Tired Of Being Green

In the spirit of art and creativity theme this week, let me tell you about a contest hosted by New York designer Richard Smith. The Dollar ReDe$ign Project hopes to bring about change for everyone, the project wants to rebrand the US Dollar, rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy. All you need to do is to redesign the US Dollar bill in any way you think appropriate and send it to the project at info@dollarredesign.com for review. People will vote for it, so redesign the whole set if you can. The deadline is on this coming Labor Day and you may win an iPad.

I have to say, I just got a redesign Hong Kong 10 dollar bill and it was quite exciting to see. The new Hong Kong bills has a plastic-ky texture with a see through window on a side with a silhouette of the city flower in the middle. There are also lots of security marks that can be seen in certain angles. It's always neat to play around with new note designs, I collected all 56 new quarters and I had a lot of fun with them. They are issuing new quarter designs this year with the theme America The Beautiful featuring different national parks in the country the series will potentially run until 2021 or even 2033, so I don't see why they can't redesign their money.

Let's look at some of the designs:

Jon Stefaniak: The Future Is Now



Vertical money makes sense. When you put them in different machines, you don't have to wonder which side you put in anymore. Braille is a good feature. The red, white and blue portrait looks a bit like Obama's Hope poster a la Shepard Fairey which is quite iconic Americana. The size of the bill might be a tad too long. My biggest beef with US dollars is the length, they don't necessarily fit in my wallet and are easily folded or wrinkled.

Lee Willett: Money Maker





Excuse me but I don't really know much about American history, so I'm not getting the reference to the esteemed individuals in this set but I like how the designer tries hard to include people of different race in it. No Asians and I'm sure the angry Asian bloggers I follow will have something really harsh to say but at least I can't think of a distinguish Asian American, the most I can think of maybe Martin Yan but he's not even born in the States. I like the use of color, each note is slightly different in size for easy distinction. I don't know about the different languages on the left, while it's thoughtful, the whole world pretty much knows Arabic numerals, so it's a bit redundant. Also is it really necessary to have ad space on the bottom left corner? It just makes money that much more tackier. Still a very good design.

Fabiano Pinel: Music Man





Brazilian art director Fabiano Pinel used music as a cultural reference and choose to put American pioneers in each music genre to put on the bills, Elvis, Aretha, Run DMC and the upper left corner also has a logo associate with the artists. The bill is supposed to look like a concert ticket. I like the colors and the concept, it's nice to think outside the box but I find some design overtly plain and boring. Run DMC look bored on the paper and there's not much educational value.

Magen Farrar: Girl Power





Feeling that females are way under represented in legal tenders, recent graduate Magen Farrar designed a whole series called Girl Power. It's cute, half of the designed notes features giant smiles from distinguish women. Unlike the current male counterparts, there's a joyfulness to it and colorful too. Though I'd like to have different graphic curves in the background.

Aaron Albonetti: Green Power





From Girl Power to Green Power, graphic design student Aaron Albonetti take us to the future of America of promoting green energy. I do like the concept and the various symbols. Aaron said that the bills will be produced by 100% recycled material with security soy based ink, I wonder if that will make it deteriorate. No one wants their money to decompose. Also, The braille look the same on each tender, lol. I would like it better if the background is more colorful.

Dowling Duncan: Relative Value





This is possibly my favorite set. The design of each note corresponds to its value: $1 – The first African American president, $5 – The five biggest native American tribes, $10 – The bill of rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, $20 – 20th Century America, $50 – The 50 States of America, $100 – The first 100 days of President Franklin Roosevelt. Frankly, I'm not too sure the significant of the first 100 days of FDR but I like the educational aspect of it. I can't recite the first 10 amendments. It will help our young folks. I like the vertical design, the colors, the graphics. I understand the length difference can help blind folks and it makes it easier to see how much money you have on your hand but the difference seems a bit too sparse, but it's a set that I can get behind with some tweaking.

Dylan Smith: If The Kids Were United




By 7 year-old Dylan Smith. It'd be fun to see people using these as money, I'm sure it'll get spent faster and better stimulate the economy.

Last Year's Winners

There are a bunch of neat designs but Kyle R Thompson ultimately won last year's contest.





From the designer: “I sought inspiration in numerous areas of American culture and history, and eventually decided to focus on the philosophers and political thinkers (i.e. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, among others) who inspired the Founding Fathers. I chose this for several reasons, the most important being that I feel that a new system of US currency should be hopeful and positive, while simultaneously reminding citizens and the world at large of the ideals on which the United States was originally founded. The bills vary in size and have alternating notches for the visually impaired. The lower right corner of the bill's shape is a curvature based on the golden mean, which is meant to give the bill a powerfully distinctive appearance as compared to other currencies, as well as echoing an age of idealism and humanistic thought.”

They're neat. I like the curve and all, the drawing is a bit too simple and stylized. While it's nice to use figure who inspired the founding fathers, I much rather have figures within America. It's a very cool design though.