McDONALD — The village fire department has a smoldering new look that made its debut on uniforms and shirts.

Designing the new artwork, that’s in the form of a patch, was James Hipple, a senior at McDonald High School.

Jaclyn Napolitano, media editing instructor at the high school and a former graphic designer, said students in the media classes do a lot of projects they would do in the work world.

“I structure my classroom to be a workplace environment rather than a school environment. As a graphic designer, I know the ins and outs of being in the work world. I bring that skill set to the classroom so they can see how things will be done if they are working in the field,” Napolitano said.

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

“I like the classes to do projects for the school and the community. We get requests from teachers and administrators with projects they want us to work on. It is all real-world projects,” Napolitano said, adding students have designed health fair logos, school posters, yard signs, event invitations and school club logos.

Last school year she gave 17 students in the media editing class an assignment to design a logo. When everyone was done, the class voted on the top five.

Napolitano sent the five images to fire Chief Fred Marcum to select the best.

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

She said the top five images were colorful, with unique typography and fire image elements.

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

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

DESIGNING PROCESS

Hipple, 18, said he looked at different fire department images and wanted to include an eagle to create an image of holding it all together.

“I remember seeing the shape that the patch should be. I wanted to include the date of when we established 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 selected for the top five and then even more surprised when his image was the top choice.

“I did not believe it when they picked the logo I did,” he said.

While he does not plan to study media options in college, he does have a side business of window cleaning and creates logos.

The final image had the words “McDonald Fire Department” and the year “1920” — when the department was established. There are also an eagle, fire axes, hydrant, hat and extinguisher.

FIRE CHIEF SELECTS IMAGE

Marcum said he was impressed with the five images he was presented.

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

“This logo will be on all our dress uniforms and embroidered items,” he said,

Marcum said while there were some revisions from the original selected piece, the ideas remained the same.

Marcum, who showed the selected patch image at a recent council meeting, said the image the fire department was using had become outdated.

“I wanted to get something new that will

be around for years,” he said.