How to Design a QR Code That Matches Your Brand

A QR code does not have to look like it was generated by a fax machine. With the right customization it can carry your colours, your logo, and a shape language that fits the rest of your design, while still scanning reliably. Here is how to do it without breaking anything.

Start with contrast, not colour

Scanners detect the contrast between dark modules and light background, not specific hues. Keep the foreground dark and the background light, then check informally by squinting at the code on screen. If the pattern is hard to make out, a phone camera in a dim room will struggle too.

If your brand colour is light, use it as the background and pick a dark neutral for the modules rather than inverting the code. If it is dark, do the opposite. A brand colour used as the module colour on white is usually the safest and most recognisable option.

Pick a dot style that fits the brand personality

Square modules read as technical and neutral, which suits software, logistics, and anything engineering-adjacent. Rounded and dot styles feel friendlier and more approachable, which is why they show up on lifestyle and wellness packaging. Classy and extra-rounded sit in between.

Preview all five live and pick the one that matches the rest of your marketing material, not the one that looks best in isolation. A QR code is never seen on its own; it sits on a poster or a pack, next to your type and your logo.

Treat the eyes as a design opportunity

The three large squares in the corners (the finder patterns, or "eyes") are the first thing a scanner locks onto and the first thing a person notices. Changing their shape has an outsized effect on how the code feels, often more than changing the dot style does. Keep them clearly darker than the background so detection stays fast.

Adding a logo, safely

A logo in the centre is the single most effective branding move available, because it immediately signals whose code this is. The trick is error correction: when a logo covers part of the pattern, the generator needs a higher level so the hidden data can be reconstructed. CQRG switches to level H automatically when you add one.

Two constraints matter. Keep the logo under roughly 20% of the code's area; bigger looks bolder but eats into the recoverable margin. And put a small solid-colour pad behind a logo with transparency, so stray modules do not show through and confuse the decoder.

Test in the real environment

A code that scans perfectly on a laptop screen can fail on a badly lit poster or a small business card. Print at actual size, on the real material, and scan it with a couple of different phones under the lighting it will live in. Matte stock beats gloss almost every time, because gloss reflects light straight back into the camera.

Branded codes take a little more care than the default black square. The payoff is a code that looks like it belongs to you and, in our experience, one that people are more willing to scan in the first place.