Norway's new, rad, pixel art currency
Some people work themselves to the bone for the almighty dollar. But, let's face it, our legal tender is pretty drab compared to European currency. However, Norway is setting a new, higher standard with its abstract pixel art featured on the back side of their currency. This is basically the coolest thing to happen to money since... money – cause money is cool, but pixel art money is cooler.
Norway's Norges Bank recently announced the winner of their design competition for the national currency. Two winners have been picked from the bunch. The front side of the new bills will feature traditional Norwegian art created by The Metric System. Basically, the front side will be very nationalistic and boring.
The back side of the new Norwegian bill will bring Norway into the 21st Century with a pixel party! The design was created by Snøhetta and features abstract pixel artwork that makes money fun. The pixel artwork uses Norwegian landscapes as its basis. The art has turned coastal landscapes into color pixels which become more progressively abstract as the monetary value increases. They titled their pixel color-block artwork Beauty of Boundaries. It's quite a cool concept and you can see their winning money design collection on their website (http://snohetta.com/project/200-norways-new-banknotes).
A juxtaposition of the Norwegian landscapes used to create the pixel money art
The photo above shows the juxtaposition of how Snøhetta turned a photo of a Norwegian coastal landscape into a hazy, abstract, purple dream using pixels. This money is set to enter circulation by 2017, so you may want to hold off on your Norwegian travel plans until then.
The pixelated color-block design was determined in-part by using the Beaufort wind force scale. They tried to indicate the strength of the wind by the length of the squares of color. Hence, the art not only depicts a scene, but tries to give the view a sense of the sensation of experiencing the coast in person. As the wind increases in the particular coastal city, the value of the note also increases. These were very clever designers, indeed.
The art is beautiful, and the concept behind it melds nature with the age of technology to create something inspiring.
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