An Instagram QR code for your profile

The code holds one thing: the web address of your profile. It is a plain link, not a special Instagram format. Anyone with a phone camera can scan it, and a phone that has the Instagram app will usually offer to open the profile there. That is why it keeps working when you change your photo, your bio or what you post.

It does not keep working if you change your username, because the address contains the old one. Make a new code after a rename, and think before you print a thousand stickers with a name you might change. The code also has no expiry date and no way of counting scans. If you need to know how many people scanned it, put a tracked link inside a code instead of the plain profile address.

• Keep it dark on light. The check compares how bright the two colours are, and a code lighter than its background warns you, because some scanner apps cannot read that.
• Leave the margin at 4 squares, the width the QR standard asks for. Margins of 0 to 1 square often scan on a clean white card, but fail when the code sits on a busy photo.
• Leave error correction on Medium unless the code will get dirty, scuffed or covered. Each step up lets more of the code be damaged, but adds squares, so each square is smaller at the same printed size.
• Short usernames make simple codes. A 12-letter name gives a smaller grid than a 30-letter one, and a simpler grid is easier to read from further away.
• Scan the finished design yourself, on an iPhone and an Android phone if you can, from the distance a customer would be.

Tip: Printing it? The PNG is drawn with a whole number of pixels per square so the edges stay sharp. If the preview says squares are under 3 px wide, make the image bigger or the code will be fuzzy.

A QR code works best where typing a username would be a nuisance and the person is already holding a phone: a table card at a café, the back of a business card, a market stall banner, a receipt, the box a product ships in, a slide at the end of a talk. Pair it with the line “Scan to follow @yourname” so people know what it does, and add one reason to scan, such as “Daily specials”.

If you want people to message you rather than follow, the Instagram DM link generator makes a code that opens a chat instead of the profile. If you run a Facebook Page as well, the Facebook QR code generator does the same job there.