ColGlyphCode: Progress on a New Approach | Peter Hughes
A few weeks ago, I shared a moment on LinkedIn that sparked this project. I was in a museum, scanning a QR code to get an exhibit guide. Instead of information, I got a spinning wheel, no signal, no content, just an empty screen. Around the same time, I'd had a similar issue in a restaurant trying to access a menu. That raised a simple question: what if the content wasn't somewhere else, but right there in the image itself? I built a quick prototype to test the idea. A large image could store enough for a document, an audio file, even a small app. With a proof-of-concept iOS app, I could encode any file into an image and decode it instantly. No backend. No network. No "404". Just fast, resilient access to information, even offline. That experiment became the seed for ColGlyphCode. Building on a Great Foundation QR codes are one of the quiet revolutions of the digital era. They're reliable, efficient, and endlessly versatile. ColGlyphCode doesn't try to replace them — instead, it builds on their foundation, taking the same principle of compact, scannable data and pushing it further with colour and glyphs. The aim is to create codes that are both machine-readable and visually distinctive. Instead of monochrome squares, ColGlyphCode uses a mix of alphanumeric characters, colours, and rotations. The result is a format designed for offline-first access that also blends into designs, packaging, or cards more gracefully than standard QR. The Practical Usage The goal is not to compete with QR codes where they already excel, but to offer a new option in cases where resilience or offline capability matter most. Imagine a rural visitor centre with patchy mobile signal. Instead of scanning a QR code that points to a website, visitors scan a ColGlyphCode on a leaflet and instantly receive the entire audio tour — directly from the image itself. At a conference, a badge could carry not just a link to a profile, but an embedded vCard, slides, or even a demo video. In fieldwo...
peter.hughes.team