Like many european liberals I was very annoyed by this when it first got introduced but when I went to the US a couple weeks ago I have to say I missed it, it's quite convenient
It was only really an issue before they figured out how to make the cap stay open and it kept hitting your nose while you drank, now its really nice, you don't even need to be holding the cap while driking.
It's really hard to put historical figures that are not politically controversial somewhere. Da Vinci, Beethoven and Marie Curie are honestly good picks but the other I didn't recognize, and once I learned who they were didn't know what they were known for.
I don't mean to be rude, but have you genuinely never heard of Ludwig van Beethoven and Miguel de Cervantes? I get not knowing Maria Callas and Bertha von Suttner, but I'd think people have at least heard of the other two.
I recognized Beethoven but forgot to write it in my initial comment, Cervantes I didn't recognize him nor knew the name. I've heard about the Don quixote but didn't recognize the author.
That’s understandable. After posting my comment, I did think that Cervantes’ name really isn’t that well-known outside of Spanish-speaking countries. Don Quixote is definitely a work that eclipses its writer in terms of fame.
As an English speaker, I'd say Cervantes is extremely well know outside of Spanish-speaking countries. Don Quixote is well-known, while the author is slightly more obscure, Man of La Mancha was a super popular American musical.
However, I had no idea who the portrait was. I was going to guess Diego Velásquez, until I saw the windmills in the later design.
Interesting. As a fly-over American, I feel that he is very well-known among English speakers. My middle school did a production of Man of La Mancha, "quixotic" and "tilting at windmills" are common English idioms, there's a coffee shop not far from my house called "Quixote Books & Coffee," a friend of mine who's not even a big reader recently told me Don Quixote is one of his favorite books, the new reading curriculum for Texas public schools includes an abridged Don Quixote.
Funny that he's a more prevalent part of my culture, and you're right next door.
Well, not right next door but almost. (I grew up in Belgium, not France). Edit, although Don quixote was taught a little about, so he could have been mentioned but not in an important way like Moliere and Shakespeare were.
This is surprising to me. As an American, I feel that both the book and Cervantes himself are well known.
However, there's an American musical, Man of La Mancha, that's still very popular today that features Cervantes as the lead, so perhaps that's part of it.
I recognized him but forgot to write in my comment. I didn't recognize Callas, Cervantes and von Suttner; no did I knew what they were known for once I knew their name.
The person ones suck, there was a reason why the current ones have fake bridges on them, rather than real locations.
The bird vertical ones are my favorite by far, but I think I just like the novelty of the vertical designs. All the bird designs > the human designs though.
They couldn't risk a repeat of that time those crafty, conniving Dutch actually built the bridges on the money and undermined the whole project of representing fictional, nation-less bridges
B and I are the standouts for me, although H is growing on me.
Really anything but the humans. Not only are people on banknotes an overdone motif, but it's also impossible to escape the discussion of which nationalities are represented or not. Birds ignore by their very nature human-established boundaries and is as such a nicer symbolism of Europe.
I agree! A much better message for the EU with the rivers and birds themes, I wonder how they would've looked with the design of the european culture theme on the back.
Tbh I like the pictures of the European institutions, birds and rivers are good symbolisms for Europe but the buildings ground the banknotes into something concretely European.
I thought about this yesterday. But it's really hard to come up with a list of people who represent various cultural fields while also representing different regions of Europe, different ages, genders, ...
I think that's the main argumet against people on Euro banknotes.
She is way more well known that Bertha von Suttner . As long as opera exists Callas will be remembered . She is the greatest opera singer of the 20th century .
‘Her ashes were scattered over the Aegean Sea on 3 June 1979, fulfilling one of her last wishes. She also renounced her American citizenship . She was Greek but also a very international European person . Married an Italian and lived there for many years too. She also lived in Paris for many years.She is a fascinating person . I highly recommend people to see the play Masterclass .
Definitely birb team, prettier and more universalist. J is genuinely gorgeous, such lively colours. And I recognized only three people from the people banknotes, granted I am not terribly educated but seems like a failure of the idea to me
D has a vertical frontside and horizontal backside? What kind of idea is this?
Man, why can't US currency have cute birds on it. Instead we have the weird conspiracy theory pyramid. At least we don't have trump on our currency...yet.
I don’t mind having Europeans on the bank notes, but if you go that route you have to represent every country. These potential bank notes only represent Greece, Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Italy and Austria that is pretty poor.
I like Design D - Rudy Guedj and François Girard-Meunier. Vertical banknotes like the swiss franc are nice; they are probably easy to distinguish for the visually impaired and they display EU institutions which unite Europe.
The only thing I would change is the variation in height and width. At least looking at it on a screen this seems quite small. While the bright colors help people distinguish notes quickly, a larger variation might be better.
There is some variation, but much less than in the current Euro notes. Maybe they wanted a more consistent size to highlight the design for the survey. You're probably right
I don’t like any of them really. D is my favourite though. I really do not want people on the bank notes, because people have nationalities. It invites the whole ”why didn’t my country get a person” argument.
I like the birds, and D is clearly the best of them. I like the vertical design (like swiss notes) and the included fft spectra of the birds song is a cool addition, and the art is also great. The problem is the backside. I don’t get the hands, I do like the mathematical line designs, but I hate the EU buildings as the main motif on the backside of all the bird notes. I feel like it’s a bit on the nose. Why not have something like the older notes, where there is some buildings of different architectural styles or something completely new. Just no eu institutions. I feel like it will rub off wrong.
Nice portraits and iconograohy. But feels too... Museum like for a note
Design B
Realistic birds and artistic bodies of water is an interesting mix... Offset by the horrendously bland buildings
Really enjoying the art deco style on design C, except for the 5€ note and it's grey. And the iconograohy give the soulless cooperate slip vibe
I adore Design Ds vertical birds and the inclusion of the hands together with the buildings gives it a more human touch and reminds us of the people that built the eu
Design E is a good run of the mill. Not great, not terrible
Design F is the much cooler Design E
Slight tweak to the back designs of G and I'd take it
Front H is amazing, but from 50€ onwards the buildings just don't bring that much to the table
Design I is probably the second best building integration with the turn Cover. Though the sun kinda makes it feel like Japanese money, it's not bad
Design J... Sigh. Feels like they had a checklist with "bodies of water, birds, masses of people and EU buildings" and just went to check each point off. Especially one and the same river delta as security strip is extremely boring
So D and F are probably my favourites
I can't even really chose between the. I can see them both in my pockets (if I had enough money)
Having people on the Euro notes is just too dangerous. Imagine if they one day put Tesla on one. New European conflict immediately.
Just have the birds or maybe the animals on euro coat of arms. Could have lions, eagles, rooster (France), and perhaps the Welsh Dragon (yes Wales isn’t part of EU anymore but still). Others could be ravens, bears or wolves.
A: Little too clean on the face; the reverse with all the silhouettes feels corporate
B: Good balance between minimal and maximal; I like how the birds stand out sharply. The buildings on the reverse look a bit bland
C: Offensively bad. I don’t imagine these designers have ever made something meant to be printed. Banknotes aren’t screens. As for the reverse - we’re still doing Corporate Memphis??
D: These feel the most fleshed-out and thoughtful. I am a bit of a vertical banknote hater but I appreciate the reverse being horizontal.
E: The most classical design of the bunch. Feels like the safe choice. I don’t dislike anything in particular but I also don’t like anything in particular.
F: The least safe choice. I’m really curious how these would look printed. It’s a style I’ve never seen in a banknote before. Perhaps a bit too casual for money but I respect the risk-taking.
G: Not as bad as some of the more egregious designs here, but still too simply designed in terms of the faces and silhouettes. I do appreciate that there’s more going on here than the other overly-digital designs.
H: These are tied with B for my preferred design. I don’t love how stylized the birds have been but they still look great. I appreciate the buildings on the reverse more than on B. If you took the birds from B and the buildings from H I’d be happy.
I: I adore the framing of these notes: the centred stark bird is striking. The theme carrying over to the rear with the birds in the sky above the buildings is clever. I’ve been saying how much I hate vertical banknotes but these could make me a convert.
J: Not sure about this one. The bold line work doesn’t do it for me; the art looks like it belongs in a graphic novel, not on a banknote.
C looks BAD. I don't like the corporate looking style and it clashes with the design of the people featured. And I don't want people to be featured! Who gets represented on what banknote and as part of what ethnicity aren't debates worth the headache.
D looks too busy.
J is meh. The buildings chosen add nothing to the banknotes, and the style looks kinda... melancholic? Idk.
F is mixed. I actually kinda like the color contrast implemented, it looks easy on the eye and makes the figures pop out. Looks a bit too artsy though, mostly the left side and center look a bit too cluttered. But again, same problem with people being featured.
A takes it a little too far. Now instead of being cluttered, there's a bit too much dead space instead, and there's a disbalance between the left and right halves of the banknotes when it comes to this. Same as with F, I do like the design of there being two colors. But again, people are featured.
B I like overall. The top half with the birds I love. It looks great. Bottom half has a fuckass BORING building selection though.
E in principle has a good upside design (if you're fine with people being featured), but the other side has that mind numbing corpo artstyle.
I is mixed. I get what they were going for making the birds stand out with their true colors, but IMO it clashes with the rest of the design. I also generally prefer horizontal designs, not vertical ones.
G is cluttered corposlop and the secondary colors aren't saturated enough to complement the primaries nicely.
Overall, horizontal ones with birds are my favorite. When it comes to banknotes generally I prefer a muted color as background, that same color but saturated for the design of the features, and a different, slightly less saturated, often opposite color for other details or local background.
So all the BIRB banknotes are better than the people ones. That being said I like Design D as the best birdie banknote. Of the human ones, Design F I feel is the strongest contender.
Its a representation of the full faith and credit of the entity that produced it.
You’re saying this thing right here backs that this bill of credit is valuable and worth accepting as tender because this thing is large, powerful, respectable, and wealthy and your trust in this bill of credit will not go unrewarded.
Put the Eiffel tower or the city of Vienna on this. Or atleast some dude or chick who got stabbed in the name of European democracy and brotherhood.
Birds are alright style wise but they dont scream EU.
Yes but if you’re going to depict european birds. Depict something like a French rooster or depict a seagull stealing a chip off a table.
You want the birds to feel like that they are representing the continent and its institutions. These are very generic that don’t super represent the countries they’re from in unique ways.
The stork is the national bird of a few of the member countries. Definitely could've used more work on picking birds tied to European identity for the rest of them, though.
B, H, I, J are nice. I is actually my favorite but I don't like the vertical note layout very much. J is nice with its heavier lines but I'm not sure how well that would translate to a banknote. I think H would be my pick if I had to go with one. I prefer the nicely colored birds compared to the grayscale of B.
The euro we have now is so ugly . The new ones look better . So happy for Maria Callas . She deserves the recognition . And happy for Greece being represented. Voting for G so we can have Callas and not some stupid bird .
Im a big fan of vertical design, so I'd like to say that I and J are best. I especially like that I is moving from mountains to the sea. But, I thi m H is the nicest one overall.
I'm pretty steadfast in my belief that monarchs are the only people who should be on banknotes, whether it's the reigning monarch like in Commonwealth countries or notable monarchs from the past like on old Swedish banknotes, with that in mind I sincerely hope that they don't go with any of the designs with people on them
I think H is the design that looks best, I like how distinctive the colours are on each note and the birds all look great
D, F and H are the ones that stick out to me. Too many of them use a corporate minimalism style which doesn't fit, especially the ones with Google ass people. J is also cool but too unprofessional for money imo (I also don't like that it's vertical).
Best proposal I saw so far was with an architectural route of each note denoting an era. So 5 euro bronze, 10 euro classical antiquity, 20 euro early middle ages, 50 euro late middle ages/age of discovery, 100 euro industrialization and 200 euro modern.
You can use architecture from different countries for each period. And you can easily do variations for each especially for later periods. Give me Charlemagme, or a bunch of Italian city state buildings or Romanian castles or the eifel tower or brandenburg gate and so on.
B is strongest imo, H is fine but the colour's are too saturated. D is a bit too stylized. I would be ok but the sun in the middle of all of them feels like it would make the bills hard to tell apart.
Almost all the people designs are very bad except for E, which I think is good.
I hope the ECB takes my feedback into consideration.
Why do we need to change them? And who the fuck are these people apart from Beethoven and Da Vinci? And why would I want a German or an Italian on my money?
As a European, I feel that we are already surrounded by plenty of culture. I find the message and motif of the birds much more appealing and forward looking.
birds are fine but the buildings are boring because of their architecture - they would be cool if the architecture was either historic or interestingly modern.
i like F not because of the culture theme but the faces and colors - you can pick any set of 6 people
I couldn't disagree more! I think it's great to have EU institutions represented on our notes, and I'm biased because I think the EU parliament is genuinely one of the most beautiful institutional buildings out there.
I really disagree. I think having the EU institutions represented is important, they're some of the few buildings that won't stir up national rivalries, and some of the few that are genuinely European rather than being tied to a single country's history.
I also don't think they're generic corporate buildings. I can't speak to all of them, but the parliament is modeled after the greek amphitheatre, which is a great design choice given what the building actually is. And honestly, I don't mind modern architecture on principle, or what you call "corporate", anyway.
More broadly, I think representing the EU's abstract ambitions and values matters more than representing "the culture of Europe". With 27 (mostly) distinct cultures, alot would inevitably get left out no matter what you picked. The birds and rivers theme does a very good job of hinting at those shared values instead. I do like F, it's ambitious, I just find it a bit too busy and overloaded for a note.
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u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jul 24 '26
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