How to create AR filter for brands

11 min readNov 26, 2020

Blog series

8 Simple steps to follow while designing AR filter for the brands

As a fashion student, it is a dream to attend atleast ONE fashion show in our life time and you’re all set for that, picked out your number 1 dress, paired it with matching shoes and jewellery, applied and paid for the passes, told everyone in your close friends about it, or perhaps posted about it for your entire Instagram fam to know, because why not? It’s, THE fashion weeeeek. 💃

But..
But then you wake up to reality and find the future not so bright because you didn’t get passes for your loving brands fashion show. You’re cranky, might wanna kill corona virus for existing. 😡 Now that’s a tragic karma. Covid has floundered a lot of plans this year.

But again..

The next best thing happens and you’re notified that you don’t have to struggle for a last seat or a back stage passes because now you’ll get to sit wherever you want and enjoy the same show how the first seater’s do, about the same brand’s virtual fashion show that’s going to take place? 😃

Aah, What just happened?

Well, with Covid 19 preventing shows from being held in person, many brands have opted to hold virtual fashion shows to showcase their new collections. We may not know if fashion shows will return or not at this moment, but we will sure as hell enjoy what we’re getting right now.

During the lockdown, many of us spend a huge amount of time surfing on social medias. Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, even Spotify has become my new favourite product.

Instagram engagement is now vital for brands during the time of crisis. Live video become more relevant than ever as it serves as an alternative to communicating in person during normal circumstances, it is logical if brands would rather use Instagram to show virtually their collections.

Thus, brands looks for imaginative approaches to create hype about it, as it’s important to promote the show, isn’t it? And what better way than Instagram filters. It is the new route to internet stardom. Many renowned brands like Gucci, Prada, have come up with their own filters, where they promote their recent collections with creative filters. This is just getting so much interesting.

“Content is King, but distribution is Queen, and she wears the pants .— Jonah Peretti

Brief : Tommy Hilfiger, a US apparel company, is unable to do a physical fashion show in 2020, due to covid 19. Thus their brand is conducting a virtual fashion show. The goal is to help devise a digital marketing strategy using Augmented Reality to help promote the virtual fashion show.

Solution : To create an AR filter that would get the user excited enough to share it with their friends, as well as enjoy using the filter that they would like to try again. The idea is to make it interactive, trendy that it doesn’t really stay in camera rolls but on stories.

But, why only AR Filters? You must be thinking there are many more promotional strategies, like Sponsored posts, Graphics, Other marketing gimmicks, etc?

WHY AR? (According to the source — www.gloam.agency)

4X more engaging than mobile video (75 seconds)
AR has a 70% better memory recall than non AR content
80% of users follow a brand on Instagram
$1.3k AR filters are cheaper and faster to produce than you think.
Try products before you buy
$0.02 (approx). Per impression with new AR Facebook Ads
$13bn AR ad revenue by 2022

AR has proven to be a true gem for the user engagement and the level of interest for a product. It’s amazing to see, how it’s growing so fast and is a part of our daily lives, already. It offers new and innovative ways of interacting with customers, boost customer engagement, generate value, and drive growth.

Now that we’re on the same page, I present you 8 simple steps, that could help you build an AR filter for the brands from scratch. Excited, are we? Let’s get started.

(Disclaimer : The steps mentioned below are the means, that helped me with creating my first filter. Your working procedure might be different than mine, so read at your own will :)

Step 1 : Study the brand… thoroughly

Prior to ideating on any promotional strategy for a brand, regardless of whether it’s designing any component for the brand, or simply make a realistic poster, or anything, it is important to study the brand first, what the brand stands for, what is the style guide, what is the latest collection or product it has come up with. It is not just with the digital fashion brand.

This would help envisioning the type of filter users will connect with. Even with no hint, they should be able to associate the filter with the particular brand, just by taking a gander at the components and the colors.

In this case, I contemplated the brand, Tommy Hilfiger, and had done it’s SWOT analysis. Although, I love the brand, and have been following it since few years now, this helped me connecting with it more closely.

Step 2 : Create Moodboard

The subsequent stage is to delve in for what the brand is currently working on or has done recently. Perhaps they are working on something unique while following the trend. You can find it in their recent works.

In my case, it was digging in through the brand’s latest collection, which is named as ‘Mood Of The Moment’. Just the name, gave me an idea of what I want to be naming my filter and the idea of how it’ll work.

This step will surely help in catching up with the trend, and collecting the elements or mood that it’s after and you start getting more clarity on the project you’re working on.

Step 3 : Understand your Target Audience (Users)

Kamala Harris understanding her audience very carefully

Just so that you don’t lose that trade war, understanding your users is an essential part, since it would simply help make more ponders and a strong content when we picture who might be excited to interact with the filter and how they might like to go about it. All things considered, you would get a reasonable thought on what type of filter you would design, ofcourse keeping the brand in mind.

Examining the user base and the audience who follows or most has a chance to for the brand was an interesting part in understanding when deciding the filter type. Particularly when it’s about the specifics of the Tommy brand. So I asked around few people on Instagram, about their favourite filters, which one they use the most, what pops up when they hear about Tommy Hilfiger the brand, etc and thought of the common personas on who might be excited to use the brand filter.

Personas helped me with understanding, the type and the interaction of users with the AR filter.

Step 4 : Ideation / Inspiration

The time has come for you to take out your sketch sheet or a white board and a marker, where you make rough sketches, brainstorm on what elements you would pick for the filter that engages the most. Create mood boards, whether the face filter would make more sense, or the back camera filter, to promote the event.

Look for different filters which are already existing, look at what’s trending, which filters are the users interacting with the most, that they are also liking. This is actually the fun part, ideate on if it’s going to be interactive, if there would be a game or a quiz in it, how will the users like it.

The idea here is to use a face filter for promoting the show because let’s Face It (wit 💯), it drives engagement on large-scale, image-sharing communities. instagrammers tend to interact more with face filters (Study : https://news.gatech.edu/). They usually try and share if the filter is quirky and is a game infact, in the event that it makes them look adequate they begin posting it.

Ideation tip : Leave the technical part aside, just focus on the idea, some people reject the idea, after they find out how hard it is to operate the ideas on different softwares. That’s what Youtube’s for.

Step 5 : Creating concepts around it

After the ideation, rough sketches, and learning how Instagram filter works, create elements. Whether your filter idea supports 2D or 3D elements, illustrate those components for the filter you’re trying to achieve.

Here, the thought sprung up with the Hilfiger’s legitimate most rececnt Autumn — Winter collection 2020, Mood, where, due to the lockdown the major mood of the moment is staying home in a safe comfy environment. How exciting it would be, if there was a filter, to jazz up your lockdown bore, and entertain you with your mood prediction.

For Instagram filters, you’ll require, a logo (make sure if it’s not an official filter, then you can’t copy the exact brand logo and use it as your filter logo). It has to be different, which has not been used yet as Instagram filter names.
If it’s a quiz or a questionnaire type of filter, you might require a question or a card of choice that would go on top of the screen. Before it starts, you’ll get the idea on what the game is about, which will make it even more interesting and excited to try out the filter.
Design or sketch the 2D / 3D elements for the filter that will go on your filter face/ camera, foot, etc. Some of 3D assets can be found online, so you’d just have to design your idea on 3D softwares (eg, blender, 3Ds max, etc) and then later on import it on the 3D asset you’ve selected. The elements I chose here are the 2D eye frames which are a part of one of the main TH collections.
You have to also decide if there’s any font or color then what it is going to be and how is it going to look. Here, I took the dominant colors of the brand, because most of the people associate the brand Tommy, with it’s official Cetacean Blue, Crimson and White color, and the font ‘Gill Sans’ which is also the official font.

Remember the idea should be clear in your head and paper only then you’ll be able to execute it digitally.

Step 6 : Designing the filter

Now, the interesting part arrives. Now it’s time to actually design the filter on Spark AR. Spark AR Studio is an augmented reality platform for Mac & Windows that allows you to somewhat easily create AR effects for mobile cameras. Think of it like Photoshop or Sketch, but for AR.

You can create materials, textures and some 3D and 2D objects, and awesome effects in the studio.

Visualise your scene and lay out objects in 3D space, using the Viewport
Use the Simulator to preview your scene as it would appear on a mobile device.
Use the Manipulators to adjust the position, scale and rotation of objects in the Viewport.

.. There are thousands of things to know about the software. And I’m sure you’re not a theoretical person either. GO Explore the studio, create effects that transform someone’s world, it’s fun.

To understand it better you’ll find thousands of videos for filters on Youtube, if you want to know about the face tracking and workflows, you can even go to the official website of Spark AR Studio, where you’ll find every detail on how to use the software. Spark AR

Step 7: Test your Filter

This is an optional step, where you can test your filter size and designs, on ‘Spark AR filter review’ app on your mobile device, before exporting it on the Instagram. This helps to decide the size of the elements which can appear different on mobile devices.

Step 8 : Export and Publish your filter

The filter is designed, tested and modified. Congratulations, you’ve made it to the last stage! Now all you need to do is export the filter, you’d be required to fill up a form regarding all the filter details and wait for your filter to be approved by Instagram. It’ll hardly take one or two days. When it is, your friends and followers will be able to find your filter on the app.

I hope this helps you with creating your own AR filters. Now go out and make some awesome stuff !

The fun part..

Application

Conclusion

Augmented reality or AR, when we were first introduced to it, I couldn’t help but associate the word with the future, getting amped up for Google’s future AR glasses, several application’s like IKEA coming up with great experiences, and more than that, we all are in some or the other way enjoying this new reality.

HOW IT STARTED?

Starting from Snapchat, AR filter made it’s place in our lives with it’s amusing engagement and interaction, that can transform pets, hands, bodies and iconic landmarks around the world with the power of augmented reality.

HOW IT’S GOING?

In the world full of information and graphic heavy advertisements, AR filter is now used by big brands for advancement, and expanded the degree for scaled down to large organizations as it is being used by majority of population online. Presently we’re moving towards gaming filters, which is more involving than ever before.

MY TAKE AWAY ✌️

Working on an AR filter, was the first step into learning about the augmented world. I learned how unequivocally it can impact the experience of others.
Yes, as a first timer, there were few complications with the patch editing to work, for the interaction, it is still being worked on as, there are few ideas for the next update i.e to create individual filter options with back camera.
Uploading the filter online (Instagram) and contributing for an integrity brand, has given me an extraordinary certainty to be imaginative and be at power with the outside world. 🙌