OUGD406 - License to Print Money: Information and Interpretation

Brief title: 'Licence to Print Money'

Studio Brief 02 required the undertaking of research into the development of coinage and banknotes whilst also exploring the cultural understandings of legal tender. An interrogation of financial transactions was to be engaged with in order to complete a proposal for the future of the banknote, with consideration for currently available means of financial transaction such as Apple Pay, Contactless payment, PayPal and Bitcoin.

The proposed banknote design should be presented as a finished print that makes use of any of the varied analogue print processes available within the college's workshops. Submissions should additionally be created using a minimum of two colours/finishes. Paper size for completed work will be 21cm x 26cm with banknote designs displayed landscape. (The size of the actual banknotes are to be determined by the student based on their design rationale. It is up to the student whether they choose to display one or two sides of a banknote on the print.) 

Each 21cm x 26cm print is to be submitted by 21st April 2016 for inclusion in a Level 4 and Level 5 group show that will run in May 2016.

Please note, finished prints for this brief are not digital prints.

Brief Interpretation

When considering the current situation regarding payment, money and banking - and therefore the future of these respectively - I feel conflicted with my own desires on what money is to become. As a young adult, I am naturally interested and in support of development in technology and our abilities to find new, easier ways to live daily life, such as contactless payment (which is already greatly missed by myself at stores which are yet to provide it). However, as somewhat of a traditionalist, I would be sad to see the end of the physical banknote and its upheaval from society, normality even. 

We are living in a time in which bank employees' main targets are to show customers how to use self-service machines and suggest the use of telephone banking; More and more small branches are closing while larger branches become environments of self-service and speciality trips for that which remains impossible to be provided through a machine. 

The current generation is still inclusive of older individuals to whom the notion alone of alternative methods of payment are not understood, disregarded or frightening. When designing a new bank note, these people will still need consideration - as for the foreseeable future at the very least, physical bank notes and money are going to be both needed and wanted within society.