There have been no shortage of lamentations about The Death of Print at the hand of digital media but it’s not dead yet, right? In fact, I’ve heard whispers in dark corridors about a new relationship between analog and digital- a symbiotic relationship where the two compliment rather than compete. Which brings me back to QR codes…
QR codes are a bar code technology that allow print media to link cell phone users directly to the web. The example above is a code for “printeresting.org.” Any number of QR generators are available online- you type in your information and the code generator translates it into code. You put that QR code on your poster or magazine or postcard and anyone with a phone can scan the code and walk away with information. You can commonly find QR codes on UPS shipping labels- they’re used extensively to track packages. And perhaps not surprisingly, they’re also being used a lot for advertising. Here’s a “designer” QR code by Takeshi Murakami for Louis Vitton…
Shapeways is a pretty amazing 3D printing company that we’ve talked about before. One component of their site is dedicated to stamp making: Shapeways Stampmaker. QR codes can be easily configured into stamps. Here’s an example of someone merging simple printing methods with QR code to yield high tech results. The real world and the virtual world just got closer.
Read more here and a less positive take on the technology here.
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[...] prints feature a QR Code image in IKEA’s trademark blue and yellow. When scanned by a mobile device, the code takes the [...]