Ten Proposals for a Shared Identity: The New Euro Banknotes
Ten Proposals for a Shared Identity: The New Euro Banknotes
Field Notes · 2026-07-27
The euro banknotes are being redesigned to reflect Europe's shared identity and values.
Every few decades, a currency redesign asks a question most people do not think about: what does a continent look like when it tries to represent itself?
The European Central Bank has published the ten finalist proposals for the new euro banknotes. Ten design studios from across Europe — Studio Joost Grootens from the Netherlands, PunktFormStrich from Germany, Neue Gestaltung GmbH, Rudy Guedj and François Girard-Meunier from France, Myrsini Vardopoulou from Greece, Jan Robert Dünnweller from Germany, Rubio & del Amo and Cruz más Cruz from Spain, Atelier Goppel-Toperngpong, Isabelle Daëron from France, and Ville Tietäväinen from Finland.
Each proposal answers the same brief differently. Some reach for nature — rivers, birds, leaves. Some reach for architecture — bridges, windows, public spaces. Some reach for abstraction — patterns, grids, systems of dots and lines that could be anything until you look closer, and then they are clearly something.
The interesting thing is not which proposal wins. The interesting thing is that the question is being asked at all. A currency is the most distributed piece of graphic design in any economy. It touches every pocket, every register, every transaction. Most people never think of it as design. They think of it as money.
But the act of redesigning a banknote is an act of collective self-portraiture. What Europe chooses to put on its money is what Europe chooses to say about itself. The current notes have bridges, gates, and windows — an architectural metaphor for connection. The new ones could be anything. Rivers. Birds. Grids. The decision itself is a kind of signal.
The proposals are public now. The final design will be revealed in the coming months. The money in your pocket, three years from now, will look different, and that difference will mean something, even if no one says it out loud.
Until the next transmission.