Design
Older currency signs have evolved slowly, often from previous currencies. The dollar and peso signs originated from the mark employed to denote the Spanish real de a ocho, whereas the pound and lira signs evolved from an L standing for libra, a Roman pound of silver. Newly invented currencies and currencies adopting new signs have symbolism closer to their adopter. The added center bar in the euro sign is meant to symbolize stability. The new Indian rupee symbol, is a stylized combination of Latin and Devanagari letters.
There are also other considerations, such as the perception of the business community and how the sign is rendered on computers. For a new symbol to be used, software to render it needs to be promulgated and keyboards need to be altered or shortcuts added to type the icon. The EU was criticized for not considering how the euro sign would need to be customized to work in different fonts. The original design was also exceptionally wide. These two factors have led to most typefaces employing customized, font-specific versions, usually with reduced width.
Read more about this topic: Currency Sign
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)