yuri suzuki : barcode book at tokyo designtide

 
barcode book, 2010
image © designboom

at designtide exhibition in tokyo earlier this month, designboom met yuri suzuki who showed a few recent projects:
among them – the barcode book.

barcode book
image © designboom

the barcode book by london-based product/sound designer yuri suzuki tells a
story through illustrations made with barcodes.
sound is played using a barcode reader, connected to a speaker. this project is technically based on 80’s old texas instruments toy
‘magic wand reader’.

barcode book
image © designboom

a barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which
shows certain data on certain products.
usually barcodes represent data in the widths (lines) and the spacings
of parallel lines. they also come in patterns of squares,
dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns. 

the barcode book is are read by an optical scanner
photo by hitomi kai yoda

suzuki applies an ‘audio barcode’, a technology that allows data such
as text information to be carried and transmitted on sound
waves in
the audible range (music and spoken word). barcodes appear frequently
in advertisements and magazines, and allow
users to access related websites by scanning these figures with mobile
phone cameras. audio barcode represents and transmits
data in a similar
way. data embedded in sound waves are picked up by target devices with a
microphone, analyzed by special
software,
and then extracted. data to be transmitted is embedded by acoustic OFDM
(the
technology behind audio barcode).

photo by hitomi kai yoda

photo by hitomi kai yoda

oscar diaz and yuri suzuki at the tokyo designtide exhibition. they have collaborated recently on a few project and have shared the space at designtide.
image © designboom

the barcode book
in use

here is a video of an earlier version of the developing process.

credits for barcode book project:
design by yuri suzuki,
graphic design by benjamin weetman and laurie robins,
story by noriko fujioka and rowena finlayson.

yuri suzuki
is a product designer and electronic musician who produces work
that explores the realms of sound through exquisitely designed pieces.
‘sound interjection!’ is playful and interactive, encouraging the viewer
to become part of the final design by creating sounds.
suzuki believes
that not enough thought has been given to noises produced by
everyday appliances, and began to include
sound-scapes in his
products. yuri suzuki was born in tokyo in 1980. between 1999 and 2005 he worked
for japanese design firm
maywa denki, where he developed a strong
interest in music and technology. in 2005 he moved to london to study at
the royal college
of art. during this time he worked on some projects
for yamaha and moritz waldemeyer, and after his graduation in 2008 he
opened
his own studio.