Licence to Print Money - Initial Ideas

I was initially undecided as to which banknote I should redesign. I started sketching out ideas of iconic buildings or objects that I could possibly use of England and of China since these are the main banknotes that I want to redesign. 

For the redesign of The Bank of England notes, I decided to look into iconic building in the UK as I am thinking that I could incorporate the buildings onto the notes. This is because for tourists, they would be more informed about famous architecture in England and so could learn about this whilst visiting. 

Other ideas I have for The Bank of England bank note is having the Royal Family on the design, so not just the Queen but also the new heirs on the design as it shows the different generations of Royalty. Another idea is to have other iconic figures on the banknotes instead of the Royal Family as it shows important historic people that have helped shape the UK such as Winston Churchill and writers such as Shakespeare as many people may forget that they should be appreciated too. The final for the English banknote is to have it so that it seems humorous. Famous British sports was also an idea as people would know that sports such as tennis (Wimbledon), football, cricket, polo and golf that may be distinct to the British culture. The idea is to use stereotypical English items that people from other counties associate Brits with such as red telephone boxes, London Underground, Tea, English Flag or slang terms.

For the Chinese Yuan, the idea that I'm thinking of doing is using the whole idea of Chinese New Year on the banknote; Chinese New Year is a very important event for all Chinese families wherever in the world they live or where they were born, every Chinese person will always celebrate this tradition. There are always huge parades in different countries, even in different cities where Chinese and non Chinese people would celebrate it and it's a huge gathering.

The idea that I thought of was to base the banknote on Chinese tradition/culture. The banknote would have the Chinese zodiac animals on the design in the order of which animal came first; this will be based on the most common Ancient Folklore of which animal came first in the swimming race to reach the Jade Emperor. In this case, the rat came first so the banknote which is the highest value (¥100) would have the rat on it. As the banknotes would gradually become decreasing in value, the other animals in order will be on the next bank note. The next banknote would be ¥50 so the OX will be on it since it came second.

I was however contemplating for a while whether to use the dragon as the animal on the ¥100 since this is what most people would associate with Chinese New Year. This idea was really persuasive to do as I understand how people would think that the dragon is main idea associated with the Chinese tradition. However, I realised that the dragon would make sense if tourists were using the banknotes but it actually would be the Chinese that will be using the banknotes so they may become confused as to why the dragon is on the banknote first instead of the rat. The rat idea seemed to be more sensible as Chinese people know their culture and they know the rat is the first animal in the Zodiac calendar.

Monoprint Workshop

Monoprinting:
At the monoprint workshop, I found it fairly easy to make prints as I think it is a straight forward process. The most difficult part is just creating the shapes of what you want printing and the rest is easy. I like how you can print a design over and over with one layer of ink as the colour will slowly become a lighter shade of the first print so you can see the gradient effect when you compare the outcomes.

I also experimented with using different colours in the print by adding a different colour to the screen after the first colour had slightly faded.

I used my Secret 7" dove stencil to create these prints. I had only inked up the screen once and got different gradients of the design.

Secret 7" Feedback

Final 3 Designs
The designs are in order of 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Design influence

1. The peaceful scenery of nature. The purply/blue sunset makes you feel like you're in paradise and the same feeling as being in love.
2. Simple, clean, sharp design representing the simplicity and ease of the feeling of being in love. The blue represents the tranquility of love.
3. Rob Ryan inspired, the elements of the hearts and stars represent the idea of being in love and the cut out design represents the delicacy. 

Questions

1. What song do you think this design is for?

• Don't know the tracks sorry
• Sorry, haven't listened to any of the songs so not sure
• Imagine - dove representing peace is obvious symbolism 
• Maybe Dream
• Imagine?
• Definitely Jack Garrett, not it's Dream lol
• Imagine? Dream 3
• Imagine/Dream 3
• Imagine because of the word Heaven
• Imagine?
• Imagine? Dream 3?
• Clearest Blue?
• Yeah, Imagine?

2. Do you think the design look aesthetically pleasing?

• No, the simplicity of design is highly effective. Stock used matches the design more interesting!
• Yeah because of the delicate dreamy theme and Heaven reference
• Yes, the delicate hand cut design would look lovely as a physical design. Do not make it digital!
• Yes looks good
• Designs have a beautiful tactically and feel personal. Make sure you scan it in high quality so you don't have to loose the detail
• Beautiful designs that use a perfect colour scheme and link to the title perfectly
• Yes - all designs are aesthetically pleasing, however cut-out is too much like Rob Ryan
• The pencil drawing does and the paper cutting
• The first design looks cool - but cut out shows a lot of skill
• Yes, 3rd design is strongest, don't feel requires type
• Love the hand rendered tactile nature of the 3rd
• I actually like 1 and 2 because the third one with the stars and the word Heaven are a bit too much? The 1st one is really pleasing and peaceful. The 2nd one is very clean and simple as well
• Third one is the best, more intricate in design and has more depth. The 1st could be promising if better coloured
• Yes, I love rob Ryan, but is it too similar?
• Yes, design 1 is my favourite as shows the most time and effort with the blending of the colours

3. Which design would you prefer?

• Middle bird works the best
• The 1st design 
• The pencil drawing 
• I like the second one as it is simple, clear 
• 1st
• 3
• First
• 3rd
• Yes, design 3 is my personal favourite 
• The cut out design
• Third one
• The plain blue design with the white dove
• The middle one
• Prefer the middle design, however the first one is a good concept and with further editing could work nicely 
• I prefer the first design however also like the cut out
• I like the dove with the heart in the eye and the use of the light blue colour as it is almost peaceful. The hand rendered elements work well but I prefer the aesthetic of the digital one
• Prefer cut out design! Different and original lovely work
• Paper cut, you've pulled it off so well

Other comments:

• Might be too similar to Rob Ryan? Really like the paper craft idea though. Maybe alter the design slightly 
• Design 2 reminds me of Emma Dubbers work, really strong, effective, conceptual 
• Compared to the other designs likely to be in the competition - no.

Having read the feedback I had received, I am very surprised that no one had actually guessed correctly. My design turned out more ambitious as I thought even though I wrote my design influence on all the design, no one seemed to understand the song. I think I may have over-complicated my designs. I counted that 5 people liked the first design, 6 people liked the 2nd and 7 people liked the 3rd design. I am surprised as to the first design as I didn't think it look like a strong enough design since it doesn't look well drawn or neat. I am glad most people liked the 3rd design the most as do I. However, a few people have said it looks similar to Rob Ryan's artwork which I don't understand as I was inspired by his designs anyway so it would look similar. Someone also wrote that none of my designs are good enough to be in the competition. 

Galaxy background

Before deciding on wanting my book to be published online, I originally had the idea to use G.F. Smith paper stock in 'Peregrina Majestic - Night Club Purple' as it looked sort of mysterious and galaxy themed, which would be suitable to print my physical book on. Now that I have decided not to print it out, I still wanted the space/galaxy theme.

I found a video on YouTube which was a tutorial how to create a galaxy background. I found it very useful as I had followed it to create the galaxy background for my eBook.

This is the original design I created when I followed the step-by-step tutorial. I didn't want the planet there as I wanted to use the background to cover over two pages and the plant might look misplaced or odd.

I got rid of the planet and left it so it just looks like the galaxy with the stars and the different colours. I also added a white background on top but I turned the opacity down as I though the original design might look too bold for the content. This is what the design looked like. It was really difficult to see as there was too much going on still and it looked uneasy.

I then got rid of the layer with the colours on it so it would look more subtle. This design worked out well as I also made the type and the design white. I really like this one as it stands out more and the background still looks like a galaxy as you can still see the design and the colours.

Even though there is a range of different colours in the background, I picked this one up as the main colour. 

Licence to Print Money Research

Currencies: 
Each country should have its own currency. For example, the U.S. uses U.S. dollars, People's Republic of China use Yuan and Switzerland uses the Swiss franc. The only exception would be Europe where several European countries use the euro as its currency. Some countries such as the Panama has allowed the use of the U.S. dollar as their legal currency as it is more convenient for them.

Digital payments:
Bitcoin is a type of digital currency and is used for sending money through the Internet. The coin allows you to send money to any country and does not hold a particular currency. The coin also allows you to buy things online and is easy to set up. How it works is that you buy the coins online and then you send it to other people or use your Bitcoins to buy items online.

PayPal is another digital payment where you can use it to buy things online and send money more securely. Personal PayPal accounts are usually free so you would not need to pay to join. To set up your PayPal account you would have two at your existing bank accounts/bank cards once the website waiting transfer the money to other people/organisations or purchases.

Cards:
 cards are very popular and convenient as they are an alternative way of having to carry cash. Cards are made up of plastic and they have a metal chip on the left side of the card so that when you insert it into a ATM machine or a card reader, it can automatically read your bank account so that it can deduct or add money into your account. There are different types of payment cards such as a credit card, debit card and a prepaid cards.

Credit card allows you to make payments using credit where you would have to pay back to the bank issuer but would usually charge interest fees.

A debit card is similar to cash, it withdraws money directly out of your bank account when you make a purchase or withdraw money.

Prepaid cards would  require you to have existing funds in the account and would only be used when there are funds still remaining and can be disposable after the funds run out.

Contactless cards are easy way to make a payment in store, all you have to do is tap your card onto the card reader but you can only use a contactless card if the store has a contactless sign. Due to theft control, the maximum that you can purchase with a contactless card is £30. Contactless cards are only available if you have a debit card.

Apple Pay or mobile payments also allows you to make contactless payments and you could spend more than £30. To make the payment, you would have to set up your contactless card on your mobile device and to make the payment it would require you to either authorise it by using your mobile passcode or by using fingerprint recognition. These type of payments are only available on smartphone devices.  To make a purchase, it would be the same as using a contactless card where you tap your phone onto the card reader.



Cheques/physical cash:
Cheques are used to pay someone if you do not have physical cash on hand for unable to produce any money that may be required immediately. To use a cheque, you have to fill out the details from your bank account cheque-book so when the payee takes a cheque to the bank, the money will come straight out of the payer's bank account. Cheques are rarely used now and are slow to process,  they may be wiped out in 2018 due to the lack of use. People can still use cheques now because older/elderly people may not understand how cards work and so cheques are more convenient for them.

Banknotes are currently made of special cotton and linen combined, the Bank of England are planning on producing polymer banknotes in 2016. Polymer is higher quality the existing cotton banknotes and are more difficult to counterfeit and also production would be lower.

Banknotes are more reliable and easy to transport as it is not heavy and it is untraceable so that if you buy something that you don't want people knowing, people cannot find out.


The process of printing current banknotes:
Offset Litho: Prints most of the front and back of the banknote .
Intaglio: Prints on the portrait of Her Majesty the Queen.
Letterpress: Prints the number and the lettering onto the banknote.

Currency Research

Research into currencies

All current of the bank of England includes an portrait image of her Majesty the Queen. However, on the back of each bank notes there are other iconic British figures printed. The Bank of England consists of 4 banknotes that are £50, £20, £10 and £5.

On the £5 note, it has a portrait image of Elizabeth Fry. Elizabeth Fry was a role model and inspired others to take care of one another, she is a famous icon and was a reformer. She had seen that prisoners were being treated unfairly as they were living in a poor, dark and dangerous environment. Elizabeth was the first woman to campaign for better prisons as she thought that business should also be treated as everybody else. She had brought clean clothes, started a school and taught women prisoners to knit and sew so that they can earn money.

Elizabeth also helped homeless people where she had set up shelters in areas where homeless children had no food or a place to sleep.

Charles Darwin’s portrait is placed on the back of the £10 note. Darwin was a scientist and was chosen to become the naturalist on the board HMS Beagle, which took five years. The voyage helped Darwin to collect specimens in which she could document his findings into his journal. He published a book during his return from the trip and it was called The Voyage of the Beagle. however, during his adventure he contracted the disease which made him seriously ill. Darwin continued to write about specimens and so he created The Theory of Evolution.

Adam Smith was a hugely influential Scottish political economist and philosopher and has note a book called ‘The Wealth of Nations’. He is placed on the back of the £20 note. He was a professor of logic at Glasgow University, a year later he also became professor of mortal philosophy. Smith also tutored Henry, the future Duke of Buccleuch. Smith moved to London in 1776 where he published a volume that covered theology, ethics, politics and law. In 1778, he was appointed Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh and became a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

On the £50 note, there are two iconic figures who are Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Both Matthew and James were responsible for accelerating the process of manufacturing stem engines during the 18th and 19th century. inventions made a huge positive impact on the Industrial Revolution.

The £20 note from when it initially had the image of Sir Edward Elgar was redesigned because the £20 note was the most popular banknote to be counterfeited. Banknotes are often redesigned due to counterfeit and also because notes wear out and can get damaged after a while so they are renewed after a while.

People's Republic of China uses the Yuan currency which is also known as the renminbi and consists of 10 banknotes. The banknotes in order from the largest amount to the smallest amount is:

100 yuan, 50 yuan, 20 yuan, 10 yuan, 5 yuan, 2 yuan, 1 yuan, 5 jiao, 2 jiao and 1 jiao. On the all the yuan notes, they have a portrait image of Mao Zedong. 

Licence to Print Money

Licence to Print Money
The brief is about putting the focus on physical money as we are in an era where not many people seem to carry around cash wether that would be coins or banknotes but instead, it has been replaced with cards, contactless payments, and online payments such as PayPal and Bitcoin. We must design 30 ideas and the final outcome of the brief is to design banknotes or banknote with the option of either printing the design on one side or having it the same/different design on both sides. The design must be made 21cm x 26cm and it should not be printed off as digital prints but we should explore different medias such as monoprint or screenprint. The banknote can be created in any currency or we could even create a worldwide currency.

When creating the final outcome of our banknotes, we should consider currency, culture, redesigns of currencies and existing methods of payment.

How Do You Read? Evaluation

All the information and research from the editorial were accumulated by what I had learnt in the Design Principles lessons and lectures in which I have blogged.

I that the final design turned out well as the designs fit inside the sections and doesn't look overbearingly too much for the eyes. You can see that each section is split up well because the grids have made it easier to make it equal and proportionate. I have also managed to not put too many words in the design it would probably put someone off trying to learn from it.

From reading the feedback, they have all been very positive and they have spoken about how relevant the information is for my target audience and how they liked the fold and the multipurpose use of the design. In particular, everyone chose the 2nd fold which I also prefer. There was a comment about the cover which was that it looked slightly plain. I can agree on this as I also think it could probably look better however I wanted the theme to be consistent and not overcomplicate the design too much.

How Do You Read? Feedback

Is there enough information for my target audience?

• Yes
• For beginners, yes this is enough
• I think you've covered all the relevant information 
• Yes, it's not got too much information that they will be bombarded with
• Yeah it is easy to understand and straight to the point
• Yes it is child friendly
• Easily understandable information 

What do you think about the layout and the fold and which fold do you prefer?

• It's handy and would fit in most pockets
• The fold is good, not too complicated. 2nd
• It works really well with the design and 2nd
• Second fold looks better
• 2
• The layout is suitable for the content and I think I like the 2nd one more
• The layout and fold work really well together and I like the 2nd one too

What do you think of the overall design?

• It's not overcomplicated, it gets the relevant information across. I really like how you have thought about it being of two different uses. Very handy
• The layout and design is perfect for your target audience
• The design is very bright and colourful which is suitable for younger people
• I like how it us multipurpose 
• I really like the concept and the design as it doesn't look boring or overloaded with words
• I think it looks great although the cover looks slightly plain? Maybe you could add more to it?

Secret 7 - Etta James - At Last!

Background
Etta James was born in Los Angeles on the 25th January 1938 where her mother was 14 years old at the time, her real name is Jamesetta Hawkins. By the age of 5, she was already in the Gospel where she gained her fame from singing in her Church choir and on the radio. By the age of 12, she moved to San Fransisco where her career started to form.

At Last! Is an upbeat song that has Soul, Blues, Jazz and R&B aspects to it. The song was released in 1961 and it is a popular wedding song as it is about finding that one true love. Some of the lyrics I thought were significant were "a spell was cast... skies above are blue... here we are in Heaven for you are mine at last".

Ideas:

• Retro microphone - classical song 
• Mystical/eerie - 'dream', 'spell was cast'
• Outline of her facial features (eyebrows, beauty spot and mouth/hair)  - representative of Etta
• Church windows - She was part of the Gospel in her local Church
• Jukebox - The song reminds me of bars in movies and how there's always a jukebox in the background playing a classic song
• Sunset - another word for 'Heaven' is 'paradise' and I thought of serene scenery such as a sunset
• Beach/warm weather - also what I would associate with 'paradise' 
• Dove - Etta's religious background. The Dove is the symbol for the Holy Spirit and as it is a popular wedding song, some couples free doves at their wedding as a sign of freedom and being at one
• Clouds - Heaven
• Star - Etta is part of the 'Hollywood Wall of Fame'
• Hearts - represents love

The design would definitely have some form of blue as Etta references the colour blue. The colour blue also symbolises calm, loyalty, trust, responsible, reliability, caring and peaceful. 

These are the designs I drew up to see how I liked it. The designs come from the ideas that I have explained above. The word 'Nivarna' is another word for paradise but I didn't carry on that idea since it would be too simple just to have the word on its own and also people may mistake it for another band so it may be confusing. 

I hand drew a sunset since it feels more personal and raw which seems to reflect the idea of being in love. I was originally going to draw a orange/red sunset but as I had already said, I wanted to use blue as a main colour focus so I chose a blue/purply sunset but it seems too dull. The drawing was inspired by a photo that I had taken on holiday. The drawing was suppose to look soft but I didn't particularly like the outcome. I do however do like the photo image but again, it may look to dull for the upbeat tune but I will use it as an option.

This is another image I had taken on holiday which could also represent paradise as it is serene. I prefer this one better as it is brighter, calming and it makes you feel relaxed since scenery looks peaceful and warm. The image also captures the whole idea of being on a beach and nature which I think is paradise. The blue skies and the blue/green water makes the image makes you feel uplifted. 

The photography images look better than a drawn image as it looks more realistic and it looks crisp and sharp so you can see the real details of the image. Although the image is slightly smaller, this would be the proportion of the image when printed. 

I really liked the idea of using a dove in my final design therefore I experimented with concept. I designed the dove on illustrator and added a light blue background so that it looks softer and represents blue skies. The design looks simple as it just has the dove in the centre of the image. The first design of the dove with heart eyes is the one I prefer the most because it looks compositionally more appealing as it centred. The small touch of the heart eye is very simple but it makes the image more obvious as to what song it represents. The second design I have put the two doves together as it shows the idea of coming together 'At Last' but there is too much white space around and it looks quite boring. I didn't use heart eyes as I though it might over-do the image as it clearly shows the doves coming together in harmony already. The shade of blue I used is a light, baby blue shade that I thought was the most suitable for clear blue skies. The last two dove designs are quite similar however one is ore of a cleaner repetition of doves and the other is more of a confetti, scattered effect. I do like both but I don't think it fits as well as the first dove as they seem to have a lot going on and also because it doesn't seem like an album cover as it looks too common.

Although I prefer the first dove design, I felt it look too clean because the blue is just a solid colour and I felt like it needed texture.

I had experimented with monoprint as a possibility since the I liked the dove design but I didn't like how the colour was solid and I wanted it to look like it has texture. I experimented with different colour variations and the last two that I ended up liking the most are both similar blue shades but one I have of the dover outline and the other is of the solid coloured dove. Although my digital design is mostly similar to the first outline of the dove, I think I like the solid filled dove since it looks cleaner and sharper. The outlined dove looks murky and it is more difficult to see as the outline is not as noticeable.

Evaluation
This design was inspired by Rob Ryan's artwork. Rob Ryan's artwork is very delicate, intricate and dainty and it gives a personal feel. I wanted to create an art piece by cutting the image by hand to give it more of a special meaning. Most of Rob Ryan's artwork are about love/emotions which is exactly why I was inspired to create something from his taste as it works well with the song. I have used elements of the song in the cut out such as the heart to represent love, stars and clouds to represent Heaven and then I have actually wrote the word 'Heaven' because it ties the image in as it is a lyric from the song. I had obviously used the dove as I liked how it indicates her background and also how doves are used at weddings.

As you can see from when I had drawn the image out to final piece, the design is slightly different as I struggled with the cut out because it was so delicate to cut and difficult to cut around small shapes then  I also got confused to which pieces were suppose to beck out and which weren't. The final outcome does look slightly less detailed than anticipated but I do like it as it is simple and unique. I still had the main cut out pieces in there so I wasn't too worried about the pieces I accidentally cut off. I do think that it is not too obvious and is quite ambiguous which I wanted to achieve. Of all my designs, this is the one I like the most since it is delicate and dainty which represents the idea of love and relates to the song.

The blue background is to represent blue skies and a peaceful scene. I have used G F Smith 'NEW BLUE' as the suitable background colour. I don't particularly like the scanned image as the colour looks darker and it is in real life.

Secret 7

Secret 7 is a live competition brief where you design a 7" album cover for one or more of the 7 chosen songs which include:

Chvrches - Clearest Blue

Etta James - At Last!

Jack Garrett - Worry

The Jam - Art School

John Lennon - Imagine

Max Richter - Dream 3

Tame Impala - The Less I Know the Better

The album cover is not allowed to be too obvious so you cannot include the song title, artist name or their face(s). Research into the artists' background, previous album covers and lyrics would be an appropriate type of investigation for the final outcome. When working digitally, CMYK would have to be used as it will be physically printed out so the colours on screen would be as similar as it would when it is printed. We must have a least 30 ideas to choose from so we have a range of possible ideas.

The song that I have decided to do is Etta James' 'At Last!'. The main reason for this choice is because it's only song that I know out of all of them. This song seems to be very popular and is a classic as I have heard it a lot from when I was younger and still now since it is featured in movies and programmes.