Design Barcode

I'm sure many of you have noticed the barcode that has graced the Google homepage today in honor of the 57th anniversary of it's first patent.

The image instantly reminded me on one of my favorite Cannes Titanium Lion winners from years past, Design Barcode Inc.. The Japanese company revolutionized the way the packaging and marketing industries viewed something we always accepted as a given, a packaging blemish that we just had to live with and never questioned. Their simple solutions to "design" barcodes represented a change in thinking and their playful designs supported the idea of fun and aesthetic control combined with necessity.