Time for an AR Lens Competition.

Competition Brief

The Snap Augmented Reality (AR) Lens Challenge is a student-led programme created to help young people develop the foundational digital skills they need to be successful in the future digital landscape. 

It has been designed for students aged 13 years+ and runs over 3 weeks (2-3 hours a week) as an extracurricular programme, and is delivered in 3 main stages:

Theme: Make a Fashion Statement

From the clothes that we wear to how we accessorize and how we style our hair, fashion has evolved over the centuries as a means of expressing one’s identity. At the same time, as our lives become more digitized, virtual style is becoming an important part of people’s identity. 

How do you use fashion to blend your physical and digital identities and express yourself to the world?  

This year, we want you to design a Snap lens to showcase how you use fashion to express yourself to your Snapchat friends. Lenses are discoverable within the Snapchat app, so anyone in the world could ‘try on’ the Lens you create and immerse themselves in your fashion world through their Story, Spotlight, and/or SnapMap post!

As you design your Snap Lens for this year’s AR Lens Challenge, think about:

  • What images would you design? 
  • What special effects would you include? 
  • What movements would trigger those special effects?
Check out these resources to help you make your fashion statement:

We’re excited to see how you express yourselves through fashion, what you all come up with and through our collective creations, we will be one step closer to making it happen.

Top Tips

  1. You can use the existing templates in Lens studio to start building your Lens
  2. You can design assets through Illustrator, Photoshop, or any other design software (i.e., Canva, Figma) that you can import into Lens Studio
  3. You can use existing images from the web that you can import into Lens Studio (just make sure you avoid using brand logos or unapproved third party assets)
  4. You can incorporate movement and sound to make your Lens fun and interactive
  5. Try and see if you can use more than one design asset (ex: 2D, 3D, multiple Snap lenses) used throughout the Challenge to showcase your skills! 
  6. 🔥 HOT TIP 🔥- the use of 2 or more Snap lens templates increases your overall final score!


After you have completed the tutorials under the “Level up” section of the website, and have attended the Lens Lab and/ or Office Hours, you’ll be ready to show off your latest fashion statement to all your friends with your Lens.

Prize

The students with the winning lenses will have the opportunity to receive one of the following prizes:


  • cash prizes and professional development webinar training 
  • an invitation to apply to the inaugural London Snap Lens Academy, Snap Inc’s summer program for rising AR design students

The student will get the opportunity to meet various employees at Snap, discuss their careers and discover who is behind the creation of the lenses that students know and love. Imagine how great that would look on your CV!

Judging Criteria

The most successful Lenses will:

  1. Creatively celebrate or express at least one part of the creator’s identity
  2. Be something that Snapchatters would want to interact with and share
  3. Draw upon skills that were developed during the Snap AR Lens Challenge

Deadline

The deadline to submit your Lens: TBD.

Submission Entry

👻 When you are finished, submit your Lens to be officially published on Snap.

For details on how to submit your Lens, click here. Here are some extra tips:

  • Make sure you are not using any copyrighted material.
  • Keep the overall size of your Lens under 8 MB.
  • Download a 10-second preview video of your Lens.
  • Click the yellow “Publish Lens” button on the top left corner of Lens Studio to begin the process.
  • Be sure to add the tag “snaparchallenge” to your Lens when you submit.

Once the Lens has been accepted and published, download its Snapcode (when scanned, the Snapcode will link to your Lens). Here’s an example:

Then, submit your Snapcode and a 10-second preview video of your Lens by filling in the Competition Entry Form using the guidance included. Before submitting your final Lens for the competition, make sure you read the full terms and conditions by clicking here.

If any questions come up throughout the submission process, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at ARLensChallenge@nextshiftlearning.com.

Best of luck in designing and submitting your final Lens!

📎  Submit Your Lens

👉🏽 The 2023 UK National Challenge will take place: TBD.

Date

Event

TBD Live Kickoff Event: Intro to Snap and Augmented Reality Session
TBD Self-Paced: Snap AR Lens Challenge ‘Level Up’ Tutorials

TBD Live: Lens Lab with Snap Lens Network Creator
TBD Live: Lens Challenge Briefing
TBD Self-Paced: Challenge Design Brief Announced
TBD Live: Office Hours with Snap Lens Network Creator
TBD Self-Paced: Challenge Submissions Due