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Originally posted at Design Edge Canada.
There’s a lot to like about Canadian currency lately, and not just our strength against the Euro. Our “paper” money has been becoming polymer money, as the Bank of Canada shifts us, bank note by bank note. And this November, when this innovation hits our $20 bills, synthetic bank notes will find themselves in the majority of Canadian wallets.
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New polymer $20 bills are coming
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The new notes are mostly well thought out: environmental sustainability (the new bills last 2.5 times longer than paper, and are still recyclable), higher security, reduced costs all around. They may even spread less disease. From a design innovation perspective, they are the first polymer notes ever to include holographic foil.
Unfortunately, the part that doesn’t appear to be well-thought through is the cultural sustainability of our national brand. With arguably the world’s most successfully and consistently rolled out national identity program ever, why on Earth would the Canadian Bank Note Company have chosen to shout the word “Canada” in a horizontally stretched abomination of the Avant Garde typeface?
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The 'Canada' that will appear on the $20 bill
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It’s bad enough that the choice of typeface is not consistent with any other branding program we have going for our country. I realize that there are arms-length issues regarding the Canada brand (the same convoluted policy that ensures that all our national Olympic teams are doomed to have dissonant presentations of “Canada” on their uniforms from sport to sport). And if they had to choose an off-brand typeface, could they not have chosen one of the many excellent ones designed by Canadian typographers?
Digitally stretching type, especially on a sans serif like Avant Garde, which is carefully crafted to provide the appearance of a consistent stroke width throughout, is a typographic abomination. Herb Lubalin, perhaps America’s greatest typographer, who published Avant Garde commercially in 1970, would turn over in his grave to see his work so dissed.
Erik Spiekermann equates letterspacing lower case type as worse than “stealing sheep.” I think those who digitally stretch Avant Garde deserve similar harsh judgment.
That our currency falls short of typographic dignity is symptomatic of a larger issue. It goes beyond bank notes. It goes beyond the lack of respect for the design profession indicated by our Royal Canadian Mint going out to public contest for coin designs. It goes to the heart of what happens when a country lacks a design policy... a chief design officer ... the type of respect for how design consistency is design currency, and design currency can be taken straight to the bank of international competitiveness. The kind of design policy that has made South Korea the leading designers AND manufacturers of smartphones and TVs worldwide. And did I mention that they have great money too? And the best alphabet on the planet?
Is it too late for the graphic designers of Canada to speak out for the upcoming $20 bills to present our country in a better typographic tone? The new $20 will be released in November and feature the Vimy Ridge Memorial. Perhaps it’s not too late for the accompanying typography to carry similar dignity.
Give your two cents to your Bank of Canada, or your prime minister: (he did well to redesign the penny, perhaps graphic designer Laureen Teskey would help him agree to fix the twenty.)
...or just express your opinions below.
That’s my two cents, anyhow.
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Back6 repliesPost a Reply
That Canada is the first thing I noticed about the new notes. I completely agree, I'm glad someone else noticed how off it is.
It is a bit strange that the previous bills all used upper-case letters, and that in this instance the type was also stretched - but perhaps what's even stranger for me is that it doesn't really have a coherent theme. It's got lots of maple leafs (we are defined by those after all), some homage to the common wealth with a picture of the queen, and for some reason we also get the Vimy memorial. All very nice and sentimental, but no coherent theme - the coloring, typography, and movement suggest this is a modern design, with lots of ancient themes. Too contrasting for me - a strange note indeed. Thanks for sharing this article!
It's just a lot of design fluff plastered over the bank note. A cut and paste collage of sorts. But to clarify, being from Australia I can attest to the fact that Australia was the first country to deploy polymer notes with a hologram in 1988 (you read right, 24 years ago!) - so Canada is definitely not the first ever to use the foil, sorry to say. Unfortunately they were recalled due to the hologram peeling off. However the polymer notes stayed since their roll-out in 1992. Oh, and they dispensed with 1¢ coins back then also... seriously, who likes a pocket full of those?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Australian_dollar
That all said and done, I think the Australian designs are better and more thought out. I don't think their as well 'designed' as the new Swedish polymer notes but I truly wish Canada would consider design and their brand from a national level.
Beyond the abomination of Herb Lubalin's Avante Garde typeface, there is the matter of badly researched imagery. The first rule of great art direction and visual communication design is "know your topic" and research, research, research.
The maple leaf, though stylized, is not our proud nation's emblem, the sugar maple -- but an imposter! The Norwegian maple. When called on this, the Central Bank said designers created the image with the help of a dendrologist, a botanist who specializes in trees and shrubs. Obviously, said botanist couldn't see the forest for the trees. Others speculate this admission to be creative back-pedalling.
P.S. Thank you David, for a great article. Please note though that it was Frederic Goudy who first said "Anyone who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep," not Erik Spiekermann. The sentiment was Spiekermann's inspiration for the title of his guidebook on typography, "Stop Stealing Sheep". (Peachpit Press)
God forbid nipples on the war memorial statues.
Is it worse that the leaf on the penny was actually a sycamore leaf (london plain tree) leaf?
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/first-20-now-penny-experts-one-cent-coin-190016203.html
I completely agree with the article! Our Nation's money is not only the most seen & used form of Canada's brand within the Country, but outside as well. Some may decide to keep it as a keepsake for their travels or it may get mixed in one's wallet with American money, either way it should be consistent with Canada's identity and representation. Finally, stretching type is a bastardization of what the typographer created and disrespectful to the creator and their craft...Canadian design standards need to be higher I think.
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