Most unscannable codes we get sent are not “too designed”. They are three reasonable ideas stacked until the camera has nothing solid to lock onto. A rounded dot style, a centre logo, and a soft brand grey, each of which would have been fine alone. The fix is usually to put one of them back.
Contrast first, brand colour second
Modules want to be dark. The background wants to be light and flat. Black on white is the boring option because it prints. A deep brand navy on white, or black on a pale tint, is usually fine. Pale gold on cream is a mood board, not a code.
A few combinations fail for boring physical reasons:
- Red modules. Phone cameras often cope. Some laser and red-LED scanners do not, because the illumination and the ink are the same colour and the modules disappear. If a warehouse gun or a retail scanner might read this, print it black.
- Inverted codes (light modules on a dark field). Modern phone cameras usually manage. Older Android builds and a lot of industrial scanners do not. For a poster the audience will scan with a phone, inversion is a style choice you should still proof. For packaging that might be scanned by anything else, do not invert.
- Gradients across the grid. The decoder wants a consistent threshold. A gradient that passes through the modules makes half the symbol a maybe. Put the gradient in the campaign artwork around the code.
- Photos behind the modules. Same problem, with added compression noise. A flat panel behind the symbol is not a creative failure.
On press, ask for the modules in a solid dark ink. A rich black built from CMYK can bleed and grey out. A pure black (K only) stays crisper on small modules. If brand colour is non-negotiable, pull a printed sample before the run, not a PDF on a calibrated screen. Screens are kinder than kraft paper.
Leave the quiet zone alone
Four modules of empty margin, all the way round. The ISO spec is dull about this because cameras use that margin to find the symbol. A keyline that touches the code, a pattern that runs into the corner squares, or a tight mask in the layout file all eat it.
If you want a frame, put the frame outside the margin. If the generator margin is already doing that job, do not crop the SVG to the modules when you place it. This is the single most common “it worked on my screen” bug, and it has nothing to do with colour.
Error correction is a budget, not a badge
QR codes repeat data so a damaged symbol can still decode. You pick how much redundancy you want to pay for.
| Level | Rough recovery | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| L | about 7% | A large, clean print and a short code. Rarely worth the risk on marketing material |
| M | about 15% | The default. Menus, posters, cards, screens |
| Q | about 25% | Packaging that scuffs, outdoor pieces, mild logos |
| H | about 30% | A centre logo, or print that will get scratched and folded |
Higher correction does not make a code magically tougher at the same size. It adds modules. The squares get smaller unless you give the symbol more paper. Pair H with a logo and a business-card width and you have spent the budget twice. The size guide has the module maths if you want to check a layout before it goes to proof.
Logos: small, centred, and not on the corners
The three big squares in the corners are finder patterns. They are how a camera decides it is looking at a QR code at all. Do not cover them, do not redraw them as your monogram, do not run a wordmark across them. A centre logo sits in the data area, where error correction can fill in the hole.
Keep the logo modest. Give it a small pad of the background colour so modules do not crash into the artwork. Then scan it. “Up to 30%” gets repeated in tool marketing because level H can recover about 30% of the codewords. A logo is not uniform damage, and recovery assumes the rest of the symbol is clean. A 30% logo plus rounded dots plus a window reflection is how that statistic lets people down.
If the only reason for the logo is “so they know it’s us”, the words next to the code already do that. A caption is free, in error-correction terms.
Dot style, then logo, then colour, then a smaller size. The version that fails tells you which idea to drop. Changing all four and then debating the font does not.
Dot styles are allowed to look nice
Rounded modules, dots, and the various “classy” corner treatments all scan on a current phone when the code is a decent size and the contrast is real. They reduce the amount of ink in each cell, so they have less margin when the print is small or soft.
Use them on a poster, a slide, a menu you control. Be more conservative on a 20 mm mark, on fabric, or anywhere the printer has a habit of gaining ink. Square modules are not a lack of taste. They are the shape the spec was drawn around.
Corners matter more than the interior dots. If you restyle anything, keep the finder squares recognisable: dark, square-ish, high contrast. A circular finder can work on a large screen and fail in a pocket photo of a flyer.
Export like you mean to print it
- SVG for print and for any layout that might be resized. It stays sharp. Send this to the designer.
- PNG when a platform refuses SVG. Build it at the physical size, not at the preview size. A 400 px export stretched to 12 cm on a poster will look furry and scan worse than it looks.
- JPEG only when something in the chain demands it. Compression fuzzes module edges. Quality high, or don’t.
Do not place the code over a transparency in print unless you have checked the RIP. A transparent background that becomes “white” on screen can become “no ink” on a coloured stock, which means your modules are sitting on a photograph. Flatten onto the real background colour before you export if you are unsure.
Designer questions
Can a QR code be a brand colour instead of black?
Yes, when the modules stay clearly darker than the field behind them. Pull a press proof. Skip light tints, and skip red if anything other than a phone camera might scan it.
What error correction level should I use?
M, unless you are covering the centre or the object will get beaten up. Q and H buy recovery by making the grid finer, so increase the print size when you step up.
How big can a centre logo be?
Big enough to recognise, small enough that you can still see a frame of modules around it, and nowhere near the corner finders. Test the combination you will actually print. The theoretical recovery percentage is not a layout grid.
Should the code match the poster’s round corners?
Round the dots if you like. Keep the three finders obvious, keep the margin, and do not mask the whole symbol into a circle that clips the corners. Those corners are the machine-readable part of the brand.
If the code is going into a campaign rather than a brand board, the words next to it matter as much as the dots. That sits in the marketing guide.
Style it, then try to break it.
Set the colours, the modules, the margin, and an optional logo. Export SVG once a phone that is not yours can scan the proof.
Create your QR code