My favorite financial blog, Planet Money, posted a story yesterday on the IMF's decision to issue a massive amount of bonds as a way to generate cash in our current non-liquid global economy. The bonds will be issued in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which aren't a currency but were initially created as an alternative reserve asset to gold. Today the SDR is the IMF's "unit of account" and its value is based on the collective value of the US Dollar, Pound Sterling, Yen and Euro.
HOLD up! I thought this was a blog about design? Yes it is, and here's the connection:
At some point in their education, most graphic designers (including me) have probably been tasked with redesigning an existing currency or creating a symbol for a nonexistent universal currency. The IMF's SDR-based bonds make us one step closer to the latter becoming a reality. According to the Planet Money story, which was expanded further on "All Things Considered" last night, China is advocating that the SDR be adopted as a global currency. This brings up a whole host of financial questions, but I immediately thought back to the ubiquitous typography assignment and all the ruckus a new currency would generate in the design world.
So I'm going on record here: In the next 9 years, there will be a global currency. There will be a global RFP and a random design firm (I'm guessing European or Asian) will be chosen to create the symbol, which once revealed will generate all sorts of commentary and criticism amongst designers and doom a generation of typography students to a new version of an old default homework assignment.
Read the Planet Money post here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/07/imf_bonds.html
Listen to the "All Things Considered" story: