Breaking the bar code
Now more than half a century old, the bar code has unobtrusively integrated itself into our everyday lives, as it is practically found on almost all purchasable items in the western hemisphere. Department stores, super markets, bookstores, box offices, and local retail stores are all dependent on the little B&W-stripes and number logo, also known as the UPC- the Universal Product Code. The bar code is also widely used for tracking the movement of items from simple mail to airline luggage, nuclear waste and, with the new biometric passports, even ourselves.
With only a few deviations from its original design in the early 70’s, the bar code seems stagnant and timeless. In contemporary art it has been a source for much inspiration as many artists (such as Scott Blake and Banksy below), leverage its uniformity as a powerful tool for social critique.
Others, such as Moscow based design studio Art. Lebedev Studio get a kick out of retrieving the bar code symbol in our everyday environment, which they exhibit on their website.
A different, more commercial take on the bar code design was initiated by the Japaneses design team called Design Barcode in 2005. They began to think about how to revolutionize the bar code and its mundane design by making it more exciting and noticeable. For them, the lack of attention we consumers pay to the bar code is a waste of “valuable product real estate”. Whether or not we agree that this is necessary or a move into the right direction, I nevertheless recommend you to check out their ideas on how to linking a product with functional and innovative bar code design on their gallery.
