Get Helvetica Off Our Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Get Helvetica Off Our Money

#31

Post by zck » Thu, Apr 22, 2010, 1:56 PM UTC

thwarted wrote: post #25

zck wrote: post #21

All the new dollar bills seem like they were designed piecemeal, with little thought as to how they coalesce into one image. Independence Hall is cut off on the right by the giant 100. It's not cut off on the left. Who cares about symmetry? The back of the $20 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_$20_Series_2006_Reverse... ) looks like a child took a highlighter and drew 20 on the bill dozens of times. There's no d…

The back of the $20 looks like a child took a highlighter and drew 20 on the bill dozens of times. There's no discernible pattern; it looks like noise. But it's not noise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation The front of the $10 has three things going on in the exact same place. Look at the seal on the right of the bill. It also has TEN written over it, and We The People in the same spot. Is it harder t…

I think it's bad aesthetics. There must be ways to make bills similarly difficult to counterfeit while still having designs that don't look like they were designed by a committee of blind bureaucrats.

Re: Get Helvetica Off Our Money

#32

Post by thwarted » Thu, Apr 22, 2010, 7:24 PM UTC

zck wrote: post #31

thwarted wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The back of the $20 looks like a child took a highlighter and drew 20 on the bill dozens of times. There's no discernible pattern; it looks like noise. But it's not noise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation The front of the $10 has three things going on in the exact same place. Look at the seal on the right of the bill. It also has TEN written over it, and We The People in the same spot. Is it harder t…

I think it's bad aesthetics. There must be ways to make bills similarly difficult to counterfeit while still having designs that don't look like they were designed by a committee of blind bureaucrats.

It's unfortunate that things can not be appreciated solely for their functional utility and that everything gets judged on its visual impression and that visual impression is valued so highly that every other aspect takes a back seat; do we really stare at our currency for so long that we are offended by its "bad aesthetics"? People are increasingly using cash less frequently thanks to the ease of ETF and credit for small transactions. One of the goals of cash is to be easily and quickly identifiable and the different monetary values to be distinct. If you have enough time to seriously appreciate the look of your currency, it's not currency. Is anyone going to say "Sorry, I'm not going to accept your $20 bill because it's ugly"? Get real.

I think calling the work that engravers do the result of a committee of blind bureaucrats does a disservice to the work and artistic effort that goes into designing cash.

There's also a reason not to make cash valuable for reasons other than the monetary value it is meant to represent, bad "aesthetics" is perhaps one way to do this. Turing cash into works of high art may end up making the value of the paper greater than the monetary value.

Re: Get Helvetica Off Our Money

#33

Post by mga » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 7:30 AM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #30

mga wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we (and when I say "we" I mean "you" because I'm not from the US) should be more concerned about the un-separation of church and state and less about the design

The large majority of Americans are Christian, and any even larger percentage believe in some sort of God. Do you really think a major hang-up preventing a separation of Church and State is the phrase on the money? This phrase is an indicator , not a contributing factor.

never said it was a factor