Matsie For the Win!

The Dollar ReDe$ign Project seems pretty intriguing at first glance.  The project focuses on the fact that perhaps a change in the way our currency looks might change the way we view our currency and economic situation.  After all, many companies re-brand themselves in order to reach a new audience or reshape the opinions of the audience they already have.

Upon closer inspection, however, the project is a good idea but much of the design seems to be ultra-hip graphic design rather than legitimate currency design.  Steve Jobs on a dollar bill?  Don’t make me vomit.  A few of the designs seem as though in five years time they will be dated pieces of post-Naughts aesthetic.

While I think an overhaul in the way our currency is designed is necessary —like moving toward more coin currency — several of the redesigns in the project seem to be more design proofs-of-concept versus any real effort to make an interesting, hip and eye-catching new currency.  I hope the fresh designs that look more like concerted efforts to recreate our currency fair better in the competition.

As I mentioned before, I would love to see more coin currency.  We really don’t need a dollar bill and it’s probably incredibly expensive to keep producing them.  We’d benefit from having dollar and possibly even two dollar coins.  I also think having different colors and sizes for different denominations of money would be a good idea.  That way both sighted and visually impaired people could easily determine how much money they had.  No mistaking a ten and a hundo when they’re completely different colors and sizes!

I think the project is a good exercise in design and I’ve seen some very interesting submissions.  I hope the designers all the best and that perhaps this project can have some sort of impact on our currency system.