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Hacker News
I found it hard to vote just by saying "I like this design" for each one individually. Since we have a set of limited option, I'd rather compare and pick the ones I prefer in comparison of the others.
I helped Claude build a simple web app (static, local, oss) to make you choose among pairs, to progressively determine your personal preference.
It outputs your top 3, you can share the summary like this:
Recto Verso Euro
My top euro banknote designs:
Design H
Design D
Design B
→ https://pil0u.github.io/recto-verso-euro/#r=HDBJIGECFA&c=68
by pil0u
A) Front is nice, but I can't get over the shadow people in the backside
B) The most boring of the options. The tiny text with the bird facts should not be there.
C) Corporate hellscape.
D) wtf are those hands doing here
E) Again fronts look better than backs; fronts are very traditional bank-note to me.
F) Most interesting option. Certainly feels different than any other bank note I recall.
G) Ugh random vector shapes and gradients. Ugly in same ways as C)
H) Very inoffensive, very boring. Competing with B) in the most boring category.
I) Bit too much going on. The river map thing on the back side should be distinct in each note
J) The visual "sketchy" style just doesn't feel right here.
Ultimately F is visually my favourite although like many others I do dislike the "famous people" theme. Design I could be very nice with some tweaks
by zokier
I really dislike the back of the notes on pretty much all of them. Generic crowds of people with ugly backdrops, just feels very uninspired especially when some of the front designs are so bold
by sensanaty
For me, across all of them only two felt actually decent for a bank note (B & E, I is okay, just not used to bank notes in that orientation, same for J, but that one should be more monochrome). Either they were too vibrant or the design was too busy/had unnecesary elements.
I also feel like the notes that had buildings (like we have now) are just.. better. The initial run of 2002-2013 remains the best aesthetically, imo.
by morjom
Faces on Euro banknotes are a terrible idea. Even internationally well-known personalities are associated with certain countries, and you do not put things that represent specific countries on banknotes used in different countries.
The EU isn't a federation, and having a single currency doesn't make the eurozone any more so.
The buildings aren't as bad, being european insitution headquarters. However, as they aren't necessarily widely recognizable, they come out a bit self serving.
by CrLf
So many of these have some building as the backdrop, but all the buildings are modernist skyscrapers and uninspired office buildings
Europe doesn't have a dearth of stunning architecture. Have they all been discarded in favor of ugly straightline modernist sloptitecture because they might be construed as offensive for some reason?
I feel like the design guidelines were fundamentally flawed, and as a logical result none of the design proposals are better than what we already have.
The whole "some person's face" thing doesn't work because most people won't be familiar with them. Heck, you'd be lucky if the average person is familiar with their names! The birds & buildings suffer from the same issue: never seen them, can't identify them, don't care about them. And because it references real-world things there's a very genuine risk of people being upset over being underrepresented, or the person or institution being depicted getting disgraced.
What's left is the "vague depictions of people doing random things" theming, but that's neither European nor meaningful nor distinctive. You forget about it the second you stop looking at it.
The previous two series - depicting bridge types and building styles - neatly bypassed this by being something everyone could relate to, while at the same time not referencing anything specific-enough that anyone could be upset about it. Especially the first series nailed this down perfectly.
Given the mediocre design proposals we're now left with, I think Design J is the obvious best choice. It is not actively ugly, and the various bills are at least distinct enough that they are easy to tell apart. Design H isn't too bad, but the building side is just "generic glass blob in a distance" rather than anything one would remember and recognize.
by crote
I find the bridges to be rather brilliant, as they're distinctly European without being placeable (until Spijkenisse got feeling[1]).
The least historical governmental buildings in Europe seems like an awful choice by contrast: They're tied to a physical location in western Europe that most of us have little to no connection to. They're boring (which is not a criticism of the buildings, they're functional which is their purpose, but I'd rather not see them on coinage).
For a similar reason, the portraits are also just... fine. Greek, German, Polish-French, Spaniard, Italian, and Austrian. It's much more diverse than the buildings, but the Balkans, Nordics (including Latvia and Estonia), Benelux, and other smaller states remain unrepresented. Of course, changing anyone out would leave another unrepresented (though the obverse and reverse could both be used in harmony, why does the reverse have to be nondescript?).
If we're going for people, one thing I really like about the Swedish bills is that the person on the lowest denomination is specifically chosen to have an icon for children: Currently Astrid Lindgren and previously Selma Lagerlöf made the 20 krona bill distinctly "for the children". The choice of Bertha von Suttner for the highest denomination is one that I agree with -- and also aligned with the Swedish bank notes where the equivalent is held by Dag Hammarskjöld. Both ECB and Riksbanken chose a person best known for their pursuit of peace and unity of humankind.
Still, the beauty of the bridges is that they're European, not French or German.
All that aside, I'd hope for F or J stylistically. There's too much vectorization happening on most of the others. It feels like the others won't stand the test of time. G and C already feels ten years out of date imo.
by sakjur
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- Hacker News
- I found it hard to vote just by saying "I like this design" for each one individually. Since we have a set of limited option, I'd rather compare and pick the ones I prefer in comparison of the others.
I helped Claude build a simple web app (static, local, oss) to make you choose among pairs, to progressively determine your personal preference.
It outputs your top 3, you can share the summary like this:
It's very WIP, but I found this approach useful to fill the survey, so why not shareRecto Verso Euro My top euro banknote designs: Design H Design D Design B → https://pil0u.github.io/recto-verso-euro/#r=HDBJIGECFA&c=68by pil0u - A) Front is nice, but I can't get over the shadow people in the backside
B) The most boring of the options. The tiny text with the bird facts should not be there.
C) Corporate hellscape.
D) wtf are those hands doing here
E) Again fronts look better than backs; fronts are very traditional bank-note to me.
F) Most interesting option. Certainly feels different than any other bank note I recall.
G) Ugh random vector shapes and gradients. Ugly in same ways as C)
H) Very inoffensive, very boring. Competing with B) in the most boring category.
I) Bit too much going on. The river map thing on the back side should be distinct in each note
J) The visual "sketchy" style just doesn't feel right here.
Ultimately F is visually my favourite although like many others I do dislike the "famous people" theme. Design I could be very nice with some tweaks
by zokier - I really dislike the back of the notes on pretty much all of them. Generic crowds of people with ugly backdrops, just feels very uninspired especially when some of the front designs are so boldby sensanaty
- For me, across all of them only two felt actually decent for a bank note (B & E, I is okay, just not used to bank notes in that orientation, same for J, but that one should be more monochrome). Either they were too vibrant or the design was too busy/had unnecesary elements.
I also feel like the notes that had buildings (like we have now) are just.. better. The initial run of 2002-2013 remains the best aesthetically, imo.
by morjom - Faces on Euro banknotes are a terrible idea. Even internationally well-known personalities are associated with certain countries, and you do not put things that represent specific countries on banknotes used in different countries.
The EU isn't a federation, and having a single currency doesn't make the eurozone any more so.
The buildings aren't as bad, being european insitution headquarters. However, as they aren't necessarily widely recognizable, they come out a bit self serving.
by CrLf - So many of these have some building as the backdrop, but all the buildings are modernist skyscrapers and uninspired office buildings
Europe doesn't have a dearth of stunning architecture. Have they all been discarded in favor of ugly straightline modernist sloptitecture because they might be construed as offensive for some reason?
- I feel like the design guidelines were fundamentally flawed, and as a logical result none of the design proposals are better than what we already have.
The whole "some person's face" thing doesn't work because most people won't be familiar with them. Heck, you'd be lucky if the average person is familiar with their names! The birds & buildings suffer from the same issue: never seen them, can't identify them, don't care about them. And because it references real-world things there's a very genuine risk of people being upset over being underrepresented, or the person or institution being depicted getting disgraced.
What's left is the "vague depictions of people doing random things" theming, but that's neither European nor meaningful nor distinctive. You forget about it the second you stop looking at it.
The previous two series - depicting bridge types and building styles - neatly bypassed this by being something everyone could relate to, while at the same time not referencing anything specific-enough that anyone could be upset about it. Especially the first series nailed this down perfectly.
Given the mediocre design proposals we're now left with, I think Design J is the obvious best choice. It is not actively ugly, and the various bills are at least distinct enough that they are easy to tell apart. Design H isn't too bad, but the building side is just "generic glass blob in a distance" rather than anything one would remember and recognize.
by crote - I find the bridges to be rather brilliant, as they're distinctly European without being placeable (until Spijkenisse got feeling[1]).
The least historical governmental buildings in Europe seems like an awful choice by contrast: They're tied to a physical location in western Europe that most of us have little to no connection to. They're boring (which is not a criticism of the buildings, they're functional which is their purpose, but I'd rather not see them on coinage).
For a similar reason, the portraits are also just... fine. Greek, German, Polish-French, Spaniard, Italian, and Austrian. It's much more diverse than the buildings, but the Balkans, Nordics (including Latvia and Estonia), Benelux, and other smaller states remain unrepresented. Of course, changing anyone out would leave another unrepresented (though the obverse and reverse could both be used in harmony, why does the reverse have to be nondescript?).
If we're going for people, one thing I really like about the Swedish bills is that the person on the lowest denomination is specifically chosen to have an icon for children: Currently Astrid Lindgren and previously Selma Lagerlöf made the 20 krona bill distinctly "for the children". The choice of Bertha von Suttner for the highest denomination is one that I agree with -- and also aligned with the Swedish bank notes where the equivalent is held by Dag Hammarskjöld. Both ECB and Riksbanken chose a person best known for their pursuit of peace and unity of humankind.
Still, the beauty of the bridges is that they're European, not French or German.
All that aside, I'd hope for F or J stylistically. There's too much vectorization happening on most of the others. It feels like the others won't stand the test of time. G and C already feels ten years out of date imo.
by sakjur