Whether you’re hanging out in Downtown La Grange or driving through Hinsdale, you may have noticed the new Snapchat geofilters. These geofilters are the work of LT alumna Molly Malec ‘10, who has designed and created snapchat geofilters for neighborhoods surrounding LT.

Malec graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014 with a degree in advertising. Now she works as an Art Director for SPM Marketing and Communications.

Equipped with artistic ability and knowledge on how to operate design programs like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, Malec has made 12 geofilters. These include Downtown La Grange, Brookfield, Hinsdale, Riverside, Wrigleyville and Little Italy, as well as four others for areas surrounding U of I: downtown Champaign, Green Street, the quad, Urbana, one for Eastern Illinois University and another for a beach near Miami that she visited.

The artistic inspiration for these geofilters came from her own experience with each community, Malec said.

“All of the areas I made geofilters for are special to me,” Malec said. “It really helped knowing what’s different about that area before making the geofilter. For example, I worked at the La Grange Theatre all through high school and on breaks in college, and I knew that the theater is like the heart of downtown La Grange, so I had to include that in the cartoon.”

Snapchat does not pay Malec for her designs, but she still enjoys making them as much as LT students enjoy using them.

“I love geofilters,” Molly Stark ‘16 said. “I always use them, but I never knew an LT alumna made them.”

As for the future, LT students may be in luck, as Malec hopes to create geofilters for LT, she said.

“Ideally I’d like to make one for NC and one for SC, but we’ll have to see what gets approved by Snapchat,” Malec said. “After all, I made four geofilters for U of I, I should at least make one or two for LT.”