How to brand a QR code without breaking it.

What a scanner needs from your design.

A phone does four things to read a QR code. It finds the three large squares in the corners, called finder patterns or eyes. It separates dark modules from light ones by brightness. It reads the grid inside a clear margin. And it repairs the modules it could not read, using the error correction built into the code. Branding is safe as long as each of those four steps still works.

That gives you a test for any change. Does it hide the eyes, shrink the brightness difference, crowd the margin or damage more modules than the correction can repair? If the answer to any is yes, do not do it.

What you can change, and what each change risks.

On the logo: 18% of the width is 0.18 squared, about 3% of the code's area, and 20% is 4%. At level H a scanner can repair about 30% of the code, so there is headroom. Do not spend all of it on a logo, because scuffs, glare and ink spread need the same margin. The figures are a working limit, not a guarantee. The size guide explains the quiet zone and error correction levels.

Use a contrast rule, then measure it.

A rule of thumb works well: keep the dark modules at least 4 to 1 against the light ground, using the contrast ratio formula from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. This is a working rule, not part of the QR standard. The web guidelines ask 4.5 to 1 for text, so 4 to 1 is deliberately close to that. Darker is always safer.

If your brand colour fails, do not lighten the ground. Use a deeper shade of the same hue for the code. Then convert your proof to greyscale. If the eyes and modules become hard to tell from the ground, a scanner will struggle too. Print lowers contrast further, since ink spreads and paper is not pure white, so a colour that only just clears 4 to 1 on screen has no margin left.

Work in this order.

1. 01
   Step 1.

   Pick the address first. Decide where the code should lead, and be sure that page will exist for as long as the print does.

2. 02
   Step 2.

   Shorten it with a short link on a domain you control. A shorter address gives bigger modules, as the size guide shows.

3. 03
   Step 3.

   Choose two colours from your brand guideline: one dark colour for the modules and one accent for the eyes. Check both against the contrast rule.

4. 04
   Step 4.

   Generate at error correction level Q or H, with the full quiet zone.

5. 05
   Step 5.

   Print a proof on the real stock and run the pre-print test from the size guide on two phones.

6. 06
   Step 6.

   Freeze the design. Write it into the brand guideline, name the file and print.

Do the steps in that order. Teams that style first and shorten later end up with a styled code for a long address, and then have to redo the proof.

Static or dynamic: choose a destination you can change.

A static code encodes the final address. It never expires, and it can never be changed. If the page moves, every printed copy of the code is dead. A dynamic code encodes a short address that redirects to the destination, and you can edit the destination later. The two look the same.

Never print a code whose destination you cannot change. Put a short link on a domain you control behind it, so a moved landing page, a corrected campaign tag or a finished event does not mean a reprint. Two cautions. If the redirect lives on a service you rent, the code stops working when the service does, so check what happens when a subscription ends. And do not rename the key after printing, because the key is part of the encoded address.

Write the QR code into your brand guideline.

Teams that print at several shows end up with five different QR codes. One guideline entry stops that. Copy this table into yours and replace the example column.

What not to do.