If digital is about anything it should be about making our complex lives easier. All too often it seems to do the opposite.

Sometimes the simpler technologies turn out to be the most powerful. Just look at the SMS-based simplicity of Twitter. Indeed, look at SMS itself.

We think QR codes are beginning to show the same potential.

Exceptionally Easy

Alchemy Content client Nowtrax – the innovative Hong Kong based music download store – started featuring QR codes on every page with their recent launch of an HTML5 version of the site, making it exceptionally easy for artists/labels to promote direct access to their tracks.

They cleverly showcased just how to use the codes in the real world recently too, placing QR info on giant beachballs, hundreds of balloons and the huge screens behind the DJ at Korea’s World DJ Festival, giving one-touch access to a free download via their store.

With smartphones in more and more pockets, and the need for immediacy greater than ever in a world full of competing messages, pointing and clicking for more information will become as natural as picking up the phone to send a text.

Already There

The codes might look a bit ugly, but can be quite easily integrated and hidden within design elements.

QR codes bridge the divide between the physical and online worlds, so when will come the tipping point where it seems strange not to have a QR code on a press release, poster, shop signage, flyer, billboard, tin of beans..?

In fact, it feels like we’re already there. There should be one on everything that you do.