Most Popular Sources For QR Code Smartphone Scans

With the exponential growth and usage of QR Codes and other 2D bar codes, you will  find yourself trying to find creative ways to incorporate QR Codes into your graphic designs.  But the burning question is where are QR Codes most popular?  According to recently released Comscore data “over 14.2 million smartphone users scanned a QR or 2D bar code, reaching 14.5 percent of the smartphone audience in EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK)) during the three month average ending in March 2012.

More than half  (50.9%) of the smartphone audience that scanned a QR code did so from a printed magazine or newspaper.  Over 38.0 percent of the smartphone audience scanned a QR or 2D barcode that was printed on product packaging, making it the second most popular choice.

Check out the bar chart below to see how those numbers shook out.

Design Social Media Icons Into Your Music or Band Business Card

There are social networks specifically set up for the music and band industry that can be added to a business card that reflects where your fans and/or customers can find your music or  music videos.  In this case, we have included social media icons for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Last Fm, Flickr and Youtube.  These are the social networks that are most likely used or are often used by bands or members of the music industry.  However, one can include any social media icons that they want.  The rule of thumb is to include only those that best reflect how you promote your business.

QR Codes can be incorporated as well, so that less text can obstruct the visuals included on the business card and yet your fans can have all the access to your contact information that they need.  In this concept card design, ( a preliminary proof) for a client, I have tried to include all of these graphic elements.  The QR Code is one of mine and I’ll be tweaking  the design in order to make sure the QR Code functions.

In any case, hope you find my latest design inspiring.

Related Post:

Business Card Design for Media Business With Social Media Icons

 

Designer QR Codes: 5 Tips to Customize Your QR Code to Promote Your Brand

Designer QR Codes are a hot, new design trend and with good reason since they improve engagement for your ad, marketing collateral or website with their creative color, design and concept. To be sure, it’s a definite improvement over the often cold black and white, slightly geeky 2D barcode where it might serve its purpose for inventory but is not as attractive  or engaging in marketing or print collateral.

Popularized in Japan, where it was created by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 for inventory purposes, the QR ( Quick Response) code is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes.

Free Online QR Code Generator for Print Media Designs

There are many free QR Code generators online, offered by a variety of 2D barcode software vendors, but few offer functionality that enables a graphic designer to generate a QR code and make it readily available to be used on Photoshop or other graphic editing programs. This is important when designing or incorporating QR codes for print collateral or other small business marketing material

Multi-use QR Code Generator Website

Kerem Erkan’s online generator form does and it offers a whole slew of options.

With this handy online tool, you can generate a QR Code for all the following functions:

QR Code Generator and Design Software for Graphic Designers

2D Barcodes

If you are a fan of tech sites like Techcrunch, etc, or have worked with large design companies, you will probably already know that QR codes are taking the tech and design world by storm. The push for the use of the QR code is being driven by a new opportunity that is being referred to as context sensitive marketing. For further information and details, you might want to read the article, “Why the Best Online Marketing May Be Headed Offline” which goes into extensive detail as to how QR codes can be used for a business owner’s product’s marketing.

In a previous post, I wrote about how you can incorporate QR designs into your business card design, as I have seen more and more print collateral provided with QR codes that led either to a  business’ website or to a special online promotion.  Another popular use for QR codes is to connect a user to  the App Store via their Android smartphone or Iphone for the promotion and sale of web developer’s apps.  While there are several websites offering this service, my problem was finding good QR code generator software that integrates with the Adobe design software that most designers use.

Animator Uses QR Codes in Cartoon to Promote His Animations

QR Code Animation on Goanimate Website

I am always amazed at the creative uses that are becoming available with interactive media tools.  This animator has combined an animation and included QR codes (of his other popular animations of course, I tested the codes with my mobile phone barcode scanner app)  to promote his brand on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Business Card Design With QR Code

In a previous post Design Your New Business Card With Social Media Icons, I have been discussing the importance of including social media icons on your business cards.  In addition, there is a greater interest in using QR codes in business card design so that people who receive your business card can just scan the bar code with the bar code software app on their phone and either follow the link to your website or upload your contact information into their phone’s contact software.  I have not seen too many requests yet, but we will see what the future holds as more and more business owners become familiar with scanning software.

Just a note, the above design has a real QR code in case you were wondering and it is purely functional ( I tried it with my android phone) , it will lead you to Google’s api scanner article!

(Author’s Note:   Since writing this article, QR codes are becoming wildly popular, so I have included started researching resources for editable QR code generators services, so far the site that seems to be a reputable company with plenty of QR code services is QR Stuff.com which allows you to generate high resolution artwork files for a nominal cost.)

Design Your New Business Card With Social Media Icons

Business Card Design with Social Media Icons

With the use of Twitter, Linked In, Facebook  and other social media applications on the rise, small business owners are beginning to reconsider the traditional business card design and opting for designs that include their social media links.  Some techie oriented entrepreneurs are even foregoing hardcopy cardstock business cards altogether in favor of virtual business cards.  Regardless of what you decide to choose it is advisable to include your social media links in your business card design especially if it is the way you market your business.

Even if you opt for the virtual card design, it still might be a good idea to have a basic hardcopy version of your business card and consider including social media links in your business card or you can choose to have both.