Norway’s Banknotes Go Modern

We love forward-thinkers and countries who embrace the ‘now’ is no exception. Norway’s Norges Bank held a competition last Spring for design proposals to be submitted for their new banknote series. A panel of six judges – 5 professionals and 1 member of the bank – decided on two winners who best approached the given theme “The Sea.” Leaning towards the traditional side, The Metric System’s ‘Norwegian Living Space’ showcases realistic images of different aspects relating to the theme and will be shown on the obverse side. Inspired by the Beaufort wind force scale, the modern pixel concept by Snøhetta’s ‘Beauty of Boundaries’ features varying lengths of pixels dependent on the amount of the kroner note; the 50 kroner containing shorter pixels for normal wind activity while the 1,000 note features longer pixels to symbolize stronger winds. The banknotes containing the new designs will make its debut in the 2017 circulation.