Groom QR Code

Groom QR Code

While doing a search for propaganda ideas, I found this site that celebrates all sorts of Star Wars fan art. There’s probably a few dozen pieces to inspire new ds106 assignments. One in particular caught my eye, as ready for some ds106 riffing, Darth Vader QR Code. It was apparently created by a Greek graphic designer/blogger and embroidered onto a pillow as well!

So here’s my effort at some Jim Groom Art, for the first time since I made some ds106radio art to celebrate the awesome NYC Jam this past summer.

I looked up some of the specs for QR Codes, but ultimately focused on using just the three orienting boxes that are iconically familiar. To create this, I made a 64 x 64 pixel image in Photoshop in bitmap mode, which restricts your palette to only two colors – black & white. In that space I drew the three boxes with the a two pixel width pencil tool.

Using Mikhail Gershovich’s Jim Groom head, I did some work converting to grayscale, then reducing the file size a lot. Using the Dodge (highlights) and Burn (shadows) tools I was able to contrast specific areas of the face I wanted to. Finally I brought the part of the head into the QR code space and did some more 2 pixel pencil tool work, erasing and drawing until happy.

Only bummer is that the QR Code is not scannable, that would have been a really cool hack! Of course I would have pointed the code to the Bava Blog.


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8 responses to “Groom QR Code”

  1. Alan Liddell Avatar

    I’m going to look up what it takes to make a QR code scannable and we are gonna fix this.

    1. mbransons Avatar

      That would be really sweet! Let me know if you need anything.

      1. Alan Liddell Avatar

        My Google Fu must be really weak. I haven’t been able to find anything beyond “pay us to make one for you.”

        1. mbransons Avatar

          I saw much of the same. BOOOOO!

  2. cali4beach Avatar

    this is awesome!

    1. mbransons Avatar

      Thanks Sarah! I’ve always been so impressed with your dedication to the daily shoots. And so cool that your stayed #ds1064life!

  3. Mandi Avatar

    This is amazing! It must have been difficult working with such a limited set of pixels. I have a friend who used to design game avatars in a similar resolution—it looked so hard!

    Also, I don’t think you have to worry about a QR code being scannable. Marketing teams everywhere seem to ignore the whole ‘scannable’ aspect. (Have you seen how many put QR codes on moving objects?!) You should make Jim Groom QR code stickers, put them in odd places, and see if people attempt to scan them. 😉

    1. mbransons Avatar

      Stickers would be awesome! Feel free to print some.