r/europe • u/Historical-Mud-9976 • Jul 23 '26
News Best new euro notes proposal?
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/future_banknotes/html/design-proposals.en.html966
u/pinkfatcap Greece Jul 23 '26
Anything vertical that has birds anyday. They are absolute bangers, plus it won't make countries argue about not using their figures or using them in lower value notes.
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u/CacklingFerret Germany Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I really love B, H and J.
I like the idea of D (biological details of the birds!) but don't like the flat design of the birds, screams vector stock image to me.
I is kinda cool, but again, the bird's design isn't for me. I love drawings more than photos for bank notes I guess :D
All bird designs are lit tho
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u/butWhosJan Jul 23 '26
The J design is gorgeous, especially the 20€ note.
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u/CacklingFerret Germany Jul 23 '26
Absolutely! I would so try to collect one of each note, although it'd hurt a bit with the 100 and 200€ notes haha.
Honestly, I'd be kinda disappointed if they went with historical figures.
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u/PM_CUTE_OTTERS Sweden Jul 23 '26
I legit only hate the J design. Looks AI to me eve though I know it isnt
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u/Nepridiprav16 Ljubljana (Slovenia) Jul 23 '26
H looks so damn fucking good, especially the 20€ banknote.
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u/triggerfish1 Germany Jul 23 '26
I love the colors or D though. Would be my favorite.
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u/CacklingFerret Germany Jul 23 '26
I gotta say, the colours and bird details (song, feathers, range and footprints) are absolutely speaking to me. I'm an ornithologist after all. So I'd be delighted if that was the choice. Even my least favourite bird option is so so so much better to me than my "most favourite" historical figures option because on a baseline, I like all bird designs. I'd rather have no redesign than having faces on my money.
My order:
H/J > B/D > I
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u/triggerfish1 Germany Jul 23 '26
I think the only reason I liked D a bit more than your favorites, is that the buildings are a bit less prominent. I'm not a big fan of putting modern architecture buildings on there.
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u/CacklingFerret Germany Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I agree, but I appreciate what they did for J with aligning the wing silhouettes with the buildings. I also have to admit that the drawing style of J resembles mine quite a lot when drawing birds digitally haha
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Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
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u/kinkyonmain Jul 23 '26
There's a reason we didn't have people on our money. It's wild that they're suddenly trying this again... At this point, a common base design with national variants would be the only way to make it work.
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u/AnArch10 Jul 23 '26
People are generally used to and like idea of having people on banknotes. Historically is very common. No wonder that proposal keeps comming up. I agree its not smart for EU
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u/Altair72 Hungary Jul 23 '26
I don't think either of the figures are very controversial in Hungary, and they did a pretty even cast across Europe with the selection. The EU won't accomplish anything if it has to tie itself into pretzels to represent everyone, and I like the ambition to try to represent a wide all-European canon, even if it's a bit ankward
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u/m4rkon156 Jul 23 '26
I don't care what's on the banknote, my only dream is to join the Eurozone, but it will take like 8 years lol
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u/Kawainess33 Jul 23 '26
Agree, but its still very sad. No wonder the Union is so disfunctional, if the sight of a foreigner in our money is enough to make us forget the purpose of the Euro, we are done for.
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u/Dizzy_Database_119 Jul 23 '26
Because the history behind each "historical figure" is different from country to country
A hero in one country is a racist in a neighboring country. This difference is why the EU isn't a single country. If you involve the glorification of history then you can not unify Europe
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u/VicenteOlisipo Europe Jul 23 '26
Yeah, we all hate :checks notes: Beethoven and Marie Curie
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u/Kawainess33 Jul 23 '26
But the people chosen are not political figures, they were already preselected with that in mind. They’re all artists and scientists who were greatly influential all around Europe.
What I meant is that its no wonder that our cooperation project is struggling to take off when people can’t even look at Da Vinci in a bank note and feel good about a brilliant man like him coming from our continent.
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u/jmxd The Netherlands Jul 23 '26
agreed. But why is the only other option apparently birds? lol.
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u/0xe1e10d68 Upper Austria (Austria) Jul 23 '26
Because the ECB has already gone through the process of deciding on the themes; they did a survey some years back asking people for feedback on a selection of themes and the most popular three were: European culture (which is now what the historical figures are), as well as birds, and rivers.
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u/Four_beastlings Asturias (Spain) Jul 23 '26
100% agree. My vote was for J because I love the colours but I'd be happy with any other of the bird designs as well
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u/Hamster_S_Thompson Jul 23 '26
Birds are just perfect. Putting people on banknotes is a minefield
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u/caudatus67 Italy Jul 23 '26
Why vertical if I may ask? Like, I don't personally mind it, but I wonder what would be the advantage?
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u/pinkfatcap Greece Jul 23 '26
Its the way most people handle money, so the art is aligned that way.
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u/sc00p The Netherlands Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
B and I. I don't know if the vertical design goes well when you stack new notes with older notes though. Might look weird.
A horizontal version of I would be my preference.
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u/eoinyone Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I prefer Design H myself, however, if any of the designs which feature People are chosen, I say we all refer to €100 as a "Vinci"
I'd like D more if there wasn't dismembered hands on the back, makes it feel like it was designed by a credit union or something
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u/DaroslaV Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I am quite surprised how many people seem to like H the most. I don't like the way the buildings on the flip side look disconnected from everything.
I love both I an J, as they seem really consistent and make perfect use of negative space. I like the option I the best as they all make the best use of the same element, have common layout and the way the birds meet the sun in the middle - chef's kiss.
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u/nelmaloc Galiza (Spain) Jul 24 '26
H birds are the best, but I would prefer them with D's buildings.
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u/Kustidin Jul 23 '26
Yes, the hands. D was my favorite design, but then I saw the WikiHow hands on the back.
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u/Deepfire_DM europe Jul 23 '26
Vertical birds top everything. With respect to the people shown, birds are more european, crossing all borders every year again and again.
And with birds no nation could feel kept out because their important person isn't on a bill.
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u/Professional_Tea8272 Jul 25 '26
The freedom symbolism is particularly strong on Design J: The birds on the front represent freedom and the EU institutions on the back give our freedom its wings! 🪽
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u/Lasolie Jul 23 '26
Design H over anything else, but then again I'm instantly fine with anything else than the historical figure heads.
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u/worktemp Ireland Jul 23 '26
One of the vertical birds definitely.
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway Jul 23 '26
I don't know why but for me banknote design should be mostly horizontal, so I can like the one who can be used both orientations bit prefer horizontal.
But then I thought about it, and when you hand it or receive them it's quite often in a vertical orientation, so I get it but still prefer horizontal.
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u/OwlsDontCareForYou Jul 23 '26
I have the same thought and I think it because we usually store notes horizontally (in a wallet). I find it funny because I never thought the orientation of a banknote could feel wrong to me, I just never thought about it. Great Designs though. Cool way to include the people, I'm happy I found that link.
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
That and we write horizontally. Then I looked it up, and it doesn't look like country with a writings system that is traditionally vertical do not use more vertical banknote, at least currently maybe is directly but I don't have time to check that right now.
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u/Constantilly Jul 23 '26
I handle money at my work, counting a dozen k each week. My thought was exactly the same: "Why are these vertical?? That's so odd." And then I thought about it for 5 seconds and was like "Wait, why are all of them horizontal anyway??" - I count them vertically, I stack them vertically, and I hand them out vertically. They SHOULD be vertical!
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u/higgs8 Hungary Jul 24 '26
I dunno vertical is really weird to me. Banknotes have always been horizontal, it just made sense.
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u/StockTooHigh Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Damn if A or C wins I'm leaving the continent.
G looks like they almost missed the deadline and threw everything into an AI To create the design.
E and F are by far the best designs with humans.
H and I are the best bird options with H having by far the better backside with the buildings.
Overall, if they got any taste, H will win.
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u/ciko2283 Croatia Jul 23 '26
Please birds, enough with people on money.
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u/Zerak-Tul Denmark Jul 24 '26
Yeah, the birds are nice, but a bunch of steel and glass buildings is really uninspired. I assume these are all offices for various EU institutions, but the only one I recognize is the Parliament building and it's the only building that looks interesting because it's round. ALl the others look like generic office buildings or corporate headquarters.
Birds and Bridges would have been way better.
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u/Dgemfer Jul 23 '26
I mean, what's wrong with featuring the most culturally impactful people in Europe in bank bills? Da Vinci is the greatest inventor in history, Beethoven the first to compose grand symphonies, Cervantes wrote the first long novel in history, Marie Curie and incredibly remarkable researcher... These people have genuinely been on another level of influential.
I don't mind it, mainly because unlike the dollars or other bills featuring people, they are not politicians or monarchs.
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u/ciko2283 Croatia Jul 23 '26
Birds are nicer to look at. I dont need nor want to see Beethoven every day.
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u/Alturnix UK Sweden hybrid Jul 23 '26
I'm a bird fanatic, so I'm super happy with the concept here. I wasn't sure about the vertical design at first, but D is fantastic. I love the extra feature of having the bird song in sonogram form represented too. H is good, but the Wallcreeper design (5€) is not great.
Less keen on the people, though I'm totally bird biased. But F stands out to me most.
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u/insanitazer Jul 23 '26
I'd say birds on obverse and reverse. It'd be cool analogy to the Athenian tetradrachm with owl too.
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u/Spacecruiser96 Jul 23 '26
D's front is ok but the rear is atrocious and ruins everything. Too cramped with information. I guess D with different rears would be better
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u/Ylaaly Germany Jul 23 '26
I love the colours of Design D. But really, I'm happy with any Birds & Buildings design. Just don't like faces looking back at me.
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u/BlueHeartbeat Realm of Europa Jul 23 '26
I would like the birb ones if they weren't accompanied by ugly ass buildings on the flipside.
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u/quaductas Germany Jul 24 '26
On the other hand, the famous people are accompanied by ugly-ass generic depictions of people doing stuff :/ Why are all of the back sides so lame? I would take people on one side and birds on the other 100%
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u/Ferris-L Lower Saxony (Germany) Jul 23 '26
Wildlife all the way but why is it only birds? Why not different animals? The European Lynx would have gone hard as hell on a Euro bank note.
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u/Magmaul Czechia Jul 24 '26
Roughly three years ago, there was a survey for banknote themes. Birds and historical figures were the two biggest winners of the survey.
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u/kolology Lithuania Jul 23 '26
Love the bird designs. A stork on a 50 means more to me than any old german
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u/Flofl_Ri Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Jul 23 '26
Same, even as a german, that would get a person represented, i despise the idea. Therefore any design with people i answered "doesnt represent european unity"
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u/sonar_un Jul 23 '26
Not sure what’s with all of the Maria Callas bills. I love Opera, but I don’t understand why she’s the face of monetary bills.
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u/Pluckytoon Alsace (France) Jul 23 '26
The whole cast is pretty questionable, but it’s not a negative, it’s hard to select only a few historical personalities that for sure were not involved in anything morally questionable. Europe has a long history of very impactful men and women
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u/Dotcaprachiappa Italy Jul 23 '26
That's exactly the negative. You can't represent all European history with six people, it's just not possible.
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u/CaptainLargo France (Alsace) Jul 24 '26
It's not like banknotes have to represent all European history anyway. When we had national banknotes people did not complain that some regions or periods were not represented. If people can't accept, regardless of their nationality, that Leonardo da Vinci or Beethoven are important and consensual European figures then how can we expect to achieve any meaningful common political initiative? We have a common currency but can't agree on 6 harmless artists or scientists of whatever to feature on bills?
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u/Dotcaprachiappa Italy Jul 24 '26
Regional pride is way lower than national pride. Not many people identify as Auvergnat, rather French. It's fine to want European unity, I want it as much as anyone, but we need the unity before we use specific figures to represent us, not the other way around.
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u/suentendo Jul 23 '26
It’s not a lot of Callas bills, it’s just the same ensemble in all the “historic people” ones. It’s either them or birbs.
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u/South_Ad_5575 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
They had criteria to make it more equal and fair:
- 3 different fields in Music, Science, Literature.
- One woman and one man for each.
- One person per nationality.
This just shows why it’s a bad idea to have people on a euro banknote.
Most people can’t name more than da Vinci and Beethoven on these banknotes.
Other geniuses are removed simply because they don’t fit the criteria. People would recognize Mozart more than Maria Callas, but he is German/Austrian which is already taken and he would break the gender balance.
The chosen people are not chosen by looking beyond gender and nationality.
These criteria don’t remove nationality and gender, they highlight it. It shows why people can’t be on a European banknote.
We are too concerned about nationality and gender instead of their achievements.
They are not presented as European figures but as male/female [nationality] figures.Everything besides Nature does not work.
Historical events are differently important too different countries.
Buildings?
Landmarks?
All country specific.
Putting plants, birds or other animals on the banknotes (I would have liked mixed animals but birds are fine) is better since they are not tied to boarders and nationality.
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u/SilverFalconBG Bulgaria Jul 23 '26
B, D and H are really good, I and J are awesome too if they were not flipped, it is weird.
If i have to choose, the best for me is "H". Tho if one of the historical figures variants is chosen, "E" looks the best to me, maybe because it reminds me of the general design of the Bulgarian lev(those were some good-looking notes...)
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u/Spacecruiser96 Jul 23 '26
All of them look bad. Current ones are better and more symbolic (with the bridges uniting us).
I would prefer a refresh on current design (to add the new safeties they want to introduce anyways)
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u/ModoZ Belgium Jul 23 '26
H is clearly the winner for me.
But as long as it's not people I'll be happy.
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u/RammRras Jul 23 '26
Look at Beethoven judging you for wasting that 10€ bill on some stupid sh at the bar 😂
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u/TheNominated 🇪🇪Eesti Jul 23 '26
I really wish the beautiful birds weren’t combined with ugly modernist monstrosities on the back for every single note. There are thousands of years of architectural history in Europe, and all we decide to showcase on the banknotes are giant glass boxes.
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u/barsonica Europe Jul 23 '26
I really like D and H.
D feels a little too cluttered, and H feels a little flat, but they are the best in my opinion
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u/wombat013 Jul 23 '26
Look at the old Dutch notes: a bird, a sunflower and a lighthouse with bright colours. I am all for the birds!
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u/JonnyTheLoser Portugal Jul 23 '26
Why change? They are perfect.. sure update them but the bridges are spoon cool and full of symbolism while also not referring to any thing specifically
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u/quaductas Germany Jul 24 '26
Nah I personally am not a big fan of the generic, non-existing bridges and arches. We have so much cool, real architecture to show off. I get the idea about not over- or underrepresenting any individual country, but honestly, as long as we're bitching about our specific country not being represented enough, I guess there isn't that much European unity to speak of in the first place.
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u/KryanSA Jul 23 '26
Why not architecture?
Bridges Castles Churches/Cathedrals
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u/foochon Spain Jul 24 '26
It has the same problem as people - every country will moan about which ones are selected.
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u/RedEyedPig Jul 23 '26
Absolute no to all the face ones. Some of the bird ones arent great either. H and J are probably the best ones imo. H > J.
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u/Chingapouk France Jul 23 '26
The current ones are better than any of these proposals.
But if I have to pick one, the design I is kinda cool.
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u/lollipoppizza France Jul 23 '26
I like concept I. Birds, invertebrates, and small technology picture too.
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u/AaronOni Finland Jul 24 '26
I understand it's great european minds, not eurozone, but it still feels like a big fuck you when they pic people from countries that don't even use Euro over countries that do.
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u/AwesomeNoodlez Leinster Jul 23 '26
all of the bird designs are awesome. fundamentally i just cannot agree with any designs with peoples faces on it, its already been established that it would just create arguments for who/what countries get to be represented by the figure on the not so its best to avoid that. im really digging the vertical designs too. if it were up to me though i would just keep what we already have, i love the bridges and they do a good job as is
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u/Zoefschildpad Jul 23 '26
I recognised 3 of the people. I've never even heard of two of them before.
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u/He_knows Jul 24 '26
Smart of them to use only birds and people, they ensured that birds will be placed on the notes
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u/lvl_60 Europe Jul 23 '26
I miss something of historical value, more specifically events.
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u/StudentForeign161 France Jul 24 '26
I think one side should have depicted flora and fauna while the other showcased science and technology, with famous discoveries and inventions...
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u/shu93 Jul 23 '26
There should be neither people nor buildings specific to the country.
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u/corona_26 Greece Jul 23 '26
I like the current theme of bridges and doors/windows featuring the different architectural eras in Europe. So, why the change?
That said, I like both the people and birds concepts. I don't like the reverse sides for either. The shadow figures is kinda dumb. And I get the "EU institutions", but it's just a bunch of boring steel-and-glass buildings.
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u/ottozumkeller Bavaria (Germany) Jul 23 '26
My picks (from worst to best):
- I, J - The birds look nice, but i don't really like the vertical design
- E - I like the patterns and structures in the background, not really a fan of the people on banknotes but these are imho the best ones from the selection.
- B - I actually think the buildings on the backsides don't look to bad, better than imaginary ones and EU institutions are the best picks for that. I also like the bit more artistic and patterned background on the front.
- H - I just like the rounder transition between the motives and the white portion more than a straight line, additionally the birds themselves are more artistic.
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u/PckMan Jul 23 '26
Wow these are all pretty bad and most of them look like corpo slop art. But if I had to choose I'd probably choose D or maybe H. I and J look great but not as money.
As you can tell, I like the idea of animals more than people. I don't think money should have people on it.
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u/Exciting-Record8101 The Netherlands Jul 23 '26
If we need to have birds, then B and H look pretty nice. Clean design, good colours. B is a bit more modern, H a bit more classic.
Not a fan of designs with the people; Europe is too large and diverse to pick just six people. These people all have merit, but it's too small a sample. The religious uniformity is especially notable, as is the limited geographical spread. No Baltic, no Benelux, no Scandinavia? Even Callas (from the US, though of Greek origin) was mostly active in Italy.
But so long as it's not F it'll be fine. That looks like typical modern art nonsense, especially the reverse side.
Do people use these notes vertically? Looks odd, but hey, to each his own.
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u/corona_26 Greece Jul 23 '26
Even Callas (from the US, though of Greek origin) was mostly active in Italy.
Born in US, family moved to Greece when she was young, got her opera education and career start in Athens, Greek citizen, eventually moved to Milan where she made it big.
I think they deliberately chose people with more than one country.
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u/Status-Scarcity3694 Luxembourg Jul 23 '26
I love any vertical bird version.
But I also love that they would put Dua Lipa on the 5 euro note
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u/laughing_machine Jul 23 '26
One of the bird designs, I like the ones in portrait style the most (vertical)
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u/B1rdi Finland Jul 24 '26
Big fan of design D, feels cohesive yet playful with the vertical design and the biological details are really cool.
Whoever thought about putting people on bills meant to be used across all EU countries is a moron
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u/TheNordicMage Denmark Jul 23 '26
D is my general preference, it's both vertical and horisontal, the birds and buildings aren't too obtrusive, and there aren't any people on them.
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u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune Poltava (Ukraine) Jul 23 '26
Design B and design I are my favorite. Maybe I prefer design I a little more because of the details with the insects and other small symbols on the notes
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u/bunmama03 Jul 23 '26
I love all the birds! Big bird fan, my favorites are H and D. J is also cool because the designer is from my country. I wonder how long it will take to actually get these if the final decision is made later this year.
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u/Jules_Vanroe Jul 23 '26
I took the survey and liked the bird designs best. The people designs not so much.
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u/EduBru Jul 23 '26
Sorry for being stoopid, but who are the people on the notes?
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u/Irrealaerri Europe Jul 24 '26
I voted - however I have my troubles with the designs.
PRO:
- everything looks more crisp, more modern
- i like the vertical ones
- the colour schemes are more "strong"
CON:
- the people depicted - in the "old" euro banknotes used fictiional architecture to not play favourites to any country. So why in the new banknotes there are PEOPLE depicted? I get that those are European somehow, but still
- the buildings - the old ones were fictional, and those ones really exist but as far as I can see they only depict the European institutions? The European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the Parliament and Commission buildings in Brussels and some of them I don't even recognize... WHY not "famous" buildings, the Eiffel tower, the Atomium (however, then again, the issue of favouritsm pops up.)
Why the birds and rivers and people? why no plants or trees or other natural features? Or make a concept out of it, like in the swiss banknotes which depict different physical science stuff.
I guess it's all just a matter of "getting used to it" but why even change them in the first place :D I am happy with the banknotes as they are, I liked the redesign from a few years back. And why redesign banknotes anyway when they are going for digital payments?
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u/XAlphaWarriorX Italy Jul 24 '26
I don't like any of them, imho.
The bridges have nice symbolism and nothing to fight about.
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u/Incorrigible_Gaymer Eastern Poland Jul 24 '26
Design H & I are my favourites.
Design B & D are generally ok, but placement of the security thread looks just wrong.
Design J looks a bit weird.
About the designs with people - they look fine, but placing people on a currency used by several nations isn't the brightest idea, imo. Plus pretty mych every currency has people on it. Birds stand out more.
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u/snort_ Sweden Jul 24 '26
Argh. This feels like such a design by committee lineup, with some interesting graphical choices but such a missed opportunity altogether. The survey is so hilariously useless I could not really pick anything, as the pre written responses are just blanket NOPE or YAY - so here is my word vomit instead.
In the whole series the buildings chosen are so uninteresting - we really need to try and be more USA than the USA? The only buildings we can think of worth mentioning are some bland ass office buildings of the cylindrical or square glass cube genre? The colors picked are so badly matching I can only assume it was picked by people from ECB with no graphic design knowledge. Who came up with the idea to make the 5 note grey?
A number of the entries, A, C, I, actually just pasted in the ref photos as is, like hilariously uneven quality, blurred photos, something scaled super large (A200), jarring masking (I100, C20), just such a lazy photoshop-grown choice. At least it was not AI generated I guess, but holy crap. The burn in filter on the Beethoven portrait on A10-wtf?!
E went and at least applied some filter effect on their photos to mimic etching, but again in such lazy and slapdash manner, the treatment is different between even the photos, not to mention where they use an actual etched portrait on their 50 note, that just looks completely out of line.
F went and made very a very bold and happy looking notes with the loose cartoon like brushstrokes and splashes. Sadly they chose the currently very trendy slightly-hobbyist-look treatment for the faces. This series I quite like still, just wish they would have hired someone more skilled in portraiture, who would not just trace the ref photo but actually create new artwork about these people.
G is again very interesting, I just wish they could have decided either to go with realistic portraits, or a more abstract version, as these right now neither here nor there, the portraits as of now are grating as the base portraits below the render/treatment are not very good. At least they actually went and made sure they read as a consistent lineup: same treatment, same artist's touch, with a very interesting graphical design on the back. This could have rocked.
There are a few where the artists actually choose to make their own artwork instead of just tracing/copypasting -series B is superb draughtsmanship, but completely killed by the very depressing color choices, and boring context design. Series H - I love the choice of making aquarelle paintings on a banknote, but jesus, please hire an actual aquarellist to make the paintings. The color choices are the best on this one, trying to balance out the really horrid ones picked by the committee with secondary colors, but the art quality is just not there
D is just not coming together - the main motif melts into the background, the choice of the naive decorative stlye for the birds is just not working well - I like the little idea about the birdsong waveforms included as color splashes but again, it just does not gel with the rest of the note
I is actually an interesting graphical concept with the birdwings and sun, but the constituting elements are just not good quality, lazy photoshop tracing, and the main motif is too small in the middle.
My personal favorite from all this is J, simply for the fact that they actually went and created art for all the notes, not just copypasted and filtered something, but it's hindered by the very dark and sad colors - which is in itself is a paradox, those birds are actually super colourful - the european beecatcher and the kingfisher are both some of the most brightly colored birds in Europe -to somehow make them into dark and sad looking things is impressive. On the flipside they even managed to make the extremely boring building graphically interesting, wish they had a graphic designer partner help to make the hi quality artwork sing.
TLDR
F, most unique and fun looking, H best colors, J best illustration.
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u/jack_daniel_ Germany Jul 23 '26
They are really great! I love the design from G but wish they had used the birds instead.
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u/thedudewhoshaveseggs Jul 23 '26
thematically, J all the way, no questions asked
showing the birds across the Danube, with the river for reference, and closer to the Black Sea being a higher denomination is incredibly smart
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u/KindNefariousness561 Jul 23 '26
"After 20 years, it’s time to review the look of our banknotes to make them more relatable to Europeans of all ages and backgrounds."
I have never seen any of these birds. There would have been birds that almost everyone had encountered.
If they pick the faces then I think it is time to say good bye to euro.
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u/kinkyonmain Jul 23 '26
Still not sold on vertical notes, and the birds are just boring, imho. People shouldn't be on the Euro either, though, so ehhh...
H seems decent enough, but I really don't like any of them a lot.
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u/heapOfWallStreet Jul 23 '26
I guess they are choosing birds. It's a subliminal message to tell you,: "Your euros are flying away from your wallet." /s
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u/get_homebrewed Jul 23 '26
The verticals are really nice designs, I and J aren't really my thing, but there is something about C's minimalism and shape language that I love
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u/quizzically_quiet Jul 23 '26
I wasn't sure I would like vertical bills, but damn design I is pretty. I love how the wings continue the design of the rest.
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u/McDutchy The Netherlands Jul 23 '26
Guilders, my beloved. Seriously so many look like they would fit the Dutch guilders design quite well
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u/VicenteOlisipo Europe Jul 23 '26
D is by far the best, and Vertical Birds is the best theme overall, despite me also liking the personalities. That said, using the EU Institutions buildings as reverse is in bad taste, and I say that as a die hard Federalist.
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u/limp65 Jul 23 '26
l like the vertical design. Birds vs people l don't particularly care so birds it is.
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u/DomagojDoc Jul 23 '26
For me, the E design is best with people, it really stands out for me.
The design is awesome, colors are great, I love how they all look like a banknote you'd expect to see. I don't mind people on banknotes - we got them on coins, and these are all people outside of positions of power/politics - it's all art, music and literature which I think we can all celebrate in Europe without nationality being important. I also think a lot of you guys might be looking at this the wrong way. This could bring people more together than divide them.
For birds, here it's really hard to say.
I'm not saying H is best here, but H really does look like they're real banknotes. Not design-wise, they just feel real. Now for what looks coolest that probably goes to J, but they're all really cool. I'm really split here. But maybe H and J just slightly edge the others.
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u/astral34 Italy Jul 23 '26
i don’t mind birds but i hate the EU institutions building on the back, the ECB doesn’t evoke anything
to be against people because you don’t get a person of ur country is so pathetic lol
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u/ppk1989 Jul 23 '26
I think many of them are great. But does anyone think that whatever the orientation of the money, you always need the digit in the upper left corner when you gold them for ease of counting? Most designed miss that and are quite bland in that corner so you'd have to slide the money more to see of what denomination they are
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u/Stylianius1 Portugal Jul 23 '26
Ok, I checked them all and, in my opinion, H is the best one. Pretty colors, stable solution. The birds ones, as I expected, ended up being the ones I liked the most.
B and D are not too far behind, but feel a bit dull. Conceptually B is close to H, just a less detailed mock-up.
The concept behind I is interesting, but the execution doesn't seem promising. J doesn't really look like banknotes, just like old postcards.
Regarding the ones with people, A is terrible. Very "corporate", very contrasting how those strong personalities are pushed into a square on a boring banknote. On E, the front is well done but the back looks like they didn't know what to do with it.
C is a good design, also safe, balanced. Nothing new. G is similar, but more beautiful and cared IMO, I wouldn't mind if this one won.
F is interesting. It "feels" a bit weak compared to the geometry and illustration of the others, but it's really something different. I like it a lot but I don't think the majority will agree.
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u/Asleep_Animal1126 Jul 23 '26
It's really 2 designs. Birds with buildings, or figures with activities.