CYBRA Corporation

These bar codes may look funky. But they work. According to TPMA Outlook, a number of Japanese companies have begun putting stylized bar codes on their products. And why not? They occupy a lot of real estate on packaging – why not make them at least interesting, and possibly even integrate into the packaging message? Want to try this with your products?

Though this has been going on for years, Fast Company recently highlighted the Japanese supplier of this packaging art, D-barcode, and some of their galleries.

They charge $4,000 for exclusive license to one of their designs, but according to package designer  Yael Miller, a contributor to the DieLine package design website, you don't need to spend thousands  for a unique design that you can use for your products.

Miller, who  has worked with a designer I know for 25 years, Mark Weisz, created these fun bar codes for a kosher gelatin company.

If you'd like to try this for your product, just follow these guidelines:

1. Don't change the magnification level or the wide to narrow ratio of the bars and spaces in the UPC bar code.
2. Be sure to leave at least a quarter inch of bar height so the scanner can easily see the bar code -- even if it is now part of your masterpiece.
3. You'll still need to keep the quiet zones (white spaces on either side of the code) so the scanner can do its thing.
4. Leave the human readable information ( the text ) in its regular location so the supermarket clerk can key in the code if the register scanner malfunctions.
5. Work in high resolution -- 300 dpi minimum.
6. If you want to use this modified bar code with MarkMagic, you'll need to load and convert it as a graphic. I recommend you use one of our high resolution drivers.
7. Click here to learn how to use the MarkMagic variable graphics capability to print product labels that will use your new designed bar codes.

Here's an offer you can't refuse. If you design a "stylized" bar code and want to know if it will scan, send it to me as a jpg or pdf and I'll test it for you. If you'd like to create a library of these designs, drop us a line and and we'll show you how to load and convert images in batches into MarkMagic.