You may have noticed 2D barcoding invading its way into your magazines, books, club flyers, billboards, and product packaging. It’s a barcode that holds 2,000 bytes of data that can be scanned by a smartphone. This can lead you to a website, a video, to add a phone contact, or load an image. So what does this have to do with logos? I’ll explain…
Started in 1994 by Denso Corp., a subsidiary of Toyota, it is widely used in Japan. Like many new technologies what starts over there spreads like wildfires to the western culture.
Their futurist-looking, usually black, or very dark colored, block image gets some attention, but for designers it’s a challenging element to implement into designs. But if done properly could this bring your logo to a new level? Your logo is on everything. All of your internal sales documents; Your external advertising material, and just about everything else associated with your company. What if your logo could do more than just stand for the brand? What if it could interact with viewers? What about a logo that scans to a video about your company, or a logo that could be scanned to bring you right to the purchase page for your flagship product, or a logo that can be customized to each employee’s information.
Nielsen reported 31% of cell phones were smartphones at the start of 2011 which is a 72.1% increase from the last year. The IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker reports total smartphone sales for 2010 as 302.6 million, up around 74% on 2009. Morgan Stanley Research estimated sales of smartphones will exceed those of PCs in 2012.
So Could this Clever Logo Trick be Part of Your Next Project?
Only time will tell if the masses will accept this bold interactive symbol or if it will fall down next to the 8 track, laser disks, and the DeLorian. I for one think it’s an interesting concept to ponder. I could foresee a similar technology breaking as much ground as the introduction of modern printing press to your logo designs.
Scan our above logo with your smartphone camera
March 11, 2022
