Even with the assorted redesigns of American currency over the last several years, for the most part our money isn’t all that much to look at. Other countries treat their paper currency as a sort of national advertising, with handsome portraits and bright colors and such. The EU lets each member country contribute its own designs to the Euro coins, so that it’s almost like collecting baseball cards to see who and what you’re going to get. But American bills are all the same shape, color, and size (or, at least, they were until very recently).
The Dollar Redesign Project is an effort by a fellow named Richard Smith, who is a creative design consultant, to generate some interest among the design community to come up with redesigns of American paper currency. The bill at the top of this post is by artist Michael Tyznik. His submissions do a very nice job, I think, of maintaining some of the look of traditional bills, while updating the overall style. Other contributions are a bit more frivolous, but some are fairly radical departures from the very notion of paper currency.
While it seems evident that there will be a lot of talented artists and designers contributing, the rules for submitting appear to make it open to anyone who wants to contribute. So, if you’ve got some ideas, you have until July 4th to submit your entry. As Smith points out, this is just his own creative project, not any sort of official U.S. Treasury effort, so I wouldn’t count on seeing any of the designs turn up on real money, but maybe someone from the Treasury will see these and get the hint.
