In early October 2013, St. Lawrence’s chapel, arguably the university’s most iconic and beloved structure, was heavily damaged by fire. The magazine staff had a feature well planned out and indeed underway for our Winter 2014 issue, to be mailed in January, but after much deliberation decided to dispense with those plans and start over with the fire and subsequent plans for restoration of the structure as the theme. Because the chapel is such a beloved place on campus I wanted the reader to feel like they were looking at the chapel as they read. To accomplish this I used pictures of the chapels stonework as background textures, close up shots of the bells for backgrounds and a color palette similar to that of the chapel throughout the feature.

The bell on the cover is the largest of ten bells cast by the McNeely Bell Company that make up “the St. Lawrence chime.” They were donated to the university by Irving Bacheller, Class of 1882.