"There is not a lot of emotion around about the departure of the guilder. I don't think many see it as the ultimate Dutch identity."
Rob Vos, a professor of finance and economic development at the Institute of Social Studies.**

So, the Euro is here, or actually, there. Over in Europe. As a part of the effort to promote commerce across the continent, the E.U. has introduced a common currency, the Euro. With its arrival we feel, like many others, that something has been lost.

Essentially, the Euro sucks. The design is actually not bad, not as bad as the U.S.'s most recent batch of bills for sure. Graphically, the bills are well composed; a nice balance of spareness and
anti-counterfeiting complexity. They employ elements such as type and color to allow the user to easily discern denomination. But it is just kind of boring. We don't blame the designer. He seems to have skills to spare. The Euro's problem stems from its very
conception as a means to erase those pesky national boundaries that inhibit free-flowing commerce. To flow freely across Europe money had to be uprooted from its local origins.

The RFP, sent around to a select group of pro currency designers in '96, mandated that the new currency be free of any references to particular countries. This included hard references -- the Euro design had to express some sense of the continent's history but no specific events, people, locations -- and soft references -- colors, plants, animals -- things that might allude to a particular country's peoples or product. From the moment of inception, an innocuous, bland solution was the only possible result.

So the aspect of this transition that most critics are objecting to, the loss of cultural reference and icons of national identity, is an abstract one. The subsidiary effect of the decision is more tangible. Eliminated is an artifact of sophisticated visual communication. Nowhere is the loss greater than in the Netherlands.

From an American design perspective, at least around here at Core, the Dutch -- the Netherlands -- de-fine re-fined European design sensibility. Particularly stunning (especially so for us in the U.S.) is the widespread evidence of good design in the product of its government. ( No knocks against the Dutch designer-citizens here, who, given the country's share of worldwide design output, appear to compose at least half the population -- though those Droogs and Koolhas might possibly be doing more than their share -- and are probably the very reason the government is as it is with design. )

Design commitment, found manifest everywhere in the physical product of government, from forms to stamps to signage to public architecture, is most present -- most pervasive in a day-to-day way, handled and cared for constantly -- in the money. Little pieces of art for your pocket, they were.

While many countries' notes represented the icons of their cultural heritage, the Guilder, in its various forms, was the icon itself, representative of the Dutch public body of design. The loss is more physical and abstract.

There is a small hope for the Guilder and the traditions it
represents. Under the E.U.'s system each participating country has been given the back of the euro coinage to do with as they see fit. Many countries, unfortunately including the Netherlands, have made traditional use of the space, honoring their monarch there. Seeing though that Queen Beatrix is still kicking, the royal lineage safe and continuous, a better choice might be to memorialize a tradition whose end might be pending: the Dutch government's commitment to design.

Sure maybe a little confusing in use, multiple denominations gracing a single unit of currency, and a little too self-referentially post-modern, but it might be nice to give the people something to remember their old scratch with.

Related Links:
** MSNBC reports on the Dutch ambivalence regarding the guilder's demise and the euro's inception.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/677982.asp

George Will in the Sacramento Bee on the Euro as portent of national cultural dissolution.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/national/will/story/1386254p-1460293c.html

Apparently, the Euro's various denomination-incarnations were designed on the Mac.
Read about it in French
Read about it in German