Aaron Marcus has proposed a “modest plan to save the US economy.” His redesign of US currency involves the US Treasury Department allowing anyone’s face to appear on the front of US currency and any corporate logo on the back, provided each sponsor pays $100 million to the US Treasury. If 7,000 wealthy people and corporations sign up worldwide, that would raise $700 billion for the US Government, about half the 2010 fiscal deficit or about the amount that the government paid for the recent economic bailout. This design project provides an incentive to wealthy individuals and companies to give part of their wealth to the US Government. Grandparents might want to see their grandchildren featured. Entertainment stars and political leaders could see their faces everywhere. This idea recognizes that one of the US’ greatest exports is its US currency.
His design was one of several finalists in a private competition to redesign the US currency. ABC News interviewed Aaron Marcus about his Customized Currency (or Vanity Bucks) project for their nationally broadcast “Evening News with Diane Sawyer“.
The full idea is explained at the American Institute of Graphic Arts Website: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/modest-proposal-customized-currency?searchtext=aaron%20marcus. A South Korean innovation Website has posted a Korean text with all the key images: http://seouldesignmarket.com/news?sect=1&page=1&keyword=&order=1&cat=1&idx=734.
The YouTube video explaining the project is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by6JxRkrxSo
Posted on 1 October 2010 in Archives, Featured-Projects | No Comments » You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.