Since the pandemic, and the ubiquity of QR codes for contactless menus at restaurants, the humble QR code has had a renaissance. It has quickly established itself as the easiest way to share a URL with consumers. But it's fair to say they have never been the most aesthetically pleasing images, and have consequently become a begrudgingly-accepted necessary evil in most marketing campaigns, if at all.
But there's an emerging trend towards creatively designed QR codes that contain sufficient image fidelity to fulfill their role as a web-link device, but otherwise contain more visually pleasing elements. Here are a few examples where brands and companies have taken the QR code to a next-level of design:
So it's not surprising to learn that there's now an AI for that! Several, actually. I tried two of the most prominent: https://www.qrcode1s.com/ and https://controlnet-qrcode.web.app/.
They accept either pre-produced QR Codes, or will make one from a URL. The rest, like most AI systems, is prompt-based. Tell the AI what kind of image you'd like to have incorporated into your QR code, and off it goes.
I tried QRCode1s first, with the prompt, "An English Garden". It obliged, right down to the leaf-based roundels at the corners of the code. But, as you will likely be able to tell, I could not get my camera to recognize the code. My second attempt was "An international soccer stadium". Again, solid design, but a non-functioning QR code. Third time's a charm: And my "In the style of Studio Ghibli" yielded a cute, and more importantly, WORKING QR code! I repeated the prompt to see if it was something to do with that, but again got a non-working code.
So it was a 1-out-of-4 success rate. Clearly the software has some learning to do.
Next up was Controlnet's tool. Same prompts to compare apples to apples. Controlnet's first effort against the Studio Ghibli prompt was a bit uninspiring and really had nothing recognizable about the image. But the QR code worked like a charm.
The international soccer stadium was much better and also worked. But it saved the best for last with a stunning "English garden"! All three QR codes worked, even with the very subtle blending of garden, water feature and reflections with the code components in the last version. I declare Controlnet the easy winner!
So, it is now within the reach of all of us to produce artful, themed QR codes for our campaigns and programs.