AR posters

An AR poster that plays on the wall.

A poster has a few seconds to make its case to someone walking past. Give it a moving picture: a passer-by scans the code, aims their phone, and the poster plays its video right where it hangs, with buttons for tickets, directions or the listing beside it. It all happens in the phone's browser.

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Where AR posters earn their place

Four walls, four reasons to stop.

  • Gigs and events

    The band's poster plays a live clip, and the buttons underneath say Tickets and Directions. The Studio's Event layout sets that up for you.

  • Real estate

    A board in the agency window plays a walk-through of the property. Business plans take clips up to 3 minutes long, enough for every room; the free trial stops at 30 seconds.

  • Shop windows

    The display poster shows the product moving, and a Website button opens the page to buy it, even after closing time.

  • Venues and noticeboards

    Theatre foyers, gallery walls, the corridor outside a lecture hall: anywhere people wait near a print with a phone already in hand.

Layout

On the poster, or beside it.

Playing on the poster

  1. Mark one rectangle of the design as the Video Area, such as the photo in the middle.
  2. The video fills that rectangle when the camera finds the poster.
  3. The headline, dates and small print around it stay readable on screen, exactly as printed.

Playing beside the poster

  1. Choose a side: above, below, left or right.
  2. The video appears in the space next to the poster and stays there as the phone moves.
  3. The whole print stays in view, which suits a design that's mostly type.

Either way needs your own print design, the finished file you send to the printer. The video beside the poster can reach out up to one poster's length from its edge, and nothing is placed diagonally off a corner.

The QR code

Three places to put the code.

On the back
The default: a sticker for the reverse side. Right for a small print people pick up, such as a handbill given out at the door, but not for a poster pasted to a wall or facing out of a window, where nobody can turn it over.
In a front corner
Printed into the design itself, at least 20 mm across with a white margin, in the corner you pick and clear of the Video Area. It reads best from close up.
Download only
The code on its own, to place yourself at a size that scans from where people stand: larger on the poster, or on a sign next to it.

Hanging it

What helps a big print lock.

  • Glass between them

    Behind a window, the street reflects across the poster. Hang it flat against the glass, angle the lights away, and test at the time of day people will pass.

  • Room to step back

    People need to get most of the poster on screen, and the space beside it if the video plays there. In a narrow corridor, a smaller format may be easier to frame than a large one.

  • Light after dark

    A poster outside at night needs a lamp on it. The camera recognizes what it can see, and a dark wall shows it very little.

  • A signal on site

    The video streams on every scan, so a basement venue with no reception is the wrong home for one. Try it on the spot before the print run.

When it's over

The gig ends. The poster can keep working.

After the show, change the video to the best clip from the night and the Tickets button to the next date. The posters still on lamp posts carry the same code, so they pick up the change from the next scan without a reprint.

When a property sells or a sale ends, Switch off the code in the Studio. A scan then shows a still picture and a note that it's paused rather than an out-of-date video, and you can switch it on again whenever you like.

The dashboard shows how often each poster is scanned, which helps decide which sites deserve the next one. For the technical side of recognizing a print, read how it works.

AR poster questions

How large can an AR poster be?

Size is not the limit; the camera works in the poster's own proportions, not in centimetres. What matters is that someone can stand where the whole design fits on their screen.

Can I make an AR print from a poster I already designed?

Yes. Upload the finished design file along with the video, and Ember22 makes the print file and the code from it. Detailed designs lock faster than flat ones.

Do different poster sizes need different codes?

No. One design printed at A3 and at A1 plays the same video from the same code, as long as the proportions are the same.

Can every venue on a tour have its own video?

Only with its own design. The camera tells posters apart by their picture, so give each city a different image or layout, and each one its own credit.

Will passers-by need to install anything?

No. The camera app on their phone reads the code, and the video plays in the browser that opens.

Hang the first one where you'll see who stops.

Make an AR poster from your own design, print a proof, and scan it on the wall.

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