QR Code Generator With Logo (Free, No Signup)

Three ways to put a logo on a QR code

"QR code with logo" can mean three quite different looks. This tool does all three, and the right one depends on where the code will be used.

Nothing is uploaded in any of them. Your image is read inside your own browser and never sent to a server.

QR code with logo examples

Every example below was made with this tool in Logo artwork mode, using simple made-up logos for different kinds of business. Each one decodes at phone camera size, and scanning any of them opens this page.

Picture QR codes and halftone QR codes

A picture QR code, also called a halftone QR code or a QR code with an image, is a code where a picture fills the design instead of plain black squares. Logo artwork mode makes exactly that. Upload a logo, an illustration or a photo and it becomes the whole code, with the data carried on small dots across the picture.

Bold pictures with clear shapes and strong colours work best. Busy photos still work, because the tool fades the picture slightly when it needs to and checks the result decodes before you download it. If you only want a small picture in the middle of a normal code, choose Logo in the middle instead.

Starting from a photo or a portrait rather than a logo? The photo QR code generator keeps the picture's own colours, can leave the face completely clear, and has four looks including black and white.

How a logo artwork QR code still scans

A scanner does not look at a whole square. It finds the three corner squares, works out the grid, then reads a small spot in the centre of each square and decides dark or light. Logo artwork uses that: the data goes on a dot at the centre of every square, and your logo fills the space between the dots.

Each dot takes its colour from the logo underneath it. Over a red area you get dark red and pale pink dots, over a black area you get black and light grey dots. That is why the logo still looks like itself instead of turning into a grey pattern.

Three things keep it working. The code always uses the highest repair level, so about 30 percent of it can be misread and still decode. The corner squares and the small alignment square are drawn whole, because they are how the phone finds the code. And the tool tries up to nine combinations of dot size and logo fade, decoding each one at the size a phone camera sees, and keeps the most logo-like design that passes. If none pass, it says so instead of handing you a code that will fail.

Why the colours come out deeper than your brand colours

A scanner does not see colour. It reads every square as dark or light, judged on brightness alone. A bright yellow is almost as bright as white paper, so a scanner can read a yellow square as a light one.

So the tool keeps your hue and adjusts the brightness: data dots are pushed clearly dark or clearly light, and the corner squares use a deep version of your main logo colour. Reds stay red and blues stay blue; they come out deeper than the original. In Colour the code mode the brightness slider under More settings shows the trade off, and lower is always safer.

Why the three corner squares stay solid

The corner squares can take your logo colour and a square, rounded or round shape, but they are always drawn as solid rings with a clear gap around them. A scanner finds the code by looking for a very specific pattern of dark and light widths running through those squares. Break it up with dots or let the logo run through it, and the phone never finds the code at all.

How big the middle logo can be

At the highest repair level, roughly 30 percent of a code can be covered and it will still read. That is what lets a logo sit in the middle.

The 30 percent is a budget, not a target. A printed code also loses a little to smudged ink, poor light or a scuffed sticker. Around 20 to 25 percent of the width is a sensible ceiling, which is why the tool warns you above 25 percent.

Printing a code that actually works

Size. Print a plain code about one tenth as wide as the scanning distance: around 3 cm for something read at arm's length. Logo artwork has smaller data dots, so give it roughly a quarter more, about 4 cm at arm's length and 25 cm on a poster read from two metres.

Margin. Keep clear space around all four sides, about four squares wide. The downloads include it; do not crop it off to fit a layout.

Paper. Matte stock scans better than gloss, which reflects overhead light back into the camera.

A worked example

A cafe wants a code on its table cards that links to the online menu, using its coffee cup logo.

They paste the menu link, drop in the logo PNG and leave the style on Logo artwork. The corner squares come out in a deep brown taken from the logo. They tap the cream background swatch to match the cards, and the check reads green with the tuned dot size.

The cards are read from about 30 cm, so the code goes on at 4 cm wide with its margin left in place, on matte card. They download the 3x version for the printer, scan the proof with two different phones, and only then order the full run.

Related tools

Putting a code on a coloured or printed background? The transparent QR code generator removes the white box behind it. Printing a batch of labels? The QR code generator for labels covers sizing for print. If a printed code is ever damaged, the QR code repair tool can often rebuild it. Everything else is in all QR code tools.