Abigail Hebert

Even those who have never tuned into WBOR will recognize the station’s distinct artistic presence on campus. From quirky stickers plastered on Nalgene bottles to eclectic posters advertising musical gatherings, the students behind WBOR have carved out a unique visual representation of the station at Bowdoin.

Finn Torres ’25, a lifelong artist and member of WBOR management, played a crucial role in sustaining the station’s trademark artistry this year as it has undergone its move to Coles Tower by constructing the neon “On Air” sign visible outside the new station. The sign, glowing a deep orange hue 24 hours a day, was designed by Torres leading up to the station’s move last semester.

Torres is an artist whose experience with pencil and paper translated to the graphic design involved in conceptualizing the sign. His early experiences with drawing were foundational to his development as an artist.

“I’ve always really been into art. I remember when I was younger, people would ask me, ‘When did you start drawing?’ And I didn’t really have an answer,” Torres said. “I had a bunch of sketchbooks when I was a little kid, and … I remember I used to go to church, and my mom would always yell at me because I’d be drawing in my sketchbook instead of singing with everyone.”

Torres brought this artistic impulse to Bowdoin, noting a tendency to doodle in class and in his daily life. Though he has explored mediums such as painting, photography and collage, Torres emphasized his preference for drawing.

“[Pencil and paper] is probably my favorite medium, just because it’s the most accessible. I can be sitting in class and drawing, but I also have gotten really into marker stuff,” Torres said. “It’s very simplistic, I guess—I tend to really like art styles that give me a lot of control.”

Since joining WBOR management last fall, Torres has applied his love of drawing to create original designs for the station’s content and merchandise, including stickers, T-shirts, posters and even a map. He explained how his appreciation for WBOR’s off-kilter reputation has informed his approach to this work.

“The thing that I love about WBOR is that it’s very eclectic,… and so I think that the stickers and the merch that we make really should lean into that aspect. So, even just the can of soup sticker, which I didn’t design, but I liked this theme of, ‘Why is it a can of soup?’” Torres said. “It’s just a little bit weird.”

Well before designing the glowing sign visible outside the Coles Tower station, Torres incorporated the vibrancy of neon signs into his designs. He created motifs for the station which read “We encourage listeners to think for themselves” and “On air”—which have since made their way onto countless stickers and T-shirts—and visualized these messages in the form of neon signs.

When it came to producing a design that would actually be made into a physical sign, however, Torres faced new challenges in the artistic process. Before sending his design out to the company producing the sign, Torres had to tweak the drawing to fit the particularities of the medium.

“Just because of the restrictions of the material itself, the design I initially had in mind was a little bit more complex and some of the stuff was a lot smaller. I had to work with them around what was actually feasible in terms of bending what looks to me to be glass,” Torres said.

After going through a few iterations, the design was approved and sent off to be made into a physical sign. Now installed outside WBOR’s station in Coles, the sign can be observed by Bowdoin community members from WBOR enthusiasts to students on their way to Thorne Hall.

As he prepares to graduate later this month, Torres reflected on the significance of his artistic contribution to the community.

“I’ve had this deep urge since the beginning of senior year of wanting to leave something behind,” Torres said. “I don’t want to feel like I graduated and I didn’t contribute anything concrete, so I think it’s really cool to see  there’s a neon sign that I’ve made that hopefully will be there for the next few years at least.”