Show Me the Money: The Image of finance 1700 to the present.

I have visited the 'Show Me the Money: The Image of finance 1700 to the present' exhibition at The People History Museum in Manchester. The exhibition showed how finance has been show through, art, illustration, photography and other visual medias over the years. Highlighting social and political issues. I would like to highlight a few examples of the work on show as it relates to my theme of the future of money.

These bank notes are a fully functioning currency system based on prime number. Created by Robin Bhattacharya the 'ROBIN' currency. The value of each ROBIN note is determined by relative scarcity or point of introduction into circulation. It can be freely traded and the changing exchange rate reflect its market value on the artists website. 

This notion of using prim numbers rather than the traditional 10, 20 ,100, 100 is very different, slightly strange but very inventive. Creating a personal currency is an amazing idea and would make the world a very interesting (but complicated) place.

The patchy print and not fully made up images mean the notes have been printed to be ruff and feel as if they have been used many times this could be something I could look into with my design to give them a more ornate and tactile feel.

 These Bank of Wapping Notes have been made in protest of Rupert Murdoch's decision to move production to a new facility in Wapping. Immediately sacking 5,500 members of staff. The notes represent labour as a monetary value and the also highlight the concept of profits made in Britain being transferred abroad. The cartoon like style of these notes add to the idea, the ugly gargoyle like illustration of the Queen with Murdoch's face speaks for itself and really shows the horrible nature of the Murdoch business. Being printed in one colour makes the designs stand out and the grainy feel add to the very dark and dull feel of the designs. The message is clear and has been communicated clearly 'DON'T BUY- the Sun, News of the World and The Sunday Times'. This issue lead theme really gets the point across.

Due to the fact in 2003 Sir Winston Churchil would replace Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note there would then be no women by the Queen on the UK currency. The obligation for more women on currency was needed and this promotional not was created by De La Rue Currency. This issue of the lack of women being recognised in currency is very debated and would create opportunities for a lot of interesting and thought provoking responses.

This image shows Simon Roberts set of 56 graphs taken from newspaper reports about the financial crisis of 2008 with their axis removed. This shows how the designs can be much more subtle and conceptual and still represent the economy in an alluring way.

Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar note is the product of the hyperinflation and the currency losng value so quickly. In the summer of 2008 inflation reach 231,000,000%.. The issues with currency in Africa have being server and ongoing, possibly creating some kind of unified African currency is a possible idea for this project. It may not work in real life but could be an interesting proposition.

This exhibition was insightful in terms finding out more about the history of currency and finance and seeing the kind of production method that can be carried out within bank note design. I want to try and further my research now into some more theory based examples of currency design and see how this can help inform my ideas.