This is how the Hungarian Euro banknotes look like?

A Hungarian university student, Barbara Bernát designed a fictional currency: the Hungarian Euro.

Barbara studied graphic design at the University of West Hungary. Currently, she is an MA student, and this piece of work was her master’s project.

Instead of famous people and buildings, she created a series of banknotes depicting protected European animals on one side, and plants on the other. The animals represent the growth of the value, too. Also, the size of each banknote grows according to the increase of the denomination.

She started the design with thumbnails, then developed it into more detailed graphite drawings, which served as the outlines of the final layout. All of the banknotes were inked and hand-pulled by Barbara.

As she said, she only wanted to keep the absolutely necessary elements (the serial number, the issuing authority and the authorized signatories), and get rid of the ”unnecessary security graphic elements behind, to get a clear visual impact”. She also added that she wanted to emphasize the animals and the plants, while the typography and the security marks were of secondary importance.

Barbara etched each design into separate copperplates, with which she tried to imitate the original technique of banknote production, called intaglio printing. She completed her work with luminous (UV or fluorescent) paint.

Here is a list of the animals and plants appearing on the banknotes:
5 Euro: lizard (Lacerta agilis) and grass (Setaria viridis)
10 Euro: dormouse (Eliomysquercinus) and rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
20 Euro: hooded crow (Corvus cornix) and sycamore (Platanus x Hybrida)
50 Euro: red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and fern (Dryopteris filix-mas)
100 Euro: deer (Capreolus capreolus) and oak (Quercus robur)

based on article of behance.net
written by Vivien Pásztai

Source: https://www.behance.net/