Money does more than pay for things. Its portraits, symbols and denominations communicate authority, identity, trust and power before anyone spends it. Creative Use of Money turns that familiar design system into the idea itself. Rather than changing what something costs or how someone pays, these tactics alter, invent or activate currency so the money carries the message, exposes an injustice or unlocks an experience.
- Alter Money to Visualise Harm
- Create a Protest Currency
- Redesign Who Money Represents
- Use Currency as a Media Key
1. Alter Money to Visualise Harm
Change the physical condition of money to reveal what happens to its value after someone spends, invests or donates it.
$ick Money — Give.org, Harrison & Star, 2021
Donors cannot easily see what happens to their money after it enters a charity, particularly when an organisation is poorly governed. Give.org worked with currency artist Mark Wagner to create dollar bills depicting visibly sick US presidents. The unsettling alteration showed how a healthy donation could become “sick money” inside an untrustworthy organisation. Instead of explaining accountability standards at length, the campaign made the consequence visible on the object being put at risk: the donor’s money itself.
