SWEDEN LAUNCHES BANKNOTE DESIGN COMPETITION

Sweden's Riksbank has announced a public competition to design a set of new banknotes. It's open to artists, designers and architects who reckon that they've got a good idea for revamping the country's currency.

The Riksbank says on its website that its decided that it needs to renew its banknote and coin designs for several reasons: "Today's banknotes are of good quality, but they are 25 years old. The new banknotes and coins will give us more modern banknotes with improved security features. The new coins will be smaller and lighter. This will make transporting and handling coins simpler and cheaper, which in turn will have less impact on the environment."

The theme for the new banknotes is a selection of already-chosen Swedish cultural figures and parts of the country, so bear that in mind in your design. You'll need to create grey-brown (1000SEK), red (500SEK), green (200SEK), yellow/orange (50SEK) and violet (20SEK) variants. Riksbank also has proposed that the banknotes should have distinctive printed details that can be felt with the fingertips, as an aid to the visually impaired.

If you want to enter, then you can find out more information, and far more than you'd ever want to know about currency design, on Riksbank's website.

To read the complete article, see: Sweden launches banknote design competition (www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-04/28/sweden-banknotes)

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web