Today is World Environment Day (not to be confused with Earth Day) and National Doughnut Day (which means free donuts!), but this week also marks the 35th anniversary of the Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code symbol.

"One of the world's best-known symbols, the UPC comprises a row of 59 machine-readable black and white bars and 12 human-readable digits," according to Progressive Grocer. "Both the bars and the digits convey the same information: the identity of a specific product and its manufacturer.

"Originally developed to help supermarkets speed up the checkout process, the first live use of a UPC took place in a Marsh Supermarkets store in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974, when a cashier scanned a package of Wrigley's gum. It ushered in extraordinary economic and productivity gains for shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike, with estimated annual cost savings of $17 billion in the grocery sector alone, according to one study," Progressive Grocer says.

Today they're everywhere, as practically everything packaged reaches consumers' hands with a bar code attached. UPCs are now scanned more than 10 billion times a day in applications spanning more than 25 industries, including consumer-packaged goods, apparel, high-tech, hardware, food services, health care, logistics and government.

This week the milestone was celebrated with more than 800 attendees at GS1 US's annual U Connect Conference, in Orlando, Fla. GS1 US is the not-for-profit developer and administrator of the bar code, which now appears on more than 200,000 businesses in the United States.

Turning that mandatory, ubiquitous element into something creative and unexpected is certain to make playful customers smile.

Well, the design team at a small Japanese creative agency set out to innovate a new way for companies to think about how their valuable product real estate gets used. After a long study of bar code technology standards, a process was invented that allows a design element to be integrated into the bar code.

The result: Design Barcode (U.S. Web site) turned standard bar codes into appealing and engaging brand elements.

What's more, they're practical.

According to Design Barcode:

Nothing is more critical than a product's ability to be scanned properly and perfectly every time. Because of this, all Designed Barcodes are put through a battery of tests before being released to a barcode printing or manufacturing facility.

They look great AND they're functional. Here are some other cleverly designed bar codes:

Wheat bar code design on Widmer Hefeweizen beer
Source: Flickr/djeucalyptus via Box Vox

Coke-bottle shaped bar code on a can of coke
Source: Flickr/Disco Suicide via Box Vox

For additional Japanese UPC designs, see Bar Code Revolution and Dark Roasted Blend, and for newer innovations in product identification, check out the end of THIS Modern Materials Handling feature. Cheers.