Adding QR Codes to your Squarespace Site

Have you ever wondered why someone would ever want to scan a QR Code on a website?

I have to admit, I've always considered it a little silly to add a QR code to a webpage, and even have gotten into a friendly Twitter debate with friends on the topic. Adding QR codes to "objects" like posters, cereal boxes and even lawn mower boxes make total sense to me. 

My earlier opinion about QR Codes on web pages was— the user is already RIGHT THERE on their computer, so why would they ever want to take-out their smart-phone and scan their computer screen? 

That is, until a recent client gave me reason to re-consider my stance. A client wanted to add a QR code to their "map" page, partly as a novelty, but mostly so customers viewing the website's locations page would have a way to "send the map to their phone".  I caved; It's really not a bad idea. If the site visitor doesn't know what a QR Code is, they can ignore it— similarly, the way we all ignore barcodes on any product we consume. (Well, exactly like a product barcode in-fact). 

Earlier on my blog, I shared how to use bit.ly to create QR Codes. But I thought you would benefit from this brief tutorial to show you how I would add a QR Code to a Squarespace site.

The Great Bit.ly Redesign of 2012 :)

Bit.ly went through a recent re-design. To access the "info page" that contains the QR Code, just add a "+" immediately after the bit.ly URL to access that page. Exmaple: bitly.com/PrxlQa+

Better Maps

I was thrilled today to find more incredible map customization available from Stamen Design. They've released three versions of custom mapds that are just beautiful. Head to maps.stamen.com and check-out "Toner, Terrain and Watercolor"— for use wherever you display OpenStreetMap data.

It will be great to see how these incredible maps are used in the future!

My Early Love for Stamen Design

My love for Stamen Design's map work goes back to 2007, when I had the chance to speak with Stamen on my CreativeXpert podcast, about the work they were doing for Digg Labs.

Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC BY SA.

Adding Author Photos to Blogs in Squarespace

It's been possible for a while to add "author photos" to posts, but it's a little confusing exactly HOW to do this. In-fact, Squarespace has a helpful page that gets you started in the right direction: journal.squarespace.com/style-by-author ... but they only get you part of the way there. This is because there are so many different ways to configure a blog/journal; EVERY site is different. 

If you're a code detective, you can get to the bottom of this mystery, but it's not easy without a little sweaty sleuthing. :) 

On a recent client project, I had to re-discover how to do this all over again, as it was about 5 months since I had done it last, so it was a little foggy to me. (see Fruition Partners' blog that I built several months back)

I decided to record a screencast to walk you through this, because it's so much easier to just show you.

Special thanks to Wistia and Courseload.

Dust Cleared!

I'm happy to say that the new Squareflair site has been re-designed. Poke-around, and let us know what you think!

It was a long-time coming, but we're finally where we should be (for the time-being).

We have lots of announcements coming-up, so be-sure you subscribe to our email thinger below!

Subscribe to our mailing list

LISTEN: Eleven Years Ago

I was just sorting-through discs of old projects, re-discovering my beginnings.

Back when I was a lad, I provided content for the dawn of the Internet. This was when building pages with tables, developing in Flash and creating pre-loaders was not only the norm, it was all we knew how to do. And we had a blast doing it! 

The video below is a screen-capture of a Flash experiement I started for our company site (Knowledge Resource Group, Indianapolis). It was the summer of 2001. (This could be a little embarassing...)