Snapchat users of the ‘Nova Nation were pleasantly surprised to find that Villanova now has its very own geotag, a small image of the Villanova Church that appears when the app locates the campus.  What Snapchatters may not know is that the Geotag was designed by two of Villanova’s very own, freshmen Joe Esposito and Drew Martin.  The two met on a Spring Break Service Trip where the idea of a Villanova geotag was first mentioned.  Upon their return to campus, the two continued discussing the idea, and finally decided to email Snapchat to see if it was a possibility.  “The whole thing happened in the course of 24 hours,” said Esposito. Snapchat returned their email almost immediately, and the two began designing the tag.  

The trickiest part was avoiding any sayings or emblems that might be copyrighted, including “Nova Nation” and Will D. Cat.  After about 45 minutes of brainstorming ideas, they finally settled on the image of the church.  “It’s a pretty characteristic image of the school,” said Martin, “when you drive by that’s what you see.”  The cartoonish look of the tag was achieved on Photoshop, where the two finalized the image before emailing it to their Snapchat contact.  “We noticed it was live from other people before we found it ourselves,” Martin said.  Once the tag was up and running, Nationers could begin tagging their photos with the Villanova location.  “We didn’t really tell anyone,” Esposito said, “but it was funny how fast the word spread.” When asked how they came up with the idea, both partners shrugged.  “I figured someone would do it eventually,” Martin said, “but then no one ever did.”