post script visions

The Indian government is going to be holding a public contest to redesign the Rupee. Currently, the rupee is referred to only as abbreviated forms like Rs or INR (Indian Rupee). Only Indian citizens are eligible to participate in the contest. Finalists will receive $500 (in US dollars) and the grand prize winner will receive $5000 (in US dollars) which will also be “payment” for the rights of the symbol.

Read more here. Thanks BBC.

Can you imagine trying to redesign the US dollar symbol “$” ? I can’t. I really can’t imagine designing such a widely used and such an important symbol. Hopefully, by creating a sort of Universal symbol for the Rupee, the Rupee will gain more clout. While being known as a relatively poor country with a giant population, India has billionaires and money and deserve to be on the same playing field/market as the rest of the world.

My boyfriend pointed out the “fact” that most currency symbols are just the first letter of the name of the currency with two lines through it.

Euros, Yen, Pounds, Dollars, Pesos.
They all pretty much have the first letter.

Okay, admittedly I didn’t realize that. Thanks Smarty-Pants.

I asked him then why the dollar symbol is an “S” then. He couldn’t answer me because he forgot the reason. I still want to know why… so here is the reason.

Apparently the “S” comes from British North America evolving the use of the Spanish dollar a long long long time ago. The British adapted the Spanish dollar for North America.
Thanks wikipedia!

I really hope that the Rupee will be something more interesting than just an R with a few lines through it. It think it would be great if they used a character from a language specific to India instead of an English “R”. I want to see a character that I am not used to seeing.

It will take a lot of time (and money) to really implement the new symbol into the world’s daily life with all of the computers, different fonts, different languages, different pieces of technology like phones, and even in print in books and magazines. I’m really interested in seeing how this new symbol works out. And plus, it’s just another glyph for typeface designers to play with.