Campaign hopes 'rebranding the buck' could help US recovery
Sep-29-2010

The United States could help dust off the remnants of recession by re-branding the dollar, according to one man determined to give the greenback a makeover.

Richard Smith, head of the "Dollar ReDe$ign" campaign, has made it his mission to transform the iconic green and black crinkly notes into something a tad more colorful and modern.

"I thought that maybe if we re-branded and redesigned the dollar it would give the country a boost," Smith told AFP.

The British-born designer -- who has worked for Mandarin Hotels and John Galliano -- is now running an online competition to see who can come up with a design that would give Americans a shot in the arm.

"A lot of people who take part believe in the basic idea, that we should just bring this thing up to date," said Smith.

But critics may describe Smith's plan as iconoclastic, stripping some of the design features that define the dollar.

Most of the roughly 200 designs submitted to http://richardsmith.posterous.com so far would replace the instantly recognizable chunky woodblock font -- reminiscent of a 1930s Western film -- with cleaner, crisper typeface.

The submissions would also replace images of presidents such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson with images of national parks, astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon, Elvis, a tepee, or in one modernist rendering, block colors -- cobalt blue, scarlet red and emerald green.

But the removal of mottoes like "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum" are likely to raise the hackles of more conservative users.

While the Treasury Department redesigns each note every seven to 10 years to boost security features, the thrust of the design has remained the same for a century.
"The redesigned notes preserve the distinct size, look and feel of traditional American currency," the Treasury says on its website.

"The Department of the Treasury has historically continued to honor previous designs of our currency."

A dramatic change to the latest 100-dollar bill, which went into circulation in April, comes in the vignette on the back of the note.
Instead of depicting the front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia it now depicts the back.

"The elements (the notes) contain are completely relevant in terms of representing aspects of America," admits Smith, adding: "I don't think they represent everything about America and what it stands for, the multiple facets of the country."

"It looks like you would expect currency to look like, but I think it looks like currency from a few hundred years ago."

Posted by Clay Kohut at 12:43 AM - Link to this entry  |  Share this entry  |  Print