EVROPA: The Golden Age of Banknote Design

January 23, 2025

By now, I’ve written extensively on the history and process of the design of paper money. Those familiar with my work will know me as an artist who incorporates banknote design processes, and my first published book, Art & Money.

While I’m pleased with Art & Money, I always find more to say on the subject of the art of banknote design. I’ll muse on this subject in a daydream state; as you would expect, because art belongs in the realm of the imagination. When not daydreaming, I’m crunching numbers: I analyse the present state of the global macroeconomic environment and microeconomic developments, in the hopes of accurately predicting the future. It’s a perfect compliment to daydreaming. I live Art & Money.

My latest thoughts are inspired by the ECB’s longterm proposal to redesign the Euro banknotes. This makes me reflect on the state of banknote design in Europe, immediately prior to the introduction of the Euro currency. And of course, I can’t help think about the cultural and economic developments that lead to those designs of the 90s.

Banknote design offers some of the best visual evidence of social and economic trends: it’s design that unites a central bank, a government, and a people, in order to participate the global financial system, which is ultimately a claim on all human endeavour. In other words: banknote design is a big deal.

When and where was the Golden Age of Banknote Design? In my opinion, it is to be found in Western Europe in the last decade of the last millennium. This statement needs qualification: the artistry in creating some early 20th century banknotes is unmatched; I would never question the supremacy of the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the field of intaglio arts; even the early black and white banknotes of England, while technically uninteresting, have a magical austerity to them.

My statement isn’t about aesthetics or artistry; I’m specifically approaching this question from the perspective of a technical designer and cultural commentator. Early 20th century banknote design was not yet developed enough to establish a great diversity of design. As beautiful as some examples are, they follow a narrow template in an art-form that was yet to be fully freed by kaleidoscopic technological and social progress of the 20th century.

The banknote landscape of the 1990s presents a unique moment in design history — where technological developments, design approach, and the liberal democratic cultures of Europe all converged in a collection of totally different, unique and — in my opinion — brilliant designs. The banknotes of pre-Euro European currencies can be looked at in comparison with each other, where the unique expressive flare of each country is evident. But also, they can be viewed as a culmination of each country’s banknote evolution, through time. When you gain an appreciation of where these designs came from, as refreshed versions of prior designs, you admire the design process even more.

Being British by birth, the Bank of England notes remain at the centre of my banknote universe, acting as a cultural touchstone that will always be familiar, even if I’ve spent over 30% of my adult life living away from UK. The Series E 50 Pounds banknote is one of the greatest examples of English art and design. It is a masterpiece. In my opinion, it is in league with the 1870 design of the Palace of Westminster, the Lindisfarne Gospels folio, the Gothic ceiling of Westminster abbey, St.Paul’s cathedral and the greatest examples of English portraiture and iconic landscape painting.

The design is so rich. It is immediately evident that it couldn’t be conceived by a single designer, in a short space of time. It is incredibly well ‘worked’, and shows awareness of all the visual triggers of a uniquely English design history. Ireland, Wales and Scotland are all unarguably Sui Generis: there is an approach to art and architecture that is unmistakably Scottish, Welsh and Irish. And the same is true of England, which is specifically floral, industrial, imperious, ceremonial, yet wheat-eared and starchy. All this is present in the Series E series.

In the days before neo-banks and digital boarding passes, the first interaction with a new country was usually its physical currency. For me, the other banknotes of Western Europe were tickets that accompanied the journey on every family holiday and remind me of the first sights and smells of cultures other than my own.

In arrival, France has a woody, vaguely citrus scent. Italy is the amaretto-flavoured floor cleaner on the marble of airports and hotels. Spain is somewhere between butter and leather. Smell is the most enduring sense, and the most viscerally experienced, because it is intimately connected to the memory of places and emotions. When tethered to the currency of a nation, smell electrifies the distinctiveness of each culture and how we experience it.

France had two families of banknotes in the 90s — one remnant of the 70s and 80s, and an experimental series introduced in 1992. While the later designs are bolder, they manage to smooth over the distinctiveness of the older series, which draw from the classic Banque De France technique of colourful banknote portraiture, built from layered lithography.

The Bank of England notes establish a strong visual authority with imposing gothic text and typeface from the Victorian Industrial Revolution, combined with floral Edwardian script. This evokes the gravitas of legal process, the omnipresent dominance of officialdom, English sovereignty.

In contrast, the French notes’ typeface choices are closer to the fonts found in everyday life; wine bottles, restaurant and theatre signage. Combining this with the painting quality of the portraiture and background puts the family of banknotes amongst the wicker chairs of a Parisian café. There is a uniquely casual gesture that can only be French; in these designs, there can be found the devotion to the duty of food and drink and the discussion of food and drink, and the maintenance of an unpretentious, easy-going provincial outlook at every level of life.

When I turn to the banknotes of Spain and Portugal, there are completely different visual languages in use. Spain’s family from the 80s bleed into the 90s, which was updated later in the decade. It looks like the update was a late attempt to harmonise with other designs of Europe (namely, Switzerland), again smuthering the distinctiveness of the previous family. Spain’s banknote family at the start of the 90s features large, beautifully engraved portraits, and an earnest colour palette of hot oranges, muted blues, and ochres. This is in keeping with the 20th century history of Spanish banknotes, which were always intaglio heavy. The designs follow a basic banknote template, but there are little design choices that give the artwork a Spanish inflection — the custom fonts, the blending of small and large caps, and intaglio design elements that are reminiscent of seafront modular architecture of the Iberian peninsula.

In complete contrast, Portuguese Escudo featured gothic calligraphy, vivid colours, an illustrative style, expressing Portugal’s maritime identity, as Europe’s West-most country. The dark intaglio banner to the left of each note is almost like a thin, medieval flag. In viewing these banknotes, we’re experiencing a vibrant moment of storytelling, by someone who loves to regale us with stories with a Portuguese lilt.

Over in Germany, the ultimate banknote family of the 20th century rounded off a very complicated currency history — from empire, the Weimer Republic, Terroritorial issues, Rentenmark, Reichmark, Notgeld, the Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic, as well as coupons issued by regional banks and post-war foreign occupiers.

The early 90s series comprised of a relatively large number of denominations, which obviously inspired the current Euro design framework. It’s also clear that the designs themselves were inspiration for the present Euro banknotes, marking the Euro project with heavy German ambition: Germany is politically, economically and territorially the center of Europe, so it makes sense that the Euro draws heavily from the last series of German banknotes. It is not controversial to say that the Euro project is a German project.

When seen from this perspective, I consider the 90s German banknote family to be midway between the Germanic conservatism of the 1970–80 series, and the dawning of the lighter, politically correct, internet age — more women featured, lighter portraits, restricted use of the Gothic typeface, and illustrative backgrounds.

I could go on and on, across the whole of Europe. When we cross over into Czech Republic and Poland, we’re in the Slavic world, and the change in language family is reflected in a completely different design approach and banknote lexicon. Hungarian banknotes stand out as a culture that is very aware of typeface and print. Hungarian design has a specific paprika-infused intonation; Hungarian design awareness is anchored by the most exclamatory and decorative moments of early modernism.

Having lived in other cultures, I’m always mesmerized by the way in which every language has its own unique cadence and posture, that either begets or is an expression of a tribe’s singular attitude and approach to life. These cadences are not translatable, but they represent the intangible persona of a tribe that you must inevitably take on, if you want to speak the language authentically. Somehow, Italian cannot be spoken without bumptious gesticulation. The timbres of Polish cannot be fully articulated without undertaking cynicism and suspicion. Portuguese is flat without self-preservation. Asian tonal languages have to be declarative, because tone creates meaning, rather than the emotion behind the words; to a foreign ear, ordinary conversation can sound like pained fawning, brash negotiation, or a possible query, when there is no query. And what’s more interesting to me, as a designer, is how these unique cadences and timbres translate visually into a tribe’s art. This is what I’m talking about when I attempt to express the uniqueness of country’s banknote design. It is not a teachable, paint-by-numbers design process, but a visual flare that is felt.

Ultimately, I want to convey the diversity of European culture, which endures, despite the unified currency project: it just so happened that the 1990s saw a convergence of banknote technology and a maturity of European design, which produced a unique diversity of banknotes, before being replaced by the utilitarianism of a pan-national currency mandate. Yes, there are lots of lessons in designs here. But more importantly, the banknotes of 1990s Europe are important historical documents of the unique expressive modality of each European country. Whether they’re the seat of empire, a post-war reconstruction, or a newly formed annex; the tribes of Europe each have their own visual flare that derives its power from the fact that they have not been colonized, unlike much of the world. This power runs through each country’s history, and culminates in these banknote designs. It also serves as a reminder: all artificial jurisdictions eventually yield to the richer, more deeply felt traditions of the individual tribes that live under it.