Role: Snapchat Lens Creator/Illustrator.
Self-Love Reminder is a lens that participated in Snap's AR Lens Challenge 2022. The challenge theme was “Sending Love and Light into the World.” I wanted this lens to have the power to make users feel loved and know how worthy and incredible they are. Sometimes we don’t hear this from others, so the lens will serve as a reminder.
Awards: 2nd Place at Snap AR Lens Challenge 2022.
Analytics:
49.74m views from Snapchat users.
45.49m plays from Snapchat users.
437.8k shares from Snapchat users.
45,601 times favorited by Snapchat users.
Data as of 10/20/22.
About
I was inspired by randomizer lenses. I thought the front lens could give Snapchat users a random daily self-love reminder. The interaction that triggers the randomizer to stop is opening your mouth, and to restart the randomizer, a tap on the screen. I wanted to translate the concept to the rear camera. So I used the particles object to show the hearts floating in the real world, spaced in 3 dimensions. When Snapchat users walk around them, they can feel surrounded by care, love, and positivity and share their love and appreciation with someone else when recording others.
Inspiration
The hearts are meant to be "Sweethearts" or "Conversation Hearts," which are small heart-shaped sugar candies sold around Valentine's Day. Each heart is usually printed with cute and funny messages such as "Be Mine," "Kiss Me," "Miss You" and others. For this concept, I changed the candies to be self-love reminders like:
• Love Yourself
• It Will Be OK
• You Are Strong
•Be Yourself
• You Are Worthy
• You Are Amazing
I wanted the assets to have some craftsmanship, so I used Procreate on iPad with an apple pencil to draw the assets and created a subtle animation with the text. I kept the soft rounded corners of the hearts to be visually friendly, and these same criteria was also used for the type.
Challenges
I had trouble hiding elements from the front lens in the back lens and vice versa. I tried creating a behavior script, but I couldn't get the results I expected. I read the Combining World and Face documentation, and I was able to hide the rear lens elements. To hide the front lens elements, I asked Jonathan, a snap Lens engineer, why my behavior script wasn’t working as desired. It was very simple to solve, and thanks to him, I was able to create other behavior scripts for my lens.
Future Iterations
• As a future iteration, in addition to adding new colors and more self-love messages, the lens could also provide self-care reminders. These self-care reminders could give ideas for users to practice self-care, reminders like “get some rest,” “go outside,” “read a book,”...
• Another consideration is that the front lens could serve of some glam by creating additional interactions like VFX with hand tracking.
• Finally, the lens could also become a Snappable and allow users to interact with the lens in a gamified way.
Results
• My lens won second place in the Snap AR Lens Challenge in 2022. In addition to that, the lens went viral a few months later. It was very emotional for me to see people using and enjoying something I created. A Snapchat user who shared a snap of her using the lens said, ” This is what I needed to hear,” when the lens gave her a self-love message, you can tell it meant a lot to her.
