Designing coins for the UK

[augsburger]

Woohoo!!! Do you like the horsey one?

[bagerap]

Ah. So it's meant to be a..............horse?

[augsburger]

Well it's called ekwestriunism or something like that, so I tried to find an ekwestriun but there weren't any pictures of them, so I did a horse instead.

[bagerap]

"so I tried to find an ekwestriun but there weren't any pictures of them"

I blame global warming.

[Figleaf]

@augsburger, are YOU happy with what the mint made of your design?

Peter

[augsburger]

Well, it's more or less what I presented, so, I can't complain. Though I sent in lots of different types of designs and the chose on of the most boring.

[Figleaf]

Har har har. I have been a civil servant myself. Count on them to do that. It's politely called covering your backside.

Peter

[augsburger]

Actually, they said this is what they wanted to do, this was my design so it should be like this. The swimming design on the other hand....

As for the Austrian coin with kaernten on the one side, they completely changed that and it would have annoyed me.

The only think that might have been nice was to be told that I had won and to be able to change it a bit, but for this design I probably wouldn't have. It was hard doing 2D things for coins, as many of my designed I did to play with the light, like Luxembourg does to get around putting the duke on the coins. But they didn't see it as being worthy in 2D, I did this mainly on the fighting type coins, like Judo and whatnot.

[Figleaf]

It sounds like they do a competition, setting rules, then, after you've won, they make additional restrictions that go beyond mere technical adjustments? Isn't that a bit control-freakish?

Yes, the latent images (Spain also uses them regularly) are creative, but they are no longer innovative. They would have been fun if they had been used on the main design element of the sports series, as most involve movement. However, when that was tried before (Netherlands, 10 euro 2004) it didn't work well - which may have been because it was a 3 in 1 latent image.

If you could do it again, this time with dictatorial powers , would you have done it vastly differently?

Peter

[augsburger]

Maybe not innovative in the way they use latent images, mine didn't have this, totally impossible to present on a piece of paper, but they used the difference in light coming at various angles.

I don't know what I would have done with dictatorial powers. I think I might not have tried so hard. Just like Kim Jong-Il being the best golfer ever to have graced this earth, he probably didn't get all excited about it, whereas Colin Montgomery, well, he'd have loved to with a masters and got all the excitement of losing when in an unbeatable position.

[Figleaf]

Kim Jong-Il also invented the hamburger (that's what the North Korean government says, so it must be true)

What I am after is insight in how much freedom you got with your design (not talking about technical needs, such as relief height) here and how that impacted the design.

Peter

[augsburger]

Not being a designer by trade and not having any package which I could use I did the old pencil and paper job. How do you show that you want this to be raised and this to be lower? I have no idea really. I saw some of the computer designs on the TV program and they had used stronger black to present this. But you take a chance that the design will not be seen. You are basically winning a competition for a 2D paper design, and not the final coin design, as far as I can tell. Perhaps the later stages turn to a model as I know the professionals were allowed to make their own models, so had an added advantage over the mortals like me! But then again they said the horsey was one of the most popular designs submitted.

[Coinsforever]

Kim Jong-Il also invented the hamburger (that's what the North Korean government says, so it must be true)

Thank God , he restricted himself to "Hamburger" only and as usual forgot  to  invent "Hot Dog" and "Curries".

Cheers

[Figleaf]

http://pythonide.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-make-money-with-free-software.html

For some ideas on using free software to design a coin.

Peter

[RabensteinK]

Thanks for the link! Stani's description of how he won the 2008 Dutch design competition for a commemorative €5 coin themed "Netherlands and architecture" is awesome. While not everyone might find his resulting coin visually pleasing, and - like Bruce Rushin's 1997 definitive UK £2 "technological progress through the ages" design - it isn't fully understood until explained in detail, conceptually and in terms of execution it is brilliant. And not a single building in sight! Well done that man, I say.