New Zealand banknotes (Series 7)

时间：2015-09-01 22:49:42| 新闻|浏览：128|来源：Fonts in Use|作者：Florian Hardwig

导语Source: http://www.brightermoney.co.nz.License: All Rights Reserv

New Zealand's banknotes are getting a facelift. The $5 and $10 notes will be released from October 2015, with the $20, $50 and $100 notes targeted for April 2016. The basic themes remain the same, depicting the same well-known New Zealanders, the Queen, and flora and fauna asKarbon, these "new 'funky' banknotes" represent the "worst 'fonts in use' for me so far."

Both the parody posted by Tommy Ill and Sowersby's own tongue-in-cheek counter-proposal hint at where the rub is with the new series: too many unrelated and uncoordinated elements, in too many flashy colors. Graphic designer Andreas Weiland comments: "I guess if it's in the specs that you have to use all layer styles in photoshop, it's a pretty good solution…" While Sowersby's radically minimalist fun sketch ignores most aspects of security and usability, it actually scores better on strong contrast and large type size, two main requirements for accessibility as defined by the RB. Now for the cultural representation …

Banknotes carry significant weight as representatives of the culture of a country, and are sometimes referred to as 'a country's business cards'. Therefore, the New Zealand public should be able to identify with the designs, and value their artistic appearance.

This is where opinions differ, and will always differ. Irrespective of the concrete stylistic and thematic direction, it is vital that responsible parties actually choose one such direction. Let's hope that they start involving fewer voices in such processes — one discerning design professional is more valuable than a dozen well-meaning tourists — and that they stop aiming for a common denominator that pleases everybody, for it is too often a mingle-mangle that, in sum, hardly pleases anybody.