COMMUNITY EFFORT: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS HELP CREATE ECLIPSE BANNER DESIGN

Some new banners will be going up soon around Washington promoting the upcoming eclipse. The banners are the result of a collaborative effort that started with Discover Downtown and the City of Washington, but eventually came to involve students from Washington High School as well as the Daviess County Visitors Bureau.

“The mayor (David Rhoads) reached out for a spring design for the banners on each light post in Washington. I had previously worked with him on the Christmas banners,” said Amber Warden with Discover Downtown Washington. “We talked and decided instead of a spring banner that we do an eclipse banner to help promote the eclipse event that is happening and make sure the community knows about it. This gets the message of this big event out on the street.”

While organizers knew what they wanted but weren’t sure how to best convey the message. That led to a joint project with graphic design students at Washington High School.

“We decided to partner with the Washington High School graphic design class of Jennilee Counsil. She has a group of students that broke off into groups and each group designed their own banner,” said Warden. “They worked on them for a couple of weeks and submitted them to the Downtown board. We chose our favorites. Then the entire class went back and worked together on a final design.”

Currently, the banners are being made, and officials say they expect them to start going up soon. The 45 banners that will be hanging from street lights cost around $2,000.

“The Visitors Bureau is funding the banners, so we have great collaboration with this project,” said Warden.

The banners will include basic information on the upcoming eclipse and Warden says it will be presented in an impressive manner.

“I think it looks fantastic. The kids blew me away,” she said. “We had never done a project like this before. I love that we could work with our youth and tie them into a future they can have. It was really cool to see what they could do. I was impressed by their work.”

Article published by Mike Grant with the Washington Times Herald.