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How to put your logo in a QR code
- Rabidgremlin 15y agoI created an Android app that let's you create customized QR codes like this on your phone. Check out https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rabidgremlin.android.mecodelite https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rabidgremlin.andro...
- w001 15y agoAwesome app. Can I get in contact with you - i'd really like to talk about what you are doing with QR codes in more detail. If you get a moment - please drop me an email: wphipps78@gmail.com
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tawm 15y agoThe BBC did that YEARS ago.
- pornel 15y agoI wonder how feasible would be to compute/brute-force QR code that actually has the data looking like a picture, not merely picture overlaid on the code.
- evilduck 15y agoSince there's built in error correction, it's easier to just manipulate the pixels to look like what you want and eat into the error correction. Most uses of QR codes don't need 30% ECC, you could generate it with 30% and consume 15% of it, thus injecting your design and still retaining error correction.
- billpg 15y agoI Imagine it could be done if you don't mind having a URL that looks like http://example.com/?x=ug893hig8*g http://example.com/?x=ug893hig8*g
- cpeterso 15y agoYour example URL looks like a typical short URL. Sounds like an opportunity for a service that provides custom QR codes with a short URL redirect to your real URL.
- billpg 15y agoI tried doing a similar thing for a fairly short URL. I had to add some padding on the end ("?SourceID=QR") in order to make the QR big enough to fit my changes in. Does the QR standard allow for arbitarily high levels of error correction? (More than the "H" level.)
- evilduck 15y agoNo, see here: http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrstandard-e.html http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrstandard-e.html (Denso-Wave created the QR code)
- ColinWright 15y agoAn interesting counter-point here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800022 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800022 This was my reasoning not to do this when I put a QR code on my business card - too much risk of it becoming unreadable as the card got damaged/degraded over time.
- rimantas 15y agoThat comment is a bit harsh. You don't have to use the same QR image everywhere and can choose where it makes sense to have one with logo and where it does not.
- ColinWright 15y agoAgreed, but recognizing that the context matters is important. The comment (which wasn't mine - btw) was a bit harsh, but it did put clearly into words one half of what I was thinking at the time. As is so often the case, cool is not always the best option, and context matters more than we'd like, and more than some people realize.
- joshuamerrill 15y agoAgreed. We've been doing this with our MogoTix QR codes for some time. It's a branding opportunity, as well as a small indicator that someone's ticket is genuine.
- stephth 15y agoAre you sure that comment applies here though? The QR codes it referred to and these are like night and day.
- viscanti 15y agoThe QR Codes have built in levels of error correction, anywhere from 10% to 30%.
- masklinn 15y agoWhich is exactly the feature he's abusing here: he's introducing error in the form of non-QRCode data in the middle of his QRCode, which eats away (significantly) at the error correction in order to look pretty.
- joshuamerrill 15y ago"Abuse" is a relative term. Denso may not have introduced error correction for the use case of inserting aesthetic elements into the barcode, but hey, it works. MogoTix inserts its logo into QR codes as a form of branding and identification, and we have not encountered any error correction issues whatsoever.
- masklinn 15y ago> "Abuse" is a relative term. No, it's not. > Denso may not have introduced error correction for the use case of inserting aesthetic elements into the barcode, but hey, it works. Error correction was introduced because the physical media degrades and even in the best case capture is not ideal. Therefore error correction is a requirement to correctly round-trip digital information printed on an analog media. By abusing error correction mechanisms for cutesy purposes you increase the chances of complete digitalization failure significantly, sometimes (if you use all available error correction) to the point where the tag can only be scanned under absolutely perfect conditions.
- joshuamerrill 15y agoYou seem to be making the argument that because full use of error correction can sometimes make a QR code unreadable, no non-QR code data should ever be inserted into a QR code. Seems like a sweeping generalization, that's all.
- paulschreiber 15y agoYou can do this with datamatrix codes as well. Semacode has been doing this for years: http://semacode.com/ http://semacode.com/
- dagw 15y agoI just tried to read those QR codes off my screen and my phone refused to recognize the IBM and Firefox ones. The hackaday ones however where no problem
- ronnier 15y agoWhat's with the QR obsession? A new post about QR codes on HN every few days.
- Peroni 15y agohttp://blog.queaar.com/post/8811809234/infographics-the-rise-of-qr-codes http://blog.queaar.com/post/8811809234/infographics-the-rise...
- sequoia 15y agoIt's worth noting that besides "11 out of 50 Fortune 50 companies" there are no raw numbers here, just percentages. "Increased 4549%" Increased from what? To what? This doesn't demonstrate that QR codes are popular, just that they're more popular than they used to be.
- ja2ke 15y agoI hope they followed this up with a QR code which decodes to a treatise on the rise of infographics.
- evilduck 15y agoShameless plug, but I coded up http://www.crimesagainstcode.com http://www.crimesagainstcode.com a little while back as a learning exercise that lets you manipulate QR code pixels like this. No logo image injection but you can "draw" whatever you want As long as you keep it within the error correction you can do whatever you want. (it's admittedly not very robust, I have a lot more ideas for it, but my time is scarce and my site metrics haven't really shown there's enough interest to put a bunch of time into it -- feedback is welcome though).
- csomar 15y agoDo you have Github for this project? I'm interested in building my own QrCode encoder in JavaScript, what resources do you recommend to get me started?
- evilduck 15y agoThe entire site is up at https://github.com/mattsgarrison/CrimesAgainstCode https://github.com/mattsgarrison/CrimesAgainstCode The RQRCode gem does all of the QR Code generation magic. I manipulate all the code with some CoffeeScript and jQuery. RQRCode itself is a port of a JavaScript library: http://www.d-project.com/qrcode/ http://www.d-project.com/qrcode/ I've written some stuff locally that'll render the QR Code into canvas and provide a download link using a dataURI but it's fundamentally different than the table/css manipulations I'm doing right now...and well, I have an infant at home, so the site's being neglected ;) PM me on github if you want that chunk.
- evanw 15y agoI received an image from a co-worker recently which demonstrated the redundancy powers of QR codes: http://i.min.us/ij9Yjs.png http://i.min.us/ij9Yjs.png (Try scanning it)
- sequoia 15y agoCan someone explain the error correction a bit more? How exactly is it that you're blanking out 1/3 of the code and it still works? Does it matter which bits you disrupt? Couldn't your design, if comprised black and white squares, inadvertently BE readable QR data that screws up your message?
- fla 15y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Solomon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Solomon
- darklajid 15y agoSomewhat off-topic, but this reminds me of those 'why math is gibberish to laymen' posts a couple of weeks ago. I know my math background sucks _and_ I'm stuck with the German version (i.e. the field suffers much more from being localized than CS. There are lunatics that try to create German words for everything from motherboard to stack - but I think we locked all of them up by now). This article is unreadable without clicking on every other link in there and starting from scratch for me. Embarrassing.
- CraigRood 15y agoQR codes is another one of those developer/designer driven fads (IMHO). I'm not aware of any stock camera application that does QR detection. This combined with the time it takes to open the application and scan it, seems more convenient to place a well thought out url instead. That's not to say it can't be the future. But having bad QR experiences now is not going to help QR codes grow.
- kerryfalk 15y agoThe other day I saw a QR code on the back of a bus. I'm not kidding. This is in a small Canadian city that is not very tech-savvy. I am willing to wager that the vast majority of people don't even know what it is. Why it was placed on a bus I simply don't understand. Maybe the joke is on me and I'm the only one who isn't getting this?
- blahedo 15y agoI can still remember how excited I was when URLs first started appearing in IRL locations (billboards, magazines, etc), around 1996 or 97. At the time, of course, a lot of the people seeing them had no idea what they were....
- alexk7 15y agoAt that time, I kept a physical log of all URLs I saw (by hands, even very long ones!), just in case I needed to visit the web site. I still have it but the addresses are no longer valid. :)
- nknight 15y agoI've seen them in various places in the US, and I just got done spending about 8 of the last 12 months in Taiwan. QR codes were bloody well everywhere.
- shard 15y agoQR codes are EVERYWHERE in Korea. It's on just about every outdoor ad, in the subways, on buses, fliers, newspaper/magazine ads, often with colorful designs integrated into it. I went to a photography exhibit this week, and even the artist tag next to every photo had a QR code on it. Compared with launching your browser and typing in the URL, launching the QR scanner and snapping a picture is much easier.
- trotsky 15y agoSince it's relying on the error correction to interpret those bits as smudged / etc. - couldn't you just slap your hi res 4 color logo down on top of the center of the code and get the same effect except without the pixelation?
- shard 15y agoYes. I think the pixelation was his attempt to make the logo blend into the QR code as one design. There are lots of QR codes out there which has no
- radley 15y agoWe did small 2x2 flyers to promote our Android music player at GoogleIO and SF MusicHackDay. On the back we had a QR code with our URL on each side and our logo in the middle: http://cloudtv.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/promoflyers.png http://cloudtv.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/promoflyers.png
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- stephth 15y agoIs there any iPhone code scanner that shows the result in an overlay on the camera feed, instead of screen jumping the second it detects something? The latter behavior is obnoxious when playing with QR codes.
- alanh 15y agoVery cool. Had definitely been wondering about how possible this was or wasn’t, but too lazy/busy to read up on the standard and give it a go. My hat is off to everyone involved in these bits ’o trickery!
- DeanCollinsLCC 15y ago1/ Stop trying to make QR codes look pretty http://blog.collins.net.pr/2011/04/stop-trying-to-make-qr-codes-look.html http://blog.collins.net.pr/2011/04/stop-trying-to-make-qr-co... 2/ If you must do QR code "enhancement" please use Overlay and not embedding. Overlay positions the QR code "within" a logo and builds a surrounding design. Want to see some examples of what that means - check out www.Cognation.net/QR particularly the IronMan2 example from Warbasse design.
- ams6110 15y agoBy abusing the error-correcting encoding, you are now relying on your QR code being perfectly rendered and scanned in order to work. You've removed most or all of the error-correcting safety margins.