QR Codes on Name Badges

vCard or profile page

Two designs, and the choice is not a matter of taste:

A vCard code writes name, title, company, phone and email straight into the scanner's contacts. It works with no internet, which matters in a basement exhibition hall where the WiFi has collapsed. It is also permanent: what is printed cannot be changed, cannot be tracked, and cannot be revoked.

A hosted profile page through a multi-link code can be edited after printing, can carry a photo, a calendar link and a portfolio, and can tell you how many people scanned it. It needs a connection, which is the real risk in a hall of eight thousand phones.

The honest recommendation for most events is a hosted page with the essentials, printed alongside a name and company that a human can read and type if the network fails.

Print for a swinging badge

Badges are the worst-behaved surface at an event. They rotate, they flip over, they hang below the natural camera angle, and they end up inside jackets.

• 2.5 to 3 cm so it reads across a handshake distance without anyone leaning in
• Bottom third of the badge, where a hand can steady it
• Double-sided printing, because badges flip constantly and a blank reverse is a badge that is unscannable half the time
• Matte finish, since badge holders are already glossy plastic and add their own reflection
• Leave the quiet zone clear of the plastic holder's printed edge

The privacy part

A badge is worn in public for three days. Anything encoded in a static vCard is readable by anyone who photographs it, including people who never spoke to the wearer.

• Never encode a personal mobile number on a printed badge unless the wearer explicitly asked
• Prefer a work email and a profile page over direct personal contact details
• For a hosted page, offer a way for the wearer to turn it off after the event
• Tell attendees, in one line at registration, what their badge code contains. Consent at events is usually assumed rather than obtained, and one sentence fixes that

Make the badge useful for the organiser too

The same code can do more than swap contacts. Session check-in, lead capture at sponsor stands, and catering or access entitlement all read from the same square. That turns the badge from a name tag into the event's identity layer, and it is a strong reason to print a code that can be looked up rather than one that is baked in.

For the session-scanning side, the event check-in playbook covers what happens when the hall network fails and the scanners need to keep working offline.