief photo-sharing app, geofilters are images and frames that Snapchat users can access based on their location. It still remains unclear who submitted the current filters, but at least two students were working on it just before they showed up on Snapchat.

Jeanie Olzak shared her intention to make a Geofilter on Twitter.

“I’m a very avid Yik Yak-er, and the majority of complaints that I saw were that Ashland really needed a geofilter,” said Olzak. “Having multiple Photoshop classes through high school and being tech savvy, I practically knew what to do.”

Olzak ran into some technical issues before she could actually submit her geofilter designs but believes that students would have liked her designs better.

“I’m not trying to dog anyone’s work, but they look like they took about 20 minutes to make, probably not even. The one I was working on took a while to sketch, and then eventually create on Photoshop,” said Olzak. “The one that I was really trying to make progress on had the clock tower going up the left side and across the bottom it had “Ashland University” in script. I’m not sure when I’m going to attempt to resubmit it, but hopefully it’ll be soon.”

AU’s marketing and social media manager, Angelique Cunningham, has and continues to request that students hoping to submit a geofilter design go through the university by contacting [email protected] via email. She explained that her office should approve anything using Ashland’s colors or logos first just to make sure that it is official.

Cunningham has started the process of getting the current geofilters taken off Snapchat.

“We just want to make sure it is in brand guidelines in order to make it official,” said Cunningham. “Technically one of the filters was once upon a time something that we were using across campus; we’re just no longer using it anymore. No one is in trouble for using it; it just makes it easier for me if they come through me first.”

Barouk Gari, a junior at AU, was another student hoping to bring geofilters to Ashland. In order to do so he reached out to Cunningham.

“I wanted to create the geofilters to give Ashland a sense of school spirit,” said Gari. “Having them shows that a school is organized and connected and I wanted that for Ashland.”

He worked with Cunningham to create geofilters that they hope students will be excited about.

“The geofilters on there now look like something the university would have created, but we wanted to make something that students would want to utilize,” said Cunningham.

Gari has also been working with Cunningham to plan a contest that will allow students like Olzak to submit their own designs in a way that is still official and that is approved by the university.

“Students spend most of their time on social media and I wanted them to have a say,” said Gari. “We have a lot of talented students who should be able to show that. It’s something they can even put on their resumes and show to employers in the future.”

According to Gari the contest will be open to all students on campus and will most likely occur in October. Students will be able to submit their geofilter designs to the university and then all of campus will be given a chance to vote for their favorites on AU’s Facebook page. Potentially Ashland’s geofilters are the first in a few Snapchat developments on campus.

“We don’t have a university Snapchat account yet,” said Cunningham. “It’s not to say that we won’t have one but I was just waiting until the moral changed around campus and we were going through a change with a new president, and I think he is definitely going to want to be involved in that process. I just didn’t want to do anything prematurely.”

Cunningham hasn’t ruled out any future possibilities surrounding Snapchat because it is something that students utilize so often. For now, be on the lookout for the new official geofilters and the start of the geofilter contest later this month.