Twenty QR designs, and a meter that tells you if it'll scan

Every QR code generator lets you change the colours. Fewer tell you when you've just made a code nobody can scan. Pale grey on white, a logo that covers a third of the code, dots so small they blur on a sticker: it looks lovely on screen, and then the poster goes up and the phones just hover.

The QR designer that comes with every smart link was built around that problem. Start from one of twenty QR designs, change whatever you like, save the looks you love, and a scan meter checks every change against the things that usually make a styled code fail.

• NewTwenty starting designs: ten made for a kind of business, ten made for a style
• NewSaved designs, shared by everyone in your Switchboard
• NewA brand kit with your colours, logo and font, one tap away on every code
• NewA scan meter that scores every design from 0 to 100, in plain words
• NewA simple exporter in a side panel: PNG in four sizes, SVG or PDF

Twenty QR designs to start from

The Designs shelf opens with twenty starting designs, each high contrast and checked to scan before it ever reached you. Ten are made for a kind of business, with a frame and words that suit it:

The other ten are made for a look rather than a business: Minimal, Midnight, Neon night, Gold on black, Eco green, Pastel, Bold colour, Ocean, Sunset and Typewriter. Pick one, and every part of it is still yours to change. They're starting points, not templates you're stuck with.

Saved designs and a brand kit

Once a code looks right, give it a name and press Save design. It shows up under Saved designs for everyone in your Switchboard, so the next link the team makes can wear the same look in one tap. A Switchboard keeps up to 20 saved designs.

The Brand kit goes one step further. Save as brand kit keeps your colours, your logo and your frame font. From then on, Use brand kit puts them on any code, and your brand colours show up as quick picks beside the designer's colour fields. It's the quickest way to make sure the poster in the window and the sticker on the parcel look like they came from the same shop.

Anyone who can create and edit smart links can save designs and change the brand kit. Everyone else still sees them.

Everything you can change

The designer has six tabs, and each does one job:

• Pattern: the shape of the small dots, how much damage the code can survive, and the blank margin around it.
• Eyes: the three corner squares, their ring, their centre and their colours.
• Colours: solid, gradient or glow for the code, and a filled or see-through background.
• Frame: twelve frames, from a simple border to a ticket, a speech bubble or a photo print.
• Centre: what sits in the middle.
• Text: the words on the frame, with ideas like "Scan to chat" and "Book on WhatsApp".

There's undo and redo, and a preview that shows the code alone or On a phone. On a link's QR code tab, changes save on their own a moment after you make them.

The logo in the middle

New codes start with the Avox mark in the centre. It's on by default, and it's one tap to take it out or swap it. Upload your own logo, pick an icon, use up to three letters, or leave the middle plain.

A centre graphic covers part of the code, and a QR code can only rebuild so much of itself. So on its Auto setting, the designer uses the code's highest repair level whenever there's something in the middle, and if you make the logo bigger than the code can cope with, it's shown a little smaller instead. You'll see a note when that happens.

The scan meter

This is the part we're proudest of. The scan meter scores your design from 0 to 100 and says it in words: Scans easily, Should scan well, Might be hard to scan or Likely won't scan. Open it and each check is laid out with plain advice:

• Contrast: is the code dark enough against its background?
• Colours: a light code on a dark background is a gamble, because some phone cameras can't read it at all.
• Centre: how much of the code's repair room the logo uses.
• Corner eyes: some pairs of eye shapes are harder for older scanner apps.
• Margin: phones need blank space around a code to find it.
• Pattern: dots and diamonds look good and ask a little more of older phones.
• Print size: how big one dot prints at your width, and roughly how far away the code still scans.
• Link length: a longer address makes a denser code.

Set the Printed width to the size you'll really use, and the meter tells you how far away it scans from. As a rough rule, a code scans from about ten times its own width, so a poster across a room needs a bigger code than a table card.

Downloads, kept simple

When the design is right, press Export on the preview. It opens in a side panel beside the designer, so your code stays in view, and it offers three files:

• PNG in four sizes, from Small for a chat or a post up to Print at 4096 pixels;
• SVG, which stays sharp at any size and suits a designer or a print shop;
• PDF, ready to send to a printer.

Each file is your design exactly as it looks in the designer. Downloads open only while the link is live: on a draft, paused, ended or archived link, Export stays visible but switched off, with the reason beside it. Nobody ends up printing a code for a link that isn't open yet.

Change the design any time

A smart link's QR code always points at the link itself, never straight at WhatsApp. That means you can change the design next month, or change what the link sends, and every code you've already printed keeps working. The link's numbers keep counting too: scans and clicks are counted apart, so the menu and the Instagram bio each get credit for their own chats.

Questions people ask

Can I remove the Avox mark from the middle?

Yes. On the Centre tab, pick None, or put your own logo, an icon or a few letters there instead.

Which file should I send to a printer?

The PDF, or the SVG if they'd rather lay it out themselves. Both stay sharp at any size.

Why is Export switched off?

The link isn't live yet, or isn't live any more. Switch it on, or wait for its start date, and the downloads open.

Why does my logo look smaller than I set it?

Because the code needs enough of itself visible to be read. The designer keeps the logo inside what the code can rebuild, and says so when it shrinks it.

Is a gradient safe?

Usually, if both colours are dark against a light background. The scan meter checks the contrast for you.

Open one of your smart links, save your brand kit once, and print a single test copy before the big run. The QR code guide has every option, and the features page shows a few of the twenty.