They say statistics can be used to prove anything, so I'm not expecting this to change your mind, but poll after poll shows that the majority of people in the USA are Christians.
But there are two things: (1) relevance and (2) I'm guessing the consensus among Americans is that we wouldn't want merely a majority-rule democracy, but a democracy that also respects the rights of minorities.
Using the reasoning of popularity, we could put "Land of the Whites" on our money.
we (and when I say "we" I mean "you" because I'm not from the US) should be more concerned about the un-separation of church and state and less about the design
The large majority of Americans are Christian, and any even larger percentage believe in some sort of God. Do you really think a major hang-up preventing a separation of Church and State is the phrase on the money? This phrase is an indicator, not a contributing factor.
All the new dollar bills seem like they were designed piecemeal, with little thought as to how they coalesce into one image. Independence Hall is cut off on the right by the giant 100. It's not cut off on the left. Who cares about symmetry?
The front of the $10 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US10dollarbill-Series_2004...) has three things going on in the exact same place. Look at the seal on the right of the bill. It also has TEN written over it, and We The People in the same spot. Is it harder to counterfeit if you can't read it? It simply looks lazy to me.
The back of the $20 looks like a child took a highlighter and drew 20 on the bill dozens of times. There's no discernible pattern; it looks like noise.
The front of the $10 has three things going on in the exact same place. Look at the seal on the right of the bill. It also has TEN written over it, and We The People in the same spot. Is it harder to counterfeit if you can't read it? It simply looks lazy to me.
Yes, that's exactly why, it's an anti-counterfeiting device. Are you really having trouble reading "We the People" or using that TEN to determine the denomination?
I think it's bad aesthetics. There must be ways to make bills similarly difficult to counterfeit while still having designs that don't look like they were designed by a committee of blind bureaucrats.
It's unfortunate that things can not be appreciated solely for their functional utility and that everything gets judged on its visual impression and that visual impression is valued so highly that every other aspect takes a back seat; do we really stare at our currency for so long that we are offended by its "bad aesthetics"? People are increasingly using cash less frequently thanks to the ease of ETF and credit for small transactions. One of the goals of cash is to be easily and quickly identifiable and the different monetary values to be distinct. If you have enough time to seriously appreciate the look of your currency, it's not currency. Is anyone going to say "Sorry, I'm not going to accept your $20 bill because it's ugly"? Get real.
I think calling the work that engravers do the result of a committee of blind bureaucrats does a disservice to the work and artistic effort that goes into designing cash.
There's also a reason not to make cash valuable for reasons other than the monetary value it is meant to represent, bad "aesthetics" is perhaps one way to do this. Turing cash into works of high art may end up making the value of the paper greater than the monetary value.
Out of curiosity, why is there so much hand-wringing on the Internet about fonts? I agree that typography has importance in design. But the attention given to it seems totally incommensurate with its importance.
Here's the thing. Helvetica is indeed awesome. But it fits into the design of US currency about as well as an Eero Saarinen table fits into a Victorian living room.
I'd sacrifice increased counterfeiting if it meant we could get rid of all those colors. For the longest time, the US had currency that was truly unique looking compared to the rest of the world. Now, it's beginning to look like every other foreign currency: rainbow colors, large and detailed faces, and asymmetric denomination marks.
Really? In the end the public pays for counterfeiting. I do agree it's beginning to look the same and it seems like we could come up with something more original, but in the end I don't care what it looks like as long as whats in my back pocket is real.
I thought the other reason for the variety of colors and sizes was that it made it easier for visual impairments to handle money. It would indeed be nice, though, if US currency became more usable while remaining unique.
Is there a genuinely compelling reason to banish one font or another from our currency? Really? Font Nerds are very high up on the list of geek subcultures that I do not understand. Not quite as high up as furries, though.
