How To Create Stylish QR Codes For Print Materials

Video Transcript Of The QR Code Tutorial

00:00 Hi, I am Dr. Kerry Kriger of Zero2Webmaster, and today I’m going to show you how to make beautiful QR codes. QR codes traditionally are really ugly; they’re black and white. They look computer-generated and they make posters and flyers look a little less aesthetically pleasing. But we’re going to fix that; we’re going to make a beautiful branded QR code for the Save The Frogs donation page. Why? Because yesterday I was creating a flyer for a Save The Frogs event holder so that when they’re holding a table, they can have a print out that says donate to Save The Frogs and it’ll have a cool looking QR code on it. Let’s go ahead and make that code; it’s going to be branded. So, we’re on QR Code Monkey.com, qrcode-monkey.com. It’ll open up to this page. We can see our QR code on the right and we’re going to put in our own address here. So this would start out with QR Code Monkey address but you’re going to put your address right there. That’s the content that it seeks, so there.

01:08 There it is, make sure it’s completely correct, and setting colors is the next step. Alright, so know your hexadecimal code for your business. You should probably memorize it. It’ll make your life easier. The main green of Save The Frogs is #72AF43. A single color is fine with me, look though, right here. This must be new because I don’t remember this color gradient. Hey, I could also put #F5821F, that’s our orange color, and now we’re going to get an even cooler, even better branded QR code. So I like that, but at a minimum, a single color, make it the main color of your organization, most likely. I’m not sure what custom eye color is.

01:52 I’ll let you experiment with that. What kind of gradient do you want? A linear, a radial? I want it linear so it just moves in one direction, not from or not from the center like radial. Background color, I set this at black, which is #000000. Or you can just slide this around, whatever color you want it to be. We’re going to see what this comes up with in a second. I like it black. Currently, it’s white; that looks fine too. Add logo image. So this is super awesome, upload your image. You don’t have to use an image or a logo, but let’s go ahead and upload our own. I’m going to choose this one right here, and it’s uploaded the Save The Frogs logo. It’s going to put that in the middle, and customize design. Alright. So these ones, I’ve written this down. I’ve actually documented the process to do this for Save The Frogs, and as I recall, well, it doesn’t matter, we’ve got three things to choose from here.

02:47 So let’s see what it’s going to do, this one, or here’s what it’s saying, what are these going to be? Are these going to be little squares, or are they going to be circles, or are they going to be diamonds, each little component of the QR code grid? So, I just leave this one where it’s at, and then I choose this third to the right, and we’ll see what that does, we’ll make them a couple of different ways, and then I think this one is probably fourth one to the right. So it’s just talking about the shape of it and how the thing’s going to look, now all we have to do is click create the QR code, give it a second, and there it is, a beautiful QR code. Now, that makes me smile looking at this because

03:31 it’s fully branded. It’s black, it’s got a green to orange gradient just like a lot of our website has, it’s got our logo in the middle, and to me, that’s as nice looking a QR code as I’ve ever seen in my whole life. So, I’m happy about that, hopefully yours will be awesome looking too, and it’ll make you smile. Let’s go ahead and make another, or just to let you know, final step, download the PNG file, and then use that in your graphic design, send it to your graphic designer, and I would go ahead and name this QR code. You could put QR Code Monkey so you remember where it came from, but QR code Save The Frogs Donate, and then when I see it on my computer.

04:11 I’ll know what it’s referring to. I’ll put that in our donations folder, let’s go ahead and make another one. Let’s enter a different page, so the page is going to change the pattern. So this one’s going to be, I made one yesterday to our newsletters. Page, go sign up for the Save The Frogs electronic newsletter, savethefrogs.com/newsletters, hey if you want to donate before I change this, QR code, put your phone to it. You always have to test it, you should do that immediately, test it, make sure it works, because I also made one yesterday, and it didn’t work. It just said non-readable, that was actually for a Bitcoin address. You can see these different kinds of things that it’s prepared to help you make QR codes for anyway.

04:52 Let’s change the colors, let’s just make it a single color, and let’s check out custom eye color, yeah. I’m not sure what that means, I’m not too worried about it. Single color, I want it to be green, and it’s going to have an all-black background. Now, let’s just make it all white for a change, or you could just go pick a color, slide around, and choose your color, but let’s just go ahead.

05:19 Top left corner is white, add a logo image. This down here is saying hey maybe you want to make one for your like Instagram channel or something, and it’ll probably put that right in the middle, and then you could have a QR code, hey follow us on Instagram @SaveTheFrogs, right? Remove background behind the logo. So, I’m just going to get rid of those, I’m going to upload my own. But I’ll put in a different one. Here, this one will be square, look, there it is, customized design, so let’s choose some different looks.

Let’s go with the diamonds, and we’ll have this, uh, looks like someone’s talking there, and an eyeball shape. I’m not sure what this is going to do. But we’re going to find out. Maybe this is, these are the eyeballs, that’s it right here. It must be related to what’s the shape of these three pieces going to be, create the QR code, and here come some diamonds, alright, diamonds with a white background, a square logo, a talking I frame shape, and then these right here, so you can experiment, see what you like, make up some beautiful QR codes. Let’s just change one right now, here’s the homepage to Save The Frogs, we’re going to put on a black background and do it with no logo, why not, and customize design, right there, try out this, just pick some different ones, let’s go like that, right there, create the QR code. That’s it, so you can get lots of different looks, have fun.

I am Dr. Kerry Kriger, Zero2Webmaster.com is one of my websites, go check it out and enjoy your QR codes and graphic design, bye.

I created this QR code inspired artwork in Midjourney