I think that the white space is actually part of the protocol?
It is.
I am watching veritasium last vid on how qr codes work as we speak
Lol this exact video is what prompted me to make the meme
It’s required for contrast detection.
Also, if it was placed on something with a black background, the borders would bleed into the background and be unrecognizable when scanning.
This is why graphic artists don’t get to determine functional standards.
The error correction isn’t enough to overcome a bad background?
My memories of the early days of designing these things for ad clients (we’re talking 2010-11) were that like 20% “damage” was allowed before scanning became difficult. So of course my art director wanted to put cutesy shit all over them to be “unique”.
I just didn’t want the client to ask when it didn’t work because their phones didn’t like them.
People like your art director are the reason people like my product manager want us to write code to verify QR codes, so that our clients can tell their clients that they forgot the quiet zone and their client’s clients may have trouble reading the code.
Damn that’s a lot of levels of clients.
Error correction helps a scanner account for portions of the code being obscured/unreadable, whereas a bad background can make a code not even recognizable as a code in the first place. (depending on the algorithm used, how bad it is, yadda yadda)
I helped my wife make a qr code quilt (it says “quilt”). There wasn’t quite enough border around it, and you can get it to scan, but it’s not super reliable.
It is - without the quiet zone, it makes detecting the locator pattern really difficult, especially in one’s looking for the 1:1:3:1:1 ratio.
everything is. whitespace is an important part of graphic design, especially margins. think about text that’s too close to the edge is the page or screen.
especially margins
Since it has the background color of the QR code, it’s probably padding, not margin.
^someone please rescue me from frontend dev^
Here here, have some Chai. Take a break and
everything.should.be.okEdit: I’ve been free from web dev too long and it shows. Don’t even know my assertions anymore.
i was speaking generally, which is why I mentioned pages as well as screens. that’s more of a web design distinction; never really heard of padding in any other context.
but if you were to have a qr code on your website, you’re right, making it padding would make more sense since the border, real or imaginary, would be outside the quiet zone because it’s technically part of the code.
that’s more of a web design distinction
I think that was the point of “someone rescue me from frontend dev” - if they’re doing so much frontend design work that they instinctively get pedantic about padding vs. margin, they need help.
yeah I know, but that’s still information out there and if anyone’s reading it’s nice to clarify. I both clarified and situationally agreed with them.
It is now. That’s the beauty of art.
did you mean to reply to something else?
Hm, it was supposed to be indeed. It was the comment about the meme format
It’s not just ugly, it’s against the spec. The quiet zone is meant to be 4 “dots” wide on all sides for the code to be optimally readable.
Second one feels naked
uwu
whats this?
I can’t imagine giving a fuck…
the bottom one is not a qr code. The padding is part of it.
Yes, the Quiet Zone is part of the QR spec.
But the bottom one is still a QR code, it’s just an out-of-spec QR code. Most QR readers will still process it just fine, but there’s greater room for error depending on what surrounds the code itself.
padding
Found the developer
Everyone must submit to the CSS box model!
i hate coding for browsers. To that end, I do not actually know css. I just called it padding when I wrote my own qr code library, because it was easier to say than “quiet zone”.
Just like “dots” or “pixels” are easier to say than “modules”
Yeah… I’m pretty sure the white space is part of the spec for a QR code.
I spent 20 years in graphic design shit and wish I’d thought of something as cool as “quiet zone”.
I’ve seen at least one company press kit in rules on how to display their logo refer to it as “respect distance”.
I’ve usually used “clear space” because that’s common with spaces around logos but i like respect distance. though I don’t know what people in general would think of it after social distancing being associated with a terrible period of our lives.
Not quite the same but “bleed” is pretty cool!
Personally I’m going to start saying “quiet zone” instead white space. I’ll probably get dumb looks anyway.
I’m never gonna give up on quite space… well played btw
Yeah, shitposts like this are never gonna let us down.
You can’t circumcise the QR code man!
Cursed image
I like your username
Does it really scan when both timing patterns (zebra stripes between the three corner “squares”) are interrupted?
Edit: Not even Google Lens can scan it. (Edit edit: worked fine with screenshot.) Next time, avoid the red regions when putting logos etc. on mid-size (3+1 “squares”) QR codes:
🟥🟥🟥🟥
🟥🟩🟩🟩
🟥🟩🟩🟩
🟥🟩🟩🟥You can rotate the code of course but not flip it.
I recommend using a dedicated qr scanner instead of google lens, because even if it can scan qr codes, it isn’t optimised for it. Sometimes it can’t even detect a medium-sized qr code in a screenshot, and it looks like they haven’t even implemented the full standard.
Here’s a pretty good qr-reader I can recommend: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.aeioulabs.barcode
