Man's Continued Evolution

Say you need a few things for that fabulous spaghetti sauce you're making for dinner: Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, maybe a can of tomato paste. You run out to the supermarket and grab the necessary items, basing your choices on price and brand familiarity. But wait--now there's another way to help you choose: The vanity barcode.

At last that seemingly unimportant stamp, born in the late 1970s, that allows stores to track their inventory and change prices without re-labeling, has finally gotten the attention it deserves. Starting immediately, you can find barcodes that are elegant or quirky, that look like waterfalls or butterflies, or maybe even something more complicated like the New York City skyline.  In today's Wall Street Journal, the co-owner of Vanity Barcodes, a design shop in New Jersey that wastes its time doing this nonsense, says one of her favorites is "a hand mixer that looks like the barcode is mixing up the numbers." How adorable is that?

The article reports two additional facts that reinforce my decision to quit being a graphic designer years ago: First is the admission that "adding a vanity barcode can be expensive because new packaging is needed," causing one to wonder how happy that makes the consumer.  Second, the newly designed, fabulous and quirky, elegant barcode that looks like something else is not always functional, but is often merely a design element used to drive up sales; the simple rectangular barcode is still on the back of many items.