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Barcodes have been around for over 30 years now and finally a few companies are getting creative with their design. In fact, a company called Design Barcode is focused on making barcode designs more interesting (in case you couldn’t figure that out from the company name).
A few quick facts:
* Be prepared when you get the popular trivia question “What was the first product to use a barcode (or UPC) on its packaging?” The answer is Wrigley’s Gum. It was in 1974 at Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, OH.
* The most commonly used form for barcoding is the UPC (Universal Product Code) and is used on most consumer products.
* UPCs didn’t get off to the hot start that was predicted when they were first introduced. It was thought that they’d quickly save the supermarket and other retail industries millions of dollars within a couple years because of reduced labor needs. These savings took a while to realize though because of the expenses of installing the appropriate barcode scanners. So there was a time when analysts predicted the death of the UPC, with a Business Week headline reading ”The Supermarket Scanner That Failed.”
Link via Neatorama
When Mad Magazine was forced to put a UPC on their covers they completely rebelled. For like a year straight after all magazines had to start carrying UPC’s they were still making covers that mocked the symbol because they felt it defaced their artwork. Eventually, they sort of accepted its being there, and one of my favorite covers is this one where Alfred E. Neumann is mowing a lawn full of UPC’s.
posted by Mangesh on 6-29-2006 at 1:10 pm