Designing QR Codes to Maintain Aesthetic Objectives
Warbasse Design creates designer QR Codes for the Motion Picture Industry.
by Beth Silverstein
June 30, 2009 - Los Angeles, CA -- Santa Monica based creative agency Warbasse Design combines design and technology to provide unique marketing solutions for a mobile audience. Their latest creation is a protocol for developing Designer QR Codes. These codes are branded and morphed from the original code in ways that allow them to still function correctly while maintaining aesthetic standards established through brand identity. "Designer QR Codes allow us to provide the client with a tag that can be more closely associated with the brand’s image," said Philip Warbasse - Warbasse Design.
Warbasse Design creates designer QR codes for placement on movie posters commonly referred to in the industry as "one sheets". These one sheets, printed with two-dimensional bar codes, give potential movie goers the ability to access and view movie trailers on their cellphones and other handheld devices.
Right - Focus Feature's® 9
movie posters printed with QR codes enable
iphone® users with the ability to view the
movie's trailer, look-up showtimes, buy tickets
and merchandise
If you have ever seen a QR Code, you may or may not view the little squares that make up these codes and other 2D barcodes as art. Philip Warbasse does. He even has a QR code matted and framed on his living room wall at home.
Recently Warbasse Design pitched QR-to-movie trailer concepts to several movie studios. "While the technical feedback was great, many of the executives made the same statements during our meetings - these barcodes are ugly", said Warbasse. The digital marketing team at Focus Features said the same thing before finally settling for the traditional QR code on their digital one sheets for "9" the movie.
Warbasse assembled a team of designers to create a QR code that would be more aesthetically pleasing, yet fully functional. The challenge was to test different design strategies that alter the original QR Codes without impending on their utility and then to create a protocol for use in creating future Designer QR Codes.
Warbasse Design has developed a 4 step approach to creating designer QR codes that increase the visual impact without compromising the utility of the code. Factors that matter most when converting 2D barcodes to vector, and then raster art are:
- Actual size of code. We suggest no smaller than 2X2 inches,
- Encryption should be set to M (allows 15% of a QR code to be restored), or Q (allows 25% of a QR code to be restored),
- At least one orientation "eye" must be free from overlays or branding,
- When using colors, contrast must be set high enough to maintain brightness levels close to black and white.
From this experience, Warbasse Design recognizes that it is important not only to push the limits related to the utility of 2D barcodes, but to address the limits of the codes in their entirety, including the way they look.
About the Movie
When 9 (The Lord of the Ring's Elijah Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they'll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them. >>> credits
About Warbasse Design
Since inception, the goal has remained unchanged - to help clients become better known and better understood. Warbasse design is known for its research methods as much as its award-winning design and it has a track record of providing clients internet technology that is consistently ahead of its time. Warbasse Design began streaming audio in 1997, was creating "web 2.0" strategies by 2003 and sold a minority interest in its Pc-to-phone company ClickCall(TM) in 2005, long before the acronym VOIP was commonplace. Located in 5 U.S. markets and representing one of the largest networks of designers and developers in the United States, Warbasse Design is growing at the speed of the internet.
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