Future euro banknote design proposals

B) The most boring of the options. The tiny text with the bird facts should not be there.

C) Corporate hellscape.

D) wtf are those hands doing here

E) Again fronts look better than backs; fronts are very traditional bank-note to me.

F) Most interesting option. Certainly feels different than any other bank note I recall.

G) Ugh random vector shapes and gradients. Ugly in same ways as C)

H) Very inoffensive, very boring. Competing with B) in the most boring category.

I) Bit too much going on. The river map thing on the back side should be distinct in each note

J) The visual "sketchy" style just doesn't feel right here.

Ultimately F is visually my favourite although like many others I do dislike the "famous people" theme. Design I could be very nice with some tweaks

I also feel like the notes that had buildings (like we have now) are just.. better. The initial run of 2002-2013 remains the best aesthetically, imo.

Europe doesn't have a dearth of stunning architecture. Have they all been discarded in favor of ugly straightline modernist sloptitecture because they might be construed as offensive for some reason?

I think it's a bit strange to feature people on these, plus it would be difficult to agree on who to feature between the 21 € states. The birds look cool! But it would have been nice to modernize the current architecture-based design rather than feature random EU office buildings.

;)

I helped Claude build a simple web app (static, local, oss) to make you choose among pairs, to progressively determine your personal preference.

It outputs your top 3, you can share the summary like this:

  Recto Verso Euro  
  My top euro banknote designs:  
   Design H  
   Design D
   Design B
  → https://pil0u.github.io/recto-verso-euro/#r=HDBJIGECFA&c=68

You can see all side-by-side here: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/future_banknotes/ht...

My takes:

Designs A and B and I are not terrible, but I'm not impressed.

Design C - the backside looks like the worst soulless corporate landing page graphics (Corporate Memphis style?).

Design D and E, H are okayish. Possibly I'd prefer something along these lines.

Design F has very strange coloring, the watercolor and sketch effect looks nice on screen, but I think more filled and more monochrome notes are more conventional and accepted, also some are bicolor. Not bad, but I'd not like it in everyday use probably.

Design G is somehow not good looking, I cannot phrase it. Both the font, and also the backsides scenes are meh, even the modernist buildings are better on some other series.

Design J : the creepy abstract cartoon people on the backside ruin it. Also somehow not aesthetically pleasing, but not catastrophic.

That's the only thing I'll miss if Romania ever switches to Euro. Cash you can launder. Literally.

But the Canadian ones are physically impressive, they don't really crumble, and seem immune to both liquid and tearing.

Was that an explicit part of the brief artists were given?

I feel like the selection of motifs is more interesting and where more of the creative process in defining a representation of Europe lies than just how to draw and layout those motifs.

And what are the options they give? I guess historical people with weird abstract community settings or birds with office buildings. Is that all the EU represents?

Whatever they go for I hope they do not open the can of worms that is historical people, or any people for that matter. It will start all kinds of tiresome discussions and people will draw on them making it difficult use defaced bills.

If you really want historical people as a gesture of appreciation or celebration of their achievements then make that a limited edition.

I kept wondering what all the people and birds were, there's a table on this Motifs page: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr2501...

I think the buildings are ugly, and D does its best to obscure them. So that's my winner.

F has very strong "Soviet children's book" vibes.

I didn't even know who the person on the 200€ bill is until today and I have a suspicion she was chosen by some woke EU bureaucrat. I'm sure Europe had better persons in its history.

If Maria Callas is suitable for currency, why not put Daft Punk on it?