Today is the 57th anniversary of the barcode. Google is commemorating this day with a barcode logo.
I remember discussion about the bar code while I was at Art Center – its necessary prominence on the back of any package or the front of any magazine – being the downfall of all that is good design. Everything designed for inventory, sale and tracking had to have a barcode and therefore designers had to accommodate its presence, and for many creatives this was regarded as an intrusion.
On its own, the barcode is aesthetically sound. It employs implied line, a full range of value contrast, decently proportioned linear and numeric elements, and a varied alternating rhythm. Its function requires it to be achromatic.
The original, patented concept was a series of circles. The striped version we’re used to made its debut in 1974 on a pack of gum.
I chose to celebrate today by sorting back through some older work and pulling out an illustration I created back in 1986 (have I been doing this for that long? Wow.) – my own Ode to the Barcode. Of course, my ode to this striped hero of tracking and scanning was in the form of a visual pun, incorporating the striped graphic into the striped surface pattern of an everyday zebra.
©1986 & 2009. Alvalyn Lundgren. All rights reserved.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, Darryl, you have a good memory. I haven’t trotted out my zebra in awhile.
Thanks for your comment. You make a good point about the correlation between how we identify consumer goods and the uniqueness of patterns on animals.
I vote for the zebras as well, since they obviously had the idea first…
I remember seeing “Ode” several years ago and it brought a smile to my face then as it did today.
Hits the nail on the head.
Individual Zebras are often identified by their unique stripe patterns much as consumer products are by their barcodes.
So who should have been awarded the barcode patent? I vote for the Zebras.