Axel Springer
Discovering Our Euro Heros
The project, titled Heimspiele - Discovering Our Euro Heros, was initiated as part of Axel Springer’s global partnership with Snap Inc. and brought together journalists, designers, software engineers, and platform stakeholders to explore the boundaries of interactive storytelling.
From the beginning, the brief was clear: we weren’t just building a lens or a video series. We were building a multi-layered, mobile-first storytelling experience where editorial depth met platform-native interactivity.
Design Challenge
Our challenge was to translate rich journalistic content produced by journalists who traveled across Germany interviewing coaches, friends, and mentors of EURO players, into an engaging format that felt intuitive and entertaining to Snapchat’s highly visual, fast-scrolling, Gen Z user base.
Objectives
• Engage Gen Z with sports journalism
• Build excitement ahead of UEFA EURO 2024
• Extend journalistic storytelling through AR
• Establish a reusable AR storytelling framework
The Core Concept
Together with the design and dev team, I ideated and refined the core lens mechanic: a virtual BILD-branded “Torwand” (goal wall) that allowed users to take penalty shots to answer quiz questions about the players featured in each episode. The interaction was light-hearted and gamified, but always grounded in real content. Answering correctly would unlock additional player trivia and, in the final step, allow users to place their own face onto a collectible digital football card, a playful nod to BILD's NFT-style collectibles and a shareable reward that encouraged social spread.
To align the interdisciplinary team including journalists, AR developers, product leads, and editors around a shared vision early on, I facilitated a low-fidelity paper prototyping session. This hands-on workshop allowed individuals with varying levels of technical experience to map out the user journey, test interaction flows, and visualize key touchpoints before diving into production. It proved essential for building collective ownership of the concept and ensuring cross-functional clarity from the start.
Technical Execution & Collaboration
Building this experience required navigating both creative and technical complexity. The Lens Studio environment came with its own constraints, particularly around asset performance, facial tracking accuracy, and interaction logic. I worked hands-on with 3D modelers and developers to optimize every element, ensuring our digital assets loaded fast, felt responsive, and matched the visual polish expected from both Snap and Axel Springer. I also contributed to designing the UI overlays that framed the lens interactions—ensuring they remained on-brand and non-intrusive while clearly guiding the user.
Stakeholder Engagement & Alignment
Crucially, I was also involved in pitching the product direction to senior stakeholders at both Snap Inc. and Axel Springer. These sessions were essential not just for aligning on technical feasibility, but also for ensuring the editorial value was maintained across formats. We had to justify every interaction and design decision, not just from a usability standpoint, but from a journalistic integrity lens as well. Working with executives from Snap’s European content team and Springer’s C-level gave me a unique perspective on how immersive product development is guided by both storytelling values and platform metrics.
Launch & Impact
Heimspiele launched on June 13, 2024, through the official BILD Fußball and Stammplatz Snapchat channels, just ahead of the UEFA EURO 2024 kickoff. The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive. Within the first three weeks alone, the six-part video series was viewed by over 70,000 unique users, while the accompanying AR Lenses accumulated more than 251,459 total views across both Snapchat channels.
Not only did we succeed in generating early tournament excitement, but we also introduced a new benchmark for how journalistic storytelling and AR can intersect meaningfully on native social platforms. The combination of editorial depth, interactive playfulness, and shareable content proved highly effective in engaging Gen Z audiences and the project now serves as a blueprint for future AR-journalism initiatives across Axel Springer and Snap’s collaboration pipeline.
Axel Springer
Discovering Our Euro Heros
The project, titled Heimspiele - Discovering Our Euro Heros, was initiated as part of Axel Springer’s global partnership with Snap Inc. and brought together journalists, designers, software engineers, and platform stakeholders to explore the boundaries of interactive storytelling.
From the beginning, the brief was clear: we weren’t just building a lens or a video series. We were building a multi-layered, mobile-first storytelling experience where editorial depth met platform-native interactivity.
Design Challenge
Our challenge was to translate rich journalistic content produced by journalists who traveled across Germany interviewing coaches, friends, and mentors of EURO players, into an engaging format that felt intuitive and entertaining to Snapchat’s highly visual, fast-scrolling, Gen Z user base.
Objectives
• Engage Gen Z with sports journalism
• Build excitement ahead of UEFA EURO 2024
• Extend journalistic storytelling through AR
• Establish a reusable AR storytelling framework
The Core Concept
Together with the design and dev team, I ideated and refined the core lens mechanic: a virtual BILD-branded “Torwand” (goal wall) that allowed users to take penalty shots to answer quiz questions about the players featured in each episode. The interaction was light-hearted and gamified, but always grounded in real content. Answering correctly would unlock additional player trivia and, in the final step, allow users to place their own face onto a collectible digital football card, a playful nod to BILD's NFT-style collectibles and a shareable reward that encouraged social spread.
To align the interdisciplinary team including journalists, AR developers, product leads, and editors around a shared vision early on, I facilitated a low-fidelity paper prototyping session. This hands-on workshop allowed individuals with varying levels of technical experience to map out the user journey, test interaction flows, and visualize key touchpoints before diving into production. It proved essential for building collective ownership of the concept and ensuring cross-functional clarity from the start.
Technical Execution & Collaboration
Building this experience required navigating both creative and technical complexity. The Lens Studio environment came with its own constraints, particularly around asset performance, facial tracking accuracy, and interaction logic. I worked hands-on with 3D modelers and developers to optimize every element, ensuring our digital assets loaded fast, felt responsive, and matched the visual polish expected from both Snap and Axel Springer. I also contributed to designing the UI overlays that framed the lens interactions—ensuring they remained on-brand and non-intrusive while clearly guiding the user.
Stakeholder Engagement & Alignment
Crucially, I was also involved in pitching the product direction to senior stakeholders at both Snap Inc. and Axel Springer. These sessions were essential not just for aligning on technical feasibility, but also for ensuring the editorial value was maintained across formats. We had to justify every interaction and design decision, not just from a usability standpoint, but from a journalistic integrity lens as well. Working with executives from Snap’s European content team and Springer’s C-level gave me a unique perspective on how immersive product development is guided by both storytelling values and platform metrics.
Launch & Impact
Heimspiele launched on June 13, 2024, through the official BILD Fußball and Stammplatz Snapchat channels, just ahead of the UEFA EURO 2024 kickoff. The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive. Within the first three weeks alone, the six-part video series was viewed by over 70,000 unique users, while the accompanying AR Lenses accumulated more than 251,459 total views across both Snapchat channels.
Not only did we succeed in generating early tournament excitement, but we also introduced a new benchmark for how journalistic storytelling and AR can intersect meaningfully on native social platforms. The combination of editorial depth, interactive playfulness, and shareable content proved highly effective in engaging Gen Z audiences and the project now serves as a blueprint for future AR-journalism initiatives across Axel Springer and Snap’s collaboration pipeline.
© Selected Works / Fynn Langnau
Your brand deserves the best. Let me help you achieve it with a human-centered mindset.
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© Selected Works / Fynn Langnau
Your brand deserves the best. Let me help you achieve it with a human-centered mindset.
Available for work
Let's Work Together.
© Selected Works / Fynn Langnau
Your brand deserves the best. Let me help you achieve it with a human-centered mindset.
Available for work
Let's Work Together.