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Filed under: Tip of the Day
 You may have already seen them popping up on everything from your bank statements and magazines to T-shirts and even concert tickets, those black-and-white checkered squares that seem to serve some kind of purpose given their prominence, though you’re not really sure what that might be.
Well, those little bite-sized (or byte-sized?) squares are actually data codes, or more specifically QR Codes (the “QR” in the case standing for “quick response”), that allow you to find out a lot more about the product or service it’s representing. Just how they work can best be explained by Erich Campbell in one of our “Ask The Expert” submissions in the 2011 June issue of Stitches magazine:
Q: I keep seeing these black-and-white square codes on ads. I know you scan them with a smartphone and they link to a website. My customers take sample snapshots and send us art from their phones, so I know I have an audience if I can just figure them out! What can they do, how can I make them, and what mistakes should I avoid if I want to use these codes?
A: First, those squares are called QR (quick response) codes. Though just gaining traction in the U.S., they were invented by Japanese company Denso Wave in 1994 and have been a staple of advertising there for years. You’ve already discovered how they work: Customers install an app on their smartphone and use the phone’s camera to scan them. QR codes are usually linked to websites, but they also can be used to add contacts to a phone’s address book, get directions, automatically dial a number, send a text message or send an e-mail.
Read more of Erich’s Q&A on QR Codes, and if you’re wondering if this is a trend or a fad, in my humble opinion QR codes are not only here to stay, but they just might be the wave of the future!
–QuickResponseVin
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