Vanity Barcodes

Artists are transforming the ugly duckling of the scanning world, the rectangular barcode, into elegant swan of a vanity barcode. The new barcodes work the same as the old ones, just with graphic embellishments, such as making the black and white lines into skyscrapers, vehicles, or any such thing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new, fancier barcodes are supposed to 'better connect with customers.'

Uh-huh.

Product packaging is indeed an art as much as a science, but can you name anyone who would buy a product based on the look of a barcode? OK, so there's probably one.

The new vanity barcodes are *not* like the new, square QR Codes that you use with your smartphone to grab a coupon, land on a web page, or otherwise send you to some marketing deal. Nope. Vanity barcodes are for looks only.

The real danger is that the vanity versions with the graphical do-hickies don't scan properly. Good luck on convincing retailers to imperil their inventory control. Maybe skipping barcode redesigns and going directly with radio frequency tags would be a better idea.

See the June 13, 2011 entry, Barcodes Squared for a look at Quick Response Code use.