License to Print Money 1.0

The brief requires me to design and create my own currency using traditional printing techniques, specifically screen printing. Having the opportunity to work fully analogue is exciting because it will allow me to explore different materials and colours that I wouldn't replicate digitally.

Specifications

• Size: 21cm x 26cm
• Must be screen printed

I aim to research in depth about the history of money and how the concept of money is changing using a range of sources so that I can make informed and conceptual decisions. 

People's History Museum

To begin the brief, I went to Manchester's People's History Museum to see the Show Me The Money exhibition to gain an idea of how money has adapted and changed since 1700. The exhibition charts how the financial world has been imagined in art, illustration, photography and other visual media.

Murdoch's Millions

Edinburgh City of Print, 2009

Noticed that a lot of the exhibition was based on politics and how our government deals with our money. Murdoch's Millions is a fake bank note with the face of conservative Margaret Thatcher on the Queen's body. The central area reads, 'Murdoch is bad news. Don't Buy the Sun, News of the World, The Times, The Sunday Times'. There are a lot of facts and figures about Murdoch such as 'This note is as phony as Rupert Murdoch'.

The note consists of just two tones including the stock and ink which would work well as a screen print. The layout is very similar to the current GBP note but has more content in the form of type and information. The style reminds me of Private Eye.

Rupert Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931, in Melbourne, Australia. His father was a famous war correspondent and newspaper publisher. Murdoch inherited his father's papers, the Sunday Mail and the News, and continued to purchase other media outlets over the years. In the 1970s, he started buying American newspapers. Murdoch branched out into entertainment with the purchase of 20th Century Fox Film Corp. in 1985. He later launched his own cable news channel, FOX News.

The £55 relates to the information at the bottom of the note. There is clearly an angry tone of voice and I like how they have chosen to copy the information on a bank note because it is the focus of the issue. 

Using the bank note to express opinions and views is a useful and efficient concept because everyone owns bank notes which will make spread the message printed on the bank note. Advertising with money will draw in an income and also inform and influence the people spending it. This is a concept I would like to take further because I think it has a lot of scope for development. 

Zimbabwean Trillian Dollar Note

During the late 2000s the Zimbabwean dollar suffered hyperinflation, rapidly losing value and being issued in higher and higher denominations. In the summer of 2008 inflation reached 231,000,000%. A hundred trillion dollar note was printed before Zimbabwe adopted other countries' currencies for everyday transactions.

Seeing this example reminds me that there are no limitations to what money can be. Just because it sounds like a lot of money in the British currency, doesn't mean it is a lot.

Thomas Gokey 

Interview with Gokey

Total Amount of Money Rendered in Exchange for a Masters of Fine Arts Degree to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pulped into Four Sheets of Paper, 2012

Gokey pulped the exact cost of his Masters Degree in Fine Art, this totalled to $49,983 . He could then sell the paper, piece by piece until the debt was paid back. In owning a piece of Gokey's art, we also own a piece of his debt.

'I was thinking, my diploma is just a piece of paper, and it costs all this money. And our money is just pieces of paper that are more or less worthless, but we treat them as valuable because they are "legal tender for all debts public and private."

It's strange to think of money in this concept and it makes you realise how much money is relied upon but it's just paper. I like how Gokey has put money into perspective, emphasising how much money education costs and also taking advantage of how tactile it is. 

Visiting the gallery was enlightening and inspiring because I was able to see other peoples opinions in the context of money. 

The Concept of Money

Mobile Payments

The need for physical money is reducing due to advances in technology. Apple Pay, PayPal and contactless payments make transferring money wirelessly quickly and easily. It is changing the way we think about money and the form it takes:

Apple Pay

Apple Pay allows people to use there phone to pay for transactions by simply holding the device up to a card reader. It is linked to the iTunes account.

PayPal

Allows people to transfer money securely. It is often used for online payments especially for eBay. 

Contactless 

A small chip in a debit or credit card allows the owner to pay for card transactions by holding the card against the reader. This means you don't have to enter your pin. It is very quick and easy, however if someone was to steal your card they can still use it without knowing the pin. 

HISTORY

Found an interesting online article by Andrew Beattie from Investopedia about the concept of money and how it has evolved from bartering to currency and the impact it had on the world.

The video is a useful summary:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/roots_of_money.asp

Bartering

Bartering wasn't a consistent and efficient method of trading goods and it was hard for people to find a fair trade. This forced the commodity of money by using beaver pelts and dried corn as currency for transactions. These kinds of commodities were chosen for a number of reasons. They were widely desired and therefore valuable, but they were also durable, portable and easily stored.

Gold was used as a commodity of money for a long period of time, particularly in the US. It is not necessarily useful - after all, you can't eat it, and it won't keep you warm at night, but the majority of people think it is beautiful, and they know others think it is beautiful. Gold is something you can safely believe is valuable.

Fiat Money

Fiat money was introduced because gold is a scarce resource and economies growing quickly couldn't always mine enough gold to back their money requirement. For a booming economy, the need for gold to give money value is extremely inefficient, especially when, as we already established, value is really created through people's perception.

Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith. Fiat is the Latin word for "it shall be".

Bit Coin

Bitcoin is a digital, virtual currency created in 2009. It offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms. There are no physical Bitcoins, only balances associated with public and private keys. These balances are kept on a public ledger, along with all Bitcoin transactions, that is verified by a massive amount of computing power.

Facts

• In 1685, soldiers were issued playing cards denominated and signed by the governor to use as cash instead of coins from France.
• In the place of where the American bills say, "In God We Trust," the Chinese inscription warned, "All counterfeiters will be decapitated."
  

This article was very informative and gave examples of when/how money adapted and changed. Money has taken a lot of forms but I've noticed that its form needs to be efficient and portable if it is going to be a successful. With advances in technology, it's clear that physical money such as coins, notes and cheques aren't being used as much as wireless transfers. Although wireless and digital transfers are being used more and more, people still like to physically own money because they find it easier to budget and gain a sense of how much money they have.