Brute Force Branding: Variations & Repetitions of the Almighty Dollar Banknote
This article in Communication Science and Art History, authored by Rui-Long Monico under the supervision of Professors Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel (University of Geneva), Oliver Zöllner (Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart), and Michael Lüthy (State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart), and edited by Catherine Dossin (Purdue University), was published in January 2026 in The Artl@s Bulletin (Purdue University Press). This transdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal is dedicated to spatial and transnational approaches in the history of the arts. The article appears in Volume 14, titled “The Same, But Not the Same: Understanding How Images Cross Boundaries and Endure,” and is available here in Open Access as a PDF.
Merely quantitative differences
beyond a certain point
pass into qualitative differences.
— Friedrich Engels[1]
Flooding Our Minds with the Image of the Dollar
The dollar is legal tender. The dollar is also a global brand—a strikingly effective one. Its banknote has become a universal visual apparatus: a medium through which various messages are encoded[2] and disseminated. Dollar bills and their logo—the ‘$’ sign—leave an imperial imprint on the most varied and trivial aspects of our routines. Representing the United States in and of itself, they assert—oh so quietly—the supremacy of American currency[3] and the far-reaching influence of its soft power.[4] The authority and status of the dollar are grounded not only in the primacy of its issuing country but also in its aesthetic consistency, overwhelming circulation, widespread reproduction, tenacious material form, and exceptional malleability as a template primed for adaptation and diffusion. It spreads and permeates both from the top down, through formal institutional endorsement, including its adoption and imitation by numerous foreign central banks, and from the bottom up, through civil-society, cultural, and commercial appropriation. The images of the dollar no longer simply appear within the frame—they saturate the visual field, flood our gaze, and, as the saying goes, live rent-free in our minds as one of the great floating icons of the contemporary era: at once economically, symbolically, and ideologically charged.
While extensive scholarship has dissected currency, banknotes, and the dollar, such investigations often remain confined within disciplinary silos—whether economics, sociology, philosophy, history, or anthropology.[5] My contribution adopts an interdisciplinary lens, integrating insights from art history, political geography, communication studies, visual culture, media theory, international relations, and design epistemologies to interrogate the dollar banknote as a complex, dynamic, and multilayered branding mechanism. I seek to demonstrate that the dollar functions as a circulating and ritualized sign-system: a fluid template and bearer of meaning that continually reinforces and reinvents itself across diverse sociopolitical and cultural terrains. Methodologically, I rely on qualitative and interpretive methods—including image and semiotic analysis, as well as comparative case studies—building on my doctoral research on nation branding, the use of currency imagery as an instrument of soft power, and the historical evolution of banknote design and production.
One Currency to Rule Them All
In his seminal work on economic geography, Benjamin J. Cohen investigated the global monetary system, uncovering an implicit hierarchy of currencies despite their nominal equality under international law.[6] Within this pecking order, he introduced a taxonomy that employs the pyramid metaphor to illustrate the varying degrees of monetary power. Each tier reflects a currency’s level of recognition and influence on the international stage—its capacity to exert cross-border clout and its decisive heft in shaping global dynamics, especially among key players in commerce and finance. National tenders are thus ranked from the bottom up, beginning with ‘pseudo-currencies’—phantom monies that, although legally acknowledged, exercise negligible impact due to endemic economic instability or state collapse. From there, the stratification ascends through successive steps—‘quasi-,’ ‘permeated-,’ ‘plebeian-,’ ‘elite-,’ ‘patrician-,’ and finally ‘top-currency’—as each segment conveys greater extraterritorial acceptance, usability, and traction.
Comparing Cohen’s 1998 pyramid to the macroeconomic landscape of 2025,[7] we can only notice how substantial the tectonic shifts have proven to be. Over time, currencies have dramatically repositioned themselves—climbing up (e.g., the Chinese yuan, once insignificant) and down (e.g., the British pound, once hegemonic) the ladder. These movements mirrored not only cycles of economic boom and bust but also deep structural transformations, discreet long-term trendlines, political volatility, erosion of domestic authority, and noteworthy episodes of resilience and reform. Some high-profile actors have even disappeared altogether, such as when several idealistic European nations voluntarily relinquished their monetary sovereignty to form the euro, envisioned as a future global reference. Tellingly, despite the combined weight of the 20-member Eurozone, today’s euro—mired in internal contradictions, hobbled by faltering supranational governance, and dragged by a sluggish economy—is evidently weaker than the late-stage Deutsche Mark once wielded by Germany alone.
Towering above the rest, one echelon stands out as more resilient to seismic realignments. Crowning Cohen’s pyramid is what I have dubbed the ‘supreme currency’—a more fitting term for the one and only currency that, via a Darwinian winnowing process, transcends geographic boundaries to become the universal benchmark. It dominates international financial flows, behaving as a standard of value, a normative reference point, and a symbolic lodestar. Through mimetic emulation, duress or compulsion, countless other currencies attach themselves to it, reference it, or imitate its features. Historically, several currencies have risen to this distinguished status: the Athenian silver drachma, the Byzantine gold solidus (or bezant), the Islamic dinar, the Florentine florin, the Venetian ducat, and the Spanish real. [8] In modern times, only two have achieved such supremacy—the British pound (until World War II) and the U.S. dollar (ever since).
The Geopolitics of Dollarization
And indeed, the tipping point occurred in 1944, when the Bretton Woods Agreements addressed the establishment of a new world order. Convinced of impending victory in the Second World War—yet amidst fierce protestations—the United States rebuked the British delegation, led by their illustrious economist John Maynard Keynes, and rejected its proposal for a supranational currency: the bancor.[9] Capitalizing on its dominance, the U.S. instead cemented the dollar as the global anchor currency, reflecting the ascent of English as the new lingua franca, supplanting French. Since then, by leveraging its diplomatic, cultural, economic, and military pull, the United States has asserted the prerogative to elevate its dollar to a universal medium of exchange. Much like gold ingots once did, the dollar began to function as the primary reserve currency for most central banks, including those of erstwhile rivals such as the Soviet Union.[10] Today, as a supreme currency, the dollar continues to retain market confidence, primarily for geopolitical reasons, despite increasingly troubling fundamentals, most notably the ballooning U.S. national debt.[11]
Yet the dollar’s role ripples outwards its institutional use: it serves as the leading currency for licit and illicit cross-border transactions and has, de facto, been adopted as legal tender in numerous crisis-ridden, failed, or war-torn states. In many places, the dollar operates alongside domestic currencies, creating a kind of modern bimetallism in which the greenback “naturally”[12] emerges as the dominant choice. One can pay in dollars, for instance, in Cambodia (alongside the riel), Lebanon (alongside the lira), or Panama (alongside the balboa). A 2012 International Monetary Fund report revealed that while there were roughly 200 countries worldwide, only 155 distinct currencies circulated, indicating that a quarter of nations had opted out of issuing their own currency in favor of shared ones (the euro, CFA franc) or the U.S. dollar.[13]
Known as ‘dollarization,’ this reliance carries risk. Countries adopting the dollar sacrifice control over their monetary policy and grow dependent on a currency they neither issue nor regulate.[14] Absent sufficient reserves, they must borrow dollars or sell goods to acquire them, thus inflating external debt. Meanwhile, as the issuer, the United States imports goods and services in exchange for dollars it can freely create, with many of those bills never returning to its own balance sheets. This arrangement sustains a chronic trade deficit, akin to operating a virtual gold mine. While other nations must settle for ‘firing up the printing press,’ the U.S. effectively taps into an inexhaustible ‘dollar mine’—a privilege that has provoked repeated criticism.[15] Among the most vocal was economist Robert Triffin, whose pointed assessment during the Cold War reportedly cost him the Nobel Prize.[16]
From Economic to Cultural Dissemination
Since the end of World War II, the United States’ leadership over the so-called ‘free world’—often referred to as ‘Pax Americana’ in analogy with ancient ‘Pax Romana’—has been asserted through myriad channels: CIA operations, show of force enabled by aircraft carriers patrolling the Seven Seas, the economic sway of Wall Street and its neoliberal strain of capitalism, or the dissemination of ‘democratic’ dogmata in over forty languages by the Voice of America propaganda outlet.[17] Against this backdrop, the paper currency of this empire-in-all-but-name—the U.S. dollar—logically ranks as the most mass-produced printed medium in history, eclipsing even the Bible. It also claims one of the most universally recognizable images, owing to a staggering circulation exceeding fifty billion bills and its pervasive visibility across all cultural layers. For this currency is not merely an economic unit. Outside the scope of its financial and geopolitical significance, it occupies a distinct iconic status—aesthetic, ideological, and semiotic. Omnipresent and inextricably linked to the image of its issuing nation, the dollar stands as one of the most familiar symbols of our daily lives.
Advertising—and, even more potently, the film industry—function as formidable amplifiers, promoting both the dissemination and legitimization of this cultural marker. In Hollywood productions, the dollar is everywhere: whether in westerns, gangster films, or the James Bond franchise. Vaults and suitcases brimming with green bills have become cinematic clichés. A telling instance appears in the TV series Breaking Bad, where an absurdly massive pile of tens of millions of dollars—surreal in its unfathomable scale—momentarily distracts the endearing, morbidly obese Huell Babineaux from his courier duties.[18] Yielding to an impulsive glee, he sprawls atop this ‘bed’ of cash, arms spread wide, smiling with a blissful satisfaction reminiscent of Scrooge McDuck gleefully swimming in his ocean of gold coins (Fig. 2). In the musical realm, the dollar serves as an equally insistent leitmotif, saliently in hip-hop, the genre that has ruled pop culture for over three decades.[19] Literal and metaphorical evocations of ‘Dead Presidents’—the synecdochical phrase referring to dollar bills, popularized by rapper Jay-Z[20]—proliferate in lyrics and album art, while music videos ceaselessly celebrate the currency’s materiality and iconography. Arguably canonical in its flamboyance, Make It Rain exalts the dollar’s opulent power: towering heaps of cash shower voluptuous, scantily clad women, evoking the infamous gesture of strip clubs, as rapper Lil Wayne cavorts on-screen and pelts viewers with fistfuls of bills (Fig. 2).[21] Around his neck, a heavy diamond-encrusted ‘bling-bling’ necklace—emblazoned in the shape of a dollar—sparks and glitters, underscoring both the currency’s allure and its inescapable link to spectacle.
High culture has also long been enthralled by the U.S. dollar, drawing the attention of artists ranging from the obscure to the firmly established. In the late 19th century, William Harnett, a master of still-life painting, featured currency as a recurrent theme, depicting hyperrealistic dollar banknotes seemingly springing off the canvas.[22] Viewers, lured by their startling verisimilitude, had to quell the impulse to touch what was, in fact, mere paint. For affluent buyers of the time, these works served as memento mori—an implicit moral indictment of a currency deemed unstable, while also recalling the extensive poverty in the country. In a later era, J.S.G. Boggs traversed the nexus of art, commerce, and value by diligently hand-drawing dollar bills. Rather than selling his works in conventional galleries, Boggs used his bills in transactions, exchanging them for goods and services while making it clear that his paper monies were artworks, not legal tender. Over his thirty-year career, he “spent”[23] more than 250,000 ‘dollars’ worth of hand-drawn notes with artisans, merchants, and individuals. Each transaction formed a performance that escaped the confines of the artwork itself, incorporating receipts, change, and subsequent attempts by collectors to locate the new owners of Boggs’s “art-currency.”[24] This conceptual choreography, which Boggs dubbed “the art of the deal,”[25] emphasized the economic and performative dimensions over the physical artifact, later documented through photographs exhibited in lieu of the actual bills.[26]
For many contemporary artists, the operative approach is less about reproducing the currency than intervening directly on actual dollar bills—transforming them into medium, substrate, or raw material. Some appropriate fragments from the production process, while others repurpose entire stacks of banknotes that are then cut, torn, recombined, glued, enlarged photographically, altered in chromatic tone, turned into three-dimensional objects, crumpled, layered, burned, perforated, stacked, stretched, laminated, embroidered, notched, dissected, embossed, assembled, inlaid, integrated into immersive installations, or reshaped to form unexpected structures.
Analyzing this phenomenon,[27] I was struck by the sheer frenzy of artistic engagement, so pervasive, so widespread that it teeters on the edge of impossibility to list all the involved. The spectrum spans from French Nouveau réaliste Arman, who filled transparent, headless mannequins with dollar bills encased in resin for his Venu$ aux Dollars series (1961); to New Yorker Keith Haring, who, in the late 1980s, used the banknotes as a canvas for his post-graffiti doodles; to Miami-based Steven Gagnon, who in 2001 confronted the politics of dollarization by embedding entire, uncut sheets of U.S. currency into the national flags of countries like Ecuador and El Salvador, both of which had recently espoused the dollar as official legal tender; to Duy Nguyen, a Malaysian-born, Norwegian-Vietnamese conceptual artist, who published a book titled Another Way to Throw Your Money (2005), featuring dollar-bill paper airplane models; to German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann, who devoted his $100,000 Hugo Boss Prize to wallpapering the Guggenheim Museum in 2010 with used 1-dollar bills, pinned in dense rows from floor to ceiling—creating a green, undulating expanse that questioned economic spectacle.
When the Swiss National Bank (SNB) chose to participate in Expo.02—Switzerland’s 2002 national exhibition—it commissioned Harald Szeemann, widely regarded by scholars, enthusiasts, and peers as one of the most transformative figures in the history of contemporary curating,[28] to imagine a program that would resonate with the public’s monetary fascination. What he delivered was Geld und Wert / Das letzte Tabu, a compelling inquiry into the cultural, psychological, and philosophical dimensions of what Szeemann identified as modernity’s final societal taboo: the fraught and often uncomfortable relationship between art and money.[29] Housed in a pavilion clad in gold-colored panels, the initiative showcased an unsettling centerpiece—a public performance of shredding real banknotes—confronting visitors with the emotional violence of witnessing value being annihilated. Orbiting this gesture were numerous artworks that engaged with currency, mostly the U.S. dollar, not strictly as a repetitive motif, but also mobilized as artistic matter, form, carrier, and idea.
I have examined dozens of artists tackling this subject through firsthand encounters in galleries and museums, by scouring exhibition catalogues and monographs, and by rummaging through a vast body of literature that spans volumes.[30] One inference unfolds with irrefutable clarity: there is no singular profile, no unifying denominator—neither in the artists themselves nor in their artworks. These interventions stem from the most disparate contexts—across generations, continents, cultures, movements, ideologies, media, and intents. This signals the extent to which dollar imagery has become so deeply assimilated into visual culture that its presence now feels banal, even automatic. Just as crucifixions, lavish banquets, or architectural ruins served as persistent tropes in earlier epochs, the image of the dollar has become a normalized fixture—one that just about anyone in the world can instantly recognize and relate to emotionally. Its treatment is at times poetic, at others satirical; at once overtly polemical or rhetorical, elsewhere purely formal. In some instances, the dollar is reduced to superficial texture; in others, it operates as a critical device or symbolic trigger. It may take on elegiac, cynical, playful, or urgent tones. Yet across all permutations, what remains consistent is its testimony to the dollar banknote’s stubborn grip on the cultural imagination.
$: The Rise of a Semiotic Star
Onetime advertising illustrator Andy Warhol displayed a lifelong obsession with the representation of money. Early in his journey, he meticulously sketched dollar bills in pencil, capturing their creases, shadows, and folds with dazzling precision.[31] These drawings foreshadowed his later explorations of money’s aesthetic and cultural resonance. Alongside Jim Dine, Robert Dowd, Phillip Hefferton, Joe Goode, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Ruscha, and Wayne Thiebaud, Warhol participated in the landmark 1962 exhibition New Painting of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum. The showcase defied the academicism of an already waning Abstract Expressionism and heralded a new avant-garde—one that would most incisively embody the dollar’s hold on the collective unconscious: Pop Art.[32] The exhibition paid tribute to ordinary life and imposed the conceptual constraint that artworks be reproducible and sold in multiples—repetition as a guiding aesthetic, akin to an image factory. Using stencils and a mimeograph, Warhol produced motifs that would become emblematic of his legacy: household appliances, a Coke bottle, and that other staple of daily existence—a banknote. These hand-painted commodities expressed both their physical immediacy and symbolic value in an era defined by consumerist optimism. Warhol’s approach probed cultural fixations on money, channeling a growing infatuation with mass consumption and its romanticized tokens.
That same year, Warhol produced his Dollar Bill Paintings, depicting both the front and back of 1-dollar and 2-dollar bills. Arranged in a grid of rows and columns, these works recall the composition of his Campbell’s Soup Cans. Warhol’s 200 One Dollar Bills was initially sold for its face value—$200—but fetched $385,000 at Sotheby’s in 1985 and later $43 million in 2010.[33] One cannot help but note the beautiful, ironic mise en abyme created by this meteoric, hyper-speculative valuation of an artwork depicting a currency that has itself undergone significant inflation since President Richard Nixon’s unilateral suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold in August 1971.[34] Unlike peers such as Boggs or Feldmann, who delivered social critiques, Warhol’s Dollar Bill Paintings avoided moral commentary. Nor are they vanitas in the style of Harnett, intended to remind viewers of the fleeting nature of material pleasures. Instead, Warhol glorified money, epitomizing the American Dream and celebrating the unbridled pursuit of wealth.[35] In a candid interview, he dispelled any lingering doubts about his ethos, if any remained: “Buying is much more American than thinking, and I’m as American as they come.”[36]
Two decades after first engaging with the dollar’s imagery, Andy Warhol revisited the theme at the Leo Castelli Gallery.[37] Departing from the literal depiction of banknotes, Warhol reduced the dollar’s essence to its semiotic core—a capital ‘S’ crossed vertically by one or two bars. Titled Dollar Signs, these paintings embraced Warhol’s signature serial aesthetic—repetitions and variations of a singular motif, rendered in vivid, contrasting palettes. Formally, they parroted his renowned celebrity portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, or Mao Zedong. What Warhol so forcefully illustrates here is an emblem with a near-fetishized status, whose aura outstrips that of any movie starlet, rock idol, or bloodthirsty tyrant. The ‘$’ symbol, instantly recognizable across national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries, rivals and perhaps surpasses other venerated emblems like the Christian cross, the Bolsheviks’ hammer & sickle, or McDonald’s golden arches. It was no longer just currency—it had become a global marker of wealth, power, and capitalism.
Surprisingly, the dollar sign appears on no official U.S. coin or bill and has never been formally sanctioned by monetary authorities; rather, its mainstream usage arose informally, blooming into the visual shorthand or logo of the U.S. dollar brand. Theories about its origin abound. The most common hypothesis traces it to the superimposition of the letters ‘P’ and ‘S’, abbreviating pesos.[38] Another theory links it to the Pillars of Hercules on the coat of arms of Spain, around which a ribbon banner is wound—an image historically tied to the Spanish dollar, a precursor to the U.S. currency.
Many currencies have been given a distinctive graphic sign—a particularly useful device for placing the currency name on such spatially constrained formats as metal coins or accounting ledgers. A notable harbinger is the pound sterling’s ‘£’ symbol—a stylized uppercase ‘L’ introduced by English scribes in the 11th century as an abbreviation for the Latin libra, the Roman Empire’s base unit of weight, equivalent to roughly 334 grams of pure silver.[39] Following this schema—a typographic character pierced by one or more lines—multiple currency symbols coexist. Among the most interesting from a design standpoint are ‘₩’ for the Korean won, ‘₹’ for the Indian rupee, ‘₫’ for the Vietnamese dong, ‘₺’ for the Turkish lira, and ‘₴’ for the Ukrainian hryvnia. Yet only the ‘$’ sign appears to transcend its primary function to become a polysemic emblem: depending on context, it can signify capitalism, wealth, greed, success, corruption, or trade. As such, its usage extends well beyond economic spheres. Some performers and rappers incorporate it into their stage names, wearing it as a badge of identity and aspiration: A$AP Rocky, Ke$ha, Ty Dolla $ign, Joey Bada$$, PICA$$O… In the information technology age, the dollar sign’s presence is ubiquitous. The ‘$’ glyph (Unicode: U+0024) plays a technical role in programming languages such as BASIC, PHP, COBOL, R, Java, or Python. It also remains the only currency symbol with a dedicated key on standard computer keyboards.
The Dialectics of Compliance & Emancipation
Apart from the aforementioned occurrences of dollarization, about twenty countries have adopted the dollar as their official monetary denomination. This group includes traditional U.S. allies such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Joining them are states with failing institutions (e.g., Zimbabwe), Pacific micro-nations (e.g., the Solomon Islands), Caribbean islands (e.g., the Bahamas), along with African (e.g., Liberia), Asian (e.g., Singapore), or Latin American (e.g., Belize) territories under the aegis, sway, or patronage of the Yankee ‘big brother.’ Predictably, all these currencies bear the ‘$’ symbol, though it sometimes predates its association with the dollar and was originally tied to the peso (as in the case of Argentina, Chile, or Uruguay). Furthermore, some currencies, lacking distinct monetary symbols, have simply borrowed the dollar’s glyph for their own purposes, such as the Samoan tālā, Ethiopian birr, and Nicaraguan córdoba. This adoption underscores economic dependencies and diplomatic alignments, which extend past finance into the visual aesthetics of currency design. Mirroring the stylistic DNA of the U.S. dollar—through as many repetitions and variations of it—these currencies offer users a familiar yet uninspired visual landscape.
This “American lineage”[40] becomes glaringly evident in the transition banknotes that the U.S. Treasury printed for France during Operation Overlord in June 1944. Sporting a “Monopoly style,”[41] rendered in a restricted trichrome palette of black, fuchsia, and turquoise, these notes look “dollar-like at first glance,”[42] even to the untrained eye (Fig. 3). General Charles de Gaulle swiftly rebuffed this “well-intentioned”[43] initiative, decrying it as an encroachment on French sovereignty. By contrast, post-war Germany, desperate to stabilize its collapsed economy, readily accepted the creation of the Deutsche Mark in 1948—a currency shaped under American oversight. Its monochromatic design, resembling the U.S. dollar as to verge on caricature, reflected not just the economic authority of the United States but also the cultural weight of its financial imagery (Fig. 3).[44] Many such cases exist, and when not engineered—officially or unofficially—by Washington, they reveal a deeper mimetic desire among politically or economically vulnerable states (as seen in Liberia, Barbados, or the Cayman Islands) eager to make their currencies easily identifiable and trustworthy in the eyes of both local populations and foreigners.[45]
Japan provides another archetypal demonstration of this emulation process. For over two centuries, the Land of the Rising Sun adhered to a stringent isolationist policy, shutting out foreign influence. This autarky was forcibly dismantled in 1853 when American Commodore Matthew Perry’s gunboat diplomacy forced Japan to reopen its borders, sparking an era of accelerated modernization. By 1872, Japanese banknotes had adopted a Western, U.S.-style design, dramatically departing from earlier graphic conventions rooted in the ukiyo-e tradition of woodblock prints.[46] While these new yen notes took stylistic cues from the dollar, their imagery reframed European motifs. Indeed, the first yen-denominated banknotes were created by an Italian engraver, Edoardo Chiossone, who was specially invited to Japan for this purpose.[47] A second, far more coercive, wave of external influence arrived during the U.S. occupation following World War II, which lasted—nominally—until 1952. This palpable subordination, whose legacy remained sacrosanct for quite some time, was reflected even in the iconography of currency.[48] Japanese banknotes were overhauled wholesale to closely mimic the greenback. For instance, Takahashi Korekiyo, a former prime minister who coordinated major Keynesian reforms, was chosen to grace the medallion on the 50-yen note (Fig. 4) echoing Alexander Hamilton—one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and the principal architect of its financial system—whose portrait appears on the 10-dollar bill (Fig. 4).[49] Designing each new banknote gave rise to tense and elaborate negotiations between the compliant Japanese authorities and their foreign overseers.
Certain proposals were rejected outright, including a seated Buddha, deemed incompatible with the strict separation of church and state stipulated by Japan’s new pacifist constitution. A document which was drafted by officials from the United States under the supervision of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, and whose ninth article renounces the use of military force to settle disputes.[50] This hypocritical double standard is hard to ignore, as on the reverse of U.S. banknotes, one inscription commands all the attention: ‘In God We Trust.’ Introduced in 1864 amid the Civil War on the two-cent coin, it originated from the final verse of the national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.[51] Nearly a century later, in the context of the struggle against communism’s heathen ideology, President Dwight Eisenhower enshrined it as the country’s official credo. This decision ignited heated debates about the role of religion in public life, and Warhol stepped into the controversy when he decided to immortalize, in his Dollar Bill Paintings, the 1935G series 1-dollar bill introduced in 1957—the inaugural issue to bear the contentious phrase.[52]
Long reluctant to upset the status quo, Japan’s elites sought to restore certain markers of national sovereignty, a movement that intensified as Washington’s colonial grip loosened slightly and Japan solidified its position as the world’s second-largest economy.[53] Unable to maneuver in the military sphere, attention turned to the symbolic and monetary arenas. An initial, discreet overhaul began in 1981, followed by a more ambitious redesign in the 2000s. For the first time, serious attention was paid to foreign banknotes other than the U.S. dollar—a practice that would subsequently be systematized. A senior official involved in this initiative recalled: “Sitting around a table looking at European banknotes, and also Australian. We also looked at the American greenback, but most people said it was a very primitive banknote, and also very prone to counterfeiting. No one tried to imitate the American style.”[54] The resulting reforms adjusted the yen’s dimensions to international standards, broadened its color palette for both aesthetic and security reasons, and prioritized cultural figures over politicians. One Ministry of Finance representative even produced France’s acclaimed 50-franc note—featuring Saint-Exupéry’s Petit Prince—by Swiss designer Roger Pfund as the definitive reference (Fig. 4).[55] By every measure, Japan’s yen parted ways with the dollar-based model, pivoting toward a European design ethos rooted in the Swiss school of banknote design.[56] Upon reviewing the latest issue from the Bank of Japan, dated July 2024—chiefly the new 1,000-yen note adorned by The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai’s ukiyo-e masterpiece (Fig. 4)—we can sense that things came full circle—a return to a more traditional and culturally grounded approach.
The Bitter Irony of Cuba’s Revolutionary Currency
The United States’ protégés and obligés are not the only nations that emulate the dollar in their currency design. Numerous cases exist of countries defiant of—or even openly hostile to—the U.S. that nonetheless appropriate aspects of its monetary aesthetics. One of the most paradoxical and illuminating examples I have encountered while surveying numismatic databases and currency archives[57] is that of Cuba: the very entity that came to personify Cold War polarization.[58] This oppositional posture reached its most dramatic expression during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a confrontation that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and entrenched Cuba as a radical and antagonistic counterpoint to American imperialism.
From Fidel Castro’s 1959 coup and Cuba’s subsequent alignment with the Soviet bloc up until the fall of the USSR, Cuban banknotes—produced (and likely designed) by Státní Tiskárna Cenin, the state securities printer of the fraternal socialist state of Czechoslovakia—bore a conspicuous resemblance to the dollar. Sure, localized substitutions were made. Textual content appeared in Spanish instead of English, but the typographic style and cadence, spatial hierarchy, serial number placement, and overall compositional symmetry all closely replicated the characteristics of U.S. Federal Reserve Notes. To replace the dollar’s busts of statesmen who played pivotal roles in U.S. history—a miniature Mount Rushmore, etched in cash rather than granite—suitable alternatives were procured. For example, the 1990 20-peso banknote featured the charismatic, smiling face of Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán, one of the barbudos—the deified bearded guerrilla fighters resting in Cuba’s revolutionary pantheon (Fig. 5). Likewise, in lieu of the American neoclassical heritage buildings, propagandistic tableaux were rendered in the style of socialist realism. The same 20-peso bill depicts rebel soldiers armed with rifles and machine guns wading ashore from the Granma yacht on 2 December 1956 at Playa Las Coloradas—the legendary origin story of the pro-American Batista regime’s toppling (Fig. 5). However, in formal terms, the central medallion on the obverse—as the large horizontal vignette on the reverse—remained canonically American in style. And the homology does not end there. From the dimensions and proportions to the monochromatic ink schemes, margins, border ornamentation, and overall layout, the visual language is unmistakably modeled on U.S. currency. By all accounts, the foundational grammar and lexicon of the Cuban peso’s design were steeped in the stylistic conventions of the dollar.
Cuba’s attempts to articulate resistance, through more than three decades of relative isolation under a rigid Marxist-Leninist dictatorship and in the face of a protracted, debilitating economic embargo, proved insufficient; it found itself conscripted into the visual logic of the dollar. In doing so, it inadvertently reaffirmed the symbolic authority of its sworn enemy. This contradiction is further compounded by the everyday reality that the U.S. dollar remains the preferred medium of exchange for much of the Cuban population. How pronounced and enduring must the gravitational pull of American monetary soft power be, if even those seemingly most committed to negating it cannot escape its magnetism? Could it be that the vernacular codes carried by the image of the dollar have outgrown their original function as representations of American currency, establishing themselves instead as an international normative standard—a proxy for money itself? Perhaps it has become a kind of universal blueprint: in sharing its qualities, a currency may find a shortcut towards credibility and trustworthiness.
Commercial Motivations Driving Banknote Design Uniformity
The 5-peso note issued by the Banco de México in 1937 and withdrawn in 1971 closely resembled the U.S. 5-dollar bill. The similarities extended to its format, dimensions, color palette, typography, and even the red serial numbers printed on the surface. Where Abraham Lincoln’s solemn portrait graced the dollar note, its Mexican counterpart featured a mysterious young woman—a gypsy-like maiden draped in luxurious attire. Rumors regarding this female figure’s identity soon swirled, fueling popular legends and the most tantalizing conjectures. Might she be, people whispered, Gloria Fauré, a stage actress and alleged mistress of President Plutarco Elías Calles, or perhaps the result of some personal whim of the then-Finance Minister, Don Alberto J. Pani, who supposedly wished to immortalize one of his conquests?[59] The truth turned out to be far more mundane. Guadalupe Monroy, curator of the Numismatic Museum of the Central Bank of the United Mexican States, contacted the firm responsible for designing and printing the bill. The American Bank Note Company’s reply laid all speculation to rest. The portrayed damsel was a generic vignette taken from a catalog of illustrations, dated September 27, 1910, and listed under inventory number V43485; the artwork was titled The Ideal Head of an Algerian Girl.[60]
This anecdote spotlights a systemic practice among major security printers—French, Austro-Hungarian, and Anglo-Saxon alike—of using standardized “ready-made” models for quick and cost-effective banknote design.[61] Steve Gulliford, former operations director at De La Rue, acknowledged that shareholder pressures and cost-containment imperatives had spurred the creation of template-driven designs, curtailing artistic originality.[62] Debbie Marriot, designer at the Bank of England, lauded the rare exception of the 2021 50-pound note, which bypassed De La Rue’s typical restrictions and delivered a more compelling, “undiluted”[63] outcome. Yet such deviations remain uncommon in an industry where profitability trumps artistry, as exemplified by the recurring idealized Western woman, garnished with laurel wreaths, which appeared on both Canadian and Brazilian banknotes, demonstrating how stock images were repurposed globally.[64]
In 1969, the Banco de México inaugurated its own banknote manufacturing facility.[65] This initiative served multiple objectives. It aimed to reclaim sovereignty over currency production in a climate of distrust toward the northern gringo neighbor, to exert closer oversight of banknote issuance and circulation, and to enhance their security.[66] Notes produced in the style of U.S. dollars were notoriously prone to tampering and counterfeiting. Freeing Mexico from dependence on a distant, revenue-driven firm—the American Bank Note Company, which from 1925 to 1969 had produced Mexican pesos at considerable expense and with underwhelming results—afforded an opportunity to escape the imposed standardization, thus making space for a more authentic representation of national identity. Revolutionary heroes like Miguel Hidalgo, Benito Juárez, and Venustiano Carranza began gracing the pesos, alongside nun-poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
The Mexican affair epitomizes a global tendency toward transnational standardization in banknote conception and production, underscoring how major printing firms and their designers have historically molded the visual identity of national currencies in pursuit of efficiency and profit margins. After Chiossone’s original contribution in the 1870s, the following series of Japanese yen notes were engraved and printed by the Continental Bank Note Company.[67] Initially responsible for producing Union and Confederate currency during the American Civil War, the manufacturer lost its domestic contract in 1877, when Congress granted the Bureau of Engraving and Printing a monopoly on U.S. dollars. Shorn of its home market and thus forced to seek opportunities abroad, Continental merged with its main rival, the American Bank Note Company, in 1879. This newly consolidated powerhouse dominated markets in Central and South American countries afflicted by high inflation, as well as in Canada, Brazil, and Venezuela—wealthy states in their own right.[68] Not content with exploiting this near-fiefdom in the Americas—implicitly the United States’ preserve since the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine—the firm ventured into the European sphere of its competitors. As early as the 19th century, it produced Spanish banknotes under the Restauración Borbónica, and then for Greece, the Banca Nazionale nel Regno d’Italia, and the Banca Romana.[69] In the 1930s, the company was commissioned to produce banknotes for Persia during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. During the war years, it supplied florins to the Dutch government-in-exile and Turkish lira to the Kemalist Republic. Cross-referencing data from the Banknote Database reveals American Bank Note Company’s staggering reach. Out of 259 documented nations, at least 98 countries—ranging from Cameroon to Bahrain, Palestine to Norway, and Suriname to Papua New Guinea—outsourced their currency production to the New York printer at some point.[70] At its peak, the American Bank Note Company reportedly commanded 40% of the world’s banknote market.[71] With the Cold War’s end, it experienced a steady decline and, rebranded as ABCorp, pivoted from printing physical currency to focusing on digital authentication, secure payment infrastructures, and identity protection.[72]
The Dollar Archetype: An Anti-modernist Statement
Banknote prints that surfaced from the presses of the American Bank Note Company over its almost 125 years of activity are marked by certain immediately recognizable traits. They belong to the same visual family as the U.S. dollar, their archetype. Despite its global influence, the dollar’s design has drawn mixed reactions. While Warhol reputedly declared, “American money is very well designed, really, I like it better than any other kind of money.”[73] Swiss graphic designer Pfund, renowned for his work on banknote aesthetics, disagreed.[74] He always carried a 1-dollar bill in his pocket, ready to showcase it—so I was once privileged—to whomever he was speaking with as the quintessential flawed specimen: “On an American dollar, for instance, there’s almost nothing going on: a head, a monument, an eye… Overall, these banknotes are incredibly impoverished from a graphic standpoint.”[75]
True, the U.S. dollar—and its many imitators—occupies an aesthetic space markedly distinct from all other contemporary traditions of banknote design. It appears to have withstood the tides of modernism and postmodernism that shaped the 20th century, emerging utterly unscathed. There is no hint of abstraction, expressionism, modularity, simplification, or asymmetry. It pays no heed to the principles championed by the Swiss-bred International Style in graphic design—rationality, functionality, experimentation, which have defined professional practice since the 1950s[76]. Nor does it adhere to the ubiquitous typographic grid system—developed by Zurich-based Max Bill in the late 1930s[77]—that underpins the structure of present-day visual compositions, from magazines and posters to website user interfaces. In fact, no self-respecting designer—me included—tasked with creating a banknote today would conceive anything remotely similar to the U.S. dollar. Its visual language is so profoundly outdated, so fundamentally misaligned, and at odds with the current design canon.
However, I must counter Pfund’s opinion: the dollar is far from being graphically barren. Quite the opposite. Drawing on neoclassical and baroque registers, at times flirting with rococo, its densely ornamental compositions come to the fore. Intricate guilloches, stylized floral patterns, arabesques, and scrolls weave together in an exacting, repeated choreography. Acanthus leaves symbolize prosperity; columns and garlands evoke an antique grandeur. Strictly symmetrical layouts, overloaded with grandiose seals and thick borders, complete the impression of refined splendor. Typographically, the whole stands out for its solemnity and grandiloquence. One finds on dollars a profusion of texts—proclamations, legal mentions, guarantees, signatures—highlighted through a variety of typefaces, sizes, weights, spacings, and treatments. Nearly all the typefaces employed feature prominent serifs, which heighten their austere gravitas.
The dollar’s retro layout and iconography are not the only indicators of how far it has drifted from contemporary banknote design trends and production standards. Just as telling is its formal and material uniformity, beginning with chromatic homogeneity. Contrasting against the off-white background of the substrate, the shades of gray and black are accented solely by nuances of green. This monochromatic treatment, which earned the notes their colloquial moniker of ‘greenbacks’ and has since become inseparable from the dollar’s identity, was originally justified by security concerns. Starting in 1861, the first printings of bills were plagued by a particular weakness: colored inks did not dry well and disappeared upon contact with a solvent, leaving the black ink intact.[78] Forgers could therefore photographically reproduce these ‘washed’ bills and add the missing colored elements by hand. To thwart such schemes, engraver Tracy R. Edson developed an indelible ink, whose chemical complexity eliminated that vulnerability and imparted its characteristic green tint. Accustomed to this deliberately restrained palette, which lends their currency a sober and monolithic appearance, “Americans tend to find childish the profusion of colors used elsewhere in the world.”[79] Yet color is the first element the eye perceives when viewing an image.[80] When hues are vivid and distinct, the value of a note can be identified almost instantly. This rationale has led most modern banknotes—guided by precedents set by Swiss and Dutch monetary authorities in the 1960s—to adopt distinct and vibrant color schemes across denominations within a single currency series.
Next is uniformity of dimensions. Regardless of their face value, all denominations measure 6.14 inches wide by 2.61 inches high. Despite minor efficiencies in storage, machine handling, and reduced paper waste, this ‘one-size-fits-all’ standard has a marked drawback. As early as 1954, Marc Bischoff, director of the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Forensic Science and Criminology, demonstrated the merits of progressive note sizes tied to face value in his paper presented at the 8th International Congress of the Graphic Arts—a strategy since adopted by most central banks to mitigate confusion and fraud.[81] However, under the dollar system—featuring analogous graphic design, identical color schemes, and a single size—notes are primarily identified by the numerals indicating their face value, placed in all four corners and repeated on each side of the bill; another of their typical hallmarks. Substituting one value for another, whether intentionally or accidentally, is common, increasing not only the risk of counterfeiting but also of fraud. Unsurprisingly, U.S. dollars rank among the most frequently counterfeited currencies, according to INTERPOL reports.[82] A “common swindle,”[83] therefore, consists in fraudulently ‘updating’ 1-dollar bills into higher denominations—5, 10, 20, or even 100. The original value is simply scraped off and replaced with a higher numeral.
Permanence, Stability, & Solidity of the American Currency
Many assert that the dollar’s design has stayed unaltered since its inception.[84] While it is accurate that its overall format, color scheme, typography, ornamentation, themes, borders, guilloches, and numbering have remained remarkably steady for over a century—an extraordinary feat of longevity and stability—this claim is oversimplified. Other stylistic schools of banknote design—exemplified masterfully by the Swiss franc—are grounded in the principle of the palimpsest or Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’[85], where issuing authorities completely rethink their notes every ten to twenty years in both substance and form. Conversely, I would argue that the U.S. subscribes to the philosophy of ‘Kaizen.’[86] This Japanese concept, meaning ‘improvement,’ is premised on making incremental, ongoing enhancements. Thus, the United States continually modifies and revises its currency in small steps, often imperceptible to the casual observer. Differences over a decade may be minuscule. But these subtle tweaks—which largely escape the general public’s notice—become striking when one zooms out to compare, say, the back of the 2009 100-dollar bill—with its slightly bluish background and vertically placed golden “100”—to that of 1914’s (Fig. 6). The latter, printed exclusively in green, presents a mythological bas-relief and shows, in a horizontal frieze, allegorical figures of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, each draped over a sculptural physique. One is then surprised to discover that over time, these vignettes, thought immutable, have successively portrayed Christopher Columbus, the Battle of Lexington, the Pilgrims’ landing, the baptism of Pocahontas, and General John Burgoyne’s surrender.[87]
When one considers the full range of features and attributes of the U.S. dollar—not to mention printing methods that have remained predominantly unchanged for nearly a century[88]— what stands out is its apparent immutability. Everything about this currency seems frozen in time. Why such “conservatism”[89]? Why this noticeable décalage compared to the evolving practices of other nations? Why does a technologically advanced country, with access to cutting-edge innovations, industrial capability, academic expertise, and ample funding, choose to leave its currency, ostensibly one of its most visible and influential national ambassadors, so unshakably fastened in the past, both in form and in substance?
Ordinarily, when a new series of banknotes is issued, older bills are demonetized. They lose all value. Any unexchanged sums—lost, hoarded in anticipation of crises, or concealed to evade taxes—become a source of revenue for the issuing state. In the United States, however, lawmakers have taken measures to preserve the validity of all coins and paper currency ever issued. These instruments—including the 3-cent bill of 1864—“retain full legal tender status for the payment of private or public debts, taxes, and claims.”[90] This policy has resulted in a wide spectrum of denominations—including a 10,000-dollar note—circulating simultaneously, in contrast to the four-to-six denominations typical of other nations, barring those grappling with high inflation. Hence, there is a conscious effort to maintain a certain degree of graphic uniformity across the entire suite of dollar bills, ensuring coherence in their overlapping designs.
For an issuing government, the core challenge is persuading the public to embrace those “worthless”[91] scraps of paper as a legitimate means of payment. The fact that the dollar’s design has remained virtually unchanged since 1928 may offend the aesthetic modernist’s sensibilities, but U.S. authorities recognize that trust in the dollar hinges on a painstakingly constructed reputation—what journalist David Wolman calls: “the necessity of engineering […] confidence into the banknotes.”[92] The stated aim is to broadcast the perception of institutional stability, to project a message about the currency’s solidity over time. Ultimately, what the State seeks is faith in its own actions and instruments. That obviously includes the monetary image circulating in its economy: “and that is partly achieved by the consistent look of our paper money through the generations.[93]
Pyramids & Eagles: The Dollar’s Totemic Aura
For the past seven years, I have routinely asked citizens of various European Union countries a simple question: What appears on your banknotes? Most respond with a shrug or admit they have no idea. A few might recall seeing a gate or a bridge, yet even they are unable to label the monuments. Still, it isn’t their oversight. Rather, the culprit is the entirely fictional nature of the Euro banknotes’ architectural vignettes—deliberately generic, neutral composites invented to avoid favoring any single member state. Moreover, the overall design is intentionally bland and safe: a product of technocratic caution. The consequence is a currency that feels visually muted and emotionally sterile: hollow in form, vague, indistinct, and devoid of symbolic or cultural resonance. It has been scrupulously tailored not to ruffle feathers. In stark contrast, the U.S. dollar leans into a flamboyant mystique—one so magnetic and deeply hardwired in global consciousness that even infrequent users can summon its image with ease.
To visually support my argument, I created an original artwork to channel that very mystique (Fig. 1). Using MidJourney’s AI platform, I generated a suite of familiar yet warped motifs calling the spirit of the dollar without reproducing any of its official features. These fragments were then assembled in Photoshop through digital collage; layered, edited, and refined, until the image radiated an uncanny sense of ‘dollar-ness’—without incorporating a single piece sourced from any existing legal tender. The final composition is a dreamlike tableau—a paranoiac-surrealist vision of the dollar as global monetary archetype. Nothing here is copied; everything is conjured. My creation operates at the level of myth. It imitates not the real, printed dollar, but our collective hallucination of it—a psychic relic woven from cultural residue and symbolic association. This is not a counterfeit dollar; it is a spectral one. The dollar as dream, as dread, as cipher—extracted not from the vaults of the U.S. Treasury, but from the depths of our subconscious reservoir.
It is the exact same symbolic iconographic density that fuels an entire constellation of conspiracy theories, all hunting for traces of the ‘Illuminati’ or the ‘Deep State’ fingerprints supposedly embedded in every facet of the dollar. From occult lore and cryptic mottos to hidden numerology and secret codes, the dollar has become a canvas for speculative decoding. A rapid online search yields countless videos claiming, for example, that folding a 20-dollar bill reveals the name ‘OSAMA,’ alluding to Osama bin Laden, former CIA-backed emir of al-Qaeda, and the United States’ most wanted terrorist until his assassination in 2011.[94] The spectacular 1-dollar bill, however, remains the denomination most tinged with esotericism. “When is the last time you saw a pyramid in this country?”[95] sputters graphic-design theorist Richard Zeid, momentarily forgetting the flashy casinos of Las Vegas, Nevada, and the extravagantly kitschy mall in Memphis, Tennessee. Occupying the left medallion of the banknote is indeed an Egyptian pyramid—“upon which exegetes lose themselves in conjecture.”[96] Its truncated apex is topped by a radiant triangle containing an all-seeing eye, inviting an all-too-easy parallel with Cohen’s monetary pyramid, atop which the supreme currency presides over the world. The ‘Eye of Providence’ perched on this tiered pyramid and flanked by the Latin inscriptions Annuit Cœptis and Novus Ordo Seclorum is said to symbolize God’s omniscience over humanity. Might it instead be a thinly veiled allegiance to Freemasonry? That hypothesis has fueled speculation about the purported influence of Masonic lodges on the direction of the United States. George Washington, the country’s first president, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who approved the banknote’s design in 1935, were both brethren.[97] Whether driven by paranoia or jest, such interpretations highlight the attention and scrutiny the currency provokes.
A Humbling Branding Lesson
The United States persists in producing its banknotes according to an old formula, despite having been “incredibly counterfeited”[98] for ages. This obstinacy arises not from bureaucratic inertia but unveils a deeper commitment. Elevated to the status of a modern myth,”[99] altering its appearance would risk, in the view of the U.S. Treasury, undermining the ‘dollar-brand’, complicating its recognition outside national borders, and eroding the “universal”[100] confidence granted to it as an international means of payment. And it is precisely this brand equity that animates innumerable cultural depictions, from Hollywood blockbusters and hip-hop anthems to the canvases of Warhol and fevered logics of conspiracy discourse. The dollar professes unwavering permanence. While other currencies undergo periodic overhauls triggered by planned obsolescence, cultural works that literally or figuratively reference the greenback remain relevant over time, along with the meanings attached to it, and are not rendered passé by any abrupt stylistic shifts. It persists. And by persisting, it accumulates symbolic capital.
In this framework, the dollar reigns supreme. Its visual template has not only survived—it has triumphed. It is continually bolstered—directly and indirectly—by the machinery of American hard and soft power. Beneath this façade of immutability, however, the dollar does evolve. These changes, as gradual as they are subtle, transpire both on the surface of official U.S. currency and across myriad renditions and reconfigurations generated by the banknote industry, by governments worldwide—friends and foes alike—as well as by cultural actors, admirers, and critics. These derivatives assimilate and reclaim the dollar’s vocabulary while recontextualizing its imagery, spawning byproducts that are “almost the same, but not quite”—to paraphrase the dynamic theorized by Homi K. Bhabha in his mimicry and hybridity concepts,[101] where the imitation of dominant forms both resembles and subverts the original. This slow metamorphosis incubates infinite variations on a singular theme, engendering a cognitive dissonance: we presume the dollar to be fixed when, in fact, it is perpetually shifting, just slowly enough to trick our brains. These minute alterations, replicated across billions of instances, thus construct a transnational and durable mental image.
Throughout my design education, my readings[102], and my subsequent twenty years of experience in the craft as creative director of the visual communication agency Candy Factory, I have learned and applied various branding tactics—positioning, emotional connection, storytelling, adaptability, authenticity, cultural relevance, scalability. One principle eclipses them all: repetition. Regardless of how boring, flawed, or questionable a brand might be, extensive and relentless repetition can secure its effectiveness with the intended audience. Repetition breeds familiarity, familiarity breeds trust, and trust breeds authority. This is the underlying logic of mass media, political narratives, and corporate rhetoric. Success, therefore, is driven not necessarily by what is good, true, beautiful, or meaningful, but by constant, brutal exposure. The numerous centripetal and centrifugal forces and factors discussed in this paper all contribute to reinforcing the iconic power invested in the dollar. Consequently, the dollar’s brand remains largely unchanged because of its immense circulation and recognition—because of its repetition on an unimaginable scale. One simply does not alter a brand that already commands the world.
Recommended Citation
Monico, Rui-Long. “Brute Force Branding: Variations & Repetitions of the Almighty Dollar Banknote.” Artl@s Bulletin 14, no. 1 (2025): Article 3.
Footnotes
[1] Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature (International Publishers, 1940 [1883]), 63.
[2] On the concept of medium as message, see: Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (McGraw-Hill, 1964); for a foundational theory of how media messages are constructed and interpreted through cultural codes, see Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding,” in Culture, Media, Language, ed. Stuart Hall et al. (Hutchinson, 1980), 128–138.
[3] See for example: Carla Norrlof, “Dollar Hegemony: A Power Analysis,” Review of International Political Economy 21 (Routledge, 2014), 1041–1074.
[4] On the concept of soft power, see: Hendrik W. Ohnesorge, Soft Power: The Forces of Attraction in International Relations (Springer Nature, 2020); Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1991).
[5] See for example: Michel Aglietta and Natacha Valla, Le futur de la monnaie (Odile Jacob, 2021); Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde and Dominique Dimier, Comment l’argent vient à l’esprit : étude d’une représentation polymorphe (Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2009); Karl de Leeuw et al., The History of Information Security: A Comprehensive Handbook (Elsevier, 2007);. Aldo Haesler, Gelddenker (Sunflower, 2019); Christine Pérez, Monnaie du pouvoir. Pouvoir de la monnaie (Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 1986); François Simiand, “La monnaie, réalité sociale,” in Annales sociologiques, série D, Sociologie économique, fasc. 1 (Presses Universitaires de France, 1934), 1–58; Georg Simmel, Philosophie de l’argent, trans. Sabine Cornille and Philippe Ivernel (Presses universitaires de France, 1987 [1900]); Jens Weidmann, Money Creation and Responsibility [conference proceedings] (Institute for Bank-Historical Research (IBF), 2012); Viviana Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money (Princeton University Press, 1997).
[6] Benjamin J. Cohen, The Geography of Money (Cornell University Press, 1998).
[7] International Monetary Fund, data platform. Retrieved from data.imf.org.
[8] Andrew Leyshon and Nigel Thrift, Money/Space: Geographies of Monetary Transformation (Routledge, 1997).
[9] On the Bretton Woods Agreements, the bancor and the New World Order, see for example: Eric Helleiner, Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order (Cornell University Press, 2014); Harold James, “The End of Bretton Woods?” in International Monetary Cooperation Since Bretton Woods (Oxford University Press, 1996); Felix Martin, Money: The Unauthorized Biography (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014); René Sédillot, Histoire morale & immorale de la monnaie (Bordas, 1989); Benn Steil, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order (Princeton University Press, 2013).
[10] Vincent Lannoye, La monnaie et les banques : de la Mésopotamie à Manhattan (Éditions Le Cri, 2005), 303.
[11] Myret Zaki, La fin du dollar : comment le billet vert est devenu la plus grande bulle spéculative de l’histoire (Favre, 2011).
[12] Lannoye, La monnaie et les banques, 301.
[13] International Monetary Fund, quoted in Hans A. M. de Heij, Designing Banknote Identity (De Nederlandsche Bank NV, 2012), 33.
[14] Cohen, The Geography of Money, 117.
[15] Lannoye, La monnaie et les banques, 302.
[16] Ibid, p. 303.
[17] On the Pax Americana and the United States’ propaganda, see for example: Laura A. Belmonte, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008; Nancy Snow, Propaganda, Inc.: Selling America’s Culture to the World (Seven Stories Press, 2010 [1998]).
[18] Michelle MacLaren and Thomas Schnauz, “Buried,” in Breaking Bad (AMC, 2013).
[19] Rui-Long Monico, “Geek & Hustler: Rappers as Agents of Spread of Internet Aesthetics & Culture,” in Struggle of Digital Images: An Agonistic Perspective of New Media Floods, ed. Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Thibaut Vaillancourt, and Rui-Long Monico (Routledge, forthcoming).
[20] JAY-Z, Dead Presidents (Roc-A-Fella Records, 1996).
[21] Fat Joe and Lil Wayne, Make It Rain (Terror Squad/Imperial Records, 2006).
[22] Nika Elder, William Harnett’s Curious Objects: Still-Life Painting after the American Civil War (University of California Press, 2022).
[23] De Heij, Designing banknote identity, 372.
[24] Mark C. Taylor, Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion (The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 161.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen, L’argent dans la peinture (Citadelles&Mazenod, 2000), 186.
[27] For a complete list of the artists analyzed, see: Rui-Long Monico, De Ars Fiducia: Physique et métaphysique du billet de banque helvétique [PhD thesis] (Université de Genève, forthcoming).
[28] On Harald Szeemann’s reception and groundbreaking curatorial methodologies, see for example: Glenn Philipps et al., Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions (Getty Research Institute, 2018).
[29] Harald Szeemann et al., Geld und Wert / Das letzte Tabu [exh. cat.] (Oehrli, 2002).
[30] See for example: Laurence Bertrand Dorléac et al., Le commerce de l’art : de la Renaissance à nos jours (La Manufacture, 1992); Sophie Cras, “Larry Rivers, de la Banque Française,” in Cahiers du Musée National d’Art Moderne, vol. 133 (Musée National d’Art Moderne, 2015), 52–63; Sophie Cras, L’économie à l’épreuve de l’art : art et capitalisme dans les années 1960 (Presses du Réel Éditions, 2018); Sophie Cras, Le marché des images [roundtable curated by Charlotte Guichard] (Les Rendez-vous de l’histoire, 2018). De Heij, Designing banknote identity, 369; Stefan Hartmann et al., Der schöne Schein: Symbolik und Ästhetik von Banknoten (Battenberg Gietl Verlag, 2016); Laneyrie-Dagen, L’argent dans la peinture; Michel Melot, “De l’or à l’art,” in Médium, no. 16–17 (Association Médium, 2008); Pierre-Michel Menger, Portrait de l’artiste en travailleur : métamorphoses du capitalisme (Seuil, 2002); Richard Zeid, Money: The Branding of a Country through the Design of its Currency (Richard Zeid Design, 2004), 44.
[31] Laneyrie-Dagen, L’argent dans la peinture, 180.
[32] On the Pasadena Art Museum exhibition, Pop Art and Andy Warhol, see for example: Steven Henry Madoff et al., Pop Art: A Critical History (University of California Press, 1997).
[33] Cras, Le marché des images.
[34] On the Nixon shock, see for example: James, The End of Bretton Woods?; Ferdinand Lips, Gold Wars: The Battle Against Sound Money as Seen from a Swiss Perspective (Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, 2001).
[35] Blake Gopnik, Warhol (Ecco, 2020.
[36] Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 229.
[37] Gopnik, Warhol.
[38] Arthur Nussbaum, A History of the Dollar (Columbia University Press, 1957).
[39] De Heij, Designing banknote identity, 76.
[40] Author’s translation: Matthieu Cortat, “‘Monnaie de nécessité’ et Notgeld : la fabrique des identités typographiques nationales”, in Les éphémères et l’événement (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2018), par. 6.
[41] Author’s translation: Ibid.
[42] Author’s translation: Ibid.
[43] Author’s translation: Ibid.
[44] Ibid, par. 5-7.
[45] De Heij, Designing banknote identity, 122.
[46] Eric Helleiner, “National Currencies and National Identities,” American Behavioral Scientist 41 (SAGE Publishing, 1998), 1432.
[47] Jacques E. C. Hymans, “International Patterns in National Identity Content: The Case of Japanese Banknote Iconography,” Journal of East Asian Studies 5 (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 338.
[48] Ibid, p. 337.
[49] Ibid, pp. 337–338.
[50] Ibid, p. 327.
[51] Cora Miller, “Le Dollar de Roosevelt,” L’Information Immobilière 135 (Société Privée de Gérance, 2021), 90.
[52] Laneyrie-Dagen, L’argent dans la peinture, 181.
[53] Hymans, International Patterns, 338.
[54] Ibid, 329.
[55] Ibid, 333.
[56] Rui-Long Monico, Dessiner l’argent – Roger Pfund et l’École suisse du billet de banque (Master’s thesis, Université de Genève, 2020).
[57] See for example: International Bank Note Society, IBNS Banknote Database, accessed from Decembre 2024 to June 2025, www.theibns.org; Numista, Numismatic Catalog of Coins and Banknotes, accessed from Decembre 2024 to June 2025, www.numista.com; Banknote Database, accessed from Decembre 2024 to June 2025, www.banknotedb.com.
[58] On the Cuban Revolution and its relationship with the United States, see for example: Louis A. Pérez Jr., Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy, 2nd ed. (University of Georgia Press, 2003 [1990]).
[59] Elsa Lizalde Chavez, “A Legend Tumbles Down: The Gypsy on the Banco de Mexico Five Peso Note Printed by the American Bank Note Company,” in Beauty and the Banknote: Images of Women on Paper Money, edited by Virginia Hewitt (British Museum Press, 1994), 152.
[60] Ibid, 153.
[61] Hewitt, Beauty and the banknote, 48.
[62] Rukmini Dahanukar, “Money Talks: ‘Back to the Future’ — Challenges in Banknote Design,” in Design for Tomorrow — Volume 1, edited by Amaresh Chakrabarti et al. (Springer Nature, 2021), 200.
[63] Debbie Marriot, quoted in Dahanukar, Back to the Future, 199.
[64] Hewitt, Beauty and the banknote, 48.
[65] Murray Teigh Bloom, The Brotherhood of Money: The Secret World of Bank Note Printers (BNR Press, 1983), 190.
[66] Arturo Vallejo, “Tear the Banknote Apart: The Re-interpretation of an Everyday Object,” ICOM Education 25 (Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014), 128.
[67] Eric Helleiner, The Making of National Money (Cornell University Press, 2003), 103.
[68] Bloom, The Brotherhood of Money, 159.
[69] René Brion and Jean-Louis Moreau, Le billet dans tous ses États : du premier papier-monnaie à l’euro (Fonds Mercator, 2001), 94.
[70] Banknote Database, accessed December 22, 2024, www.banknotedb.com.
[71] Bloom, The Brotherhood of Money, 159.
[72] Klaus W. Bender, Moneymakers: The Secret World of Banknote Printing, trans. Edward Roby (Wiley-VCH, 2006 [2004]), 55.
[73] Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, 137.
[74] Correspondence and ethnographic interviews between the Author and Roger Pfund. Geneva, March 2019 to March 2022.
[75] Author’s translation: Fonds d’archives d’Alexandre Fiette (Geneva).
[76] On the history, theory, and discours of graphic design—as well as the development and canonization of the International/Swiss Style—see, for example: Julie Gravel, Le développement du style international vu comme une manifestation de l’application des principes de l’art concret suisse (master’s thesis, Université du Québec à Montréal, 2006); Richard Hollis, Graphic Design: A Concise History (Thames & Hudson, 2001 [1994]); Robin Kinross, Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History (Hyphen Press, 2004 [1992]); Robert Lzicar et al., Mapping Graphic Design History in Switzerland (Triest Verlag für Architektur, Design und Typografie, 2016); Robert Lzicar and Sara Zeller, “Exporting Swissness: Swiss Traditions and Visual Stereotypes in Contemporary Graphic Design,” in Making Trans/National Contemporary Design History, edited by Wendy Wong et al., proceedings of the 10th Conference of the International Committee for Design History & Design Studies (Blucher, 2016); Josef Müller-Brockmann, Geschichte der visuellen Kommunikation (Verlag Arthur Niggli, 1971); Louise Paradis et al., 30 Years of Swiss Typographic Discourse in the Typografische Monatsblätter: TM RSI SGM 1960–90 (Lars Müller Publishers, 2017); Teal Triggs, “Graphic Design History: Past, Present, and Future,” Design Issues 27 (The MIT Press, 2011): 3–6.
[77] Hans Rudolf Bosshard, “Design Systematics: The Grid,” in 100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design, edited by Christian Brändle et al. (Museum für Gestaltung, 2014), 70.
[78] Miller, Le Dollar de Roosevelt, 91.
[79] Cortat, Monnaie de nécessité, par. 20.
[80] Alexander Berzler, “Visuelle Kommunikation als strategisches Instrument der Marken- und Unternehmenskommunikation,” in Handbuch Visuelle Kommunikationsforschung, edited by Katharina Lobinger et al. (Springer VS, 2019), 241.
[81] Monestier, L’art du papier-monnaie, 44.
[82] Jacques Mathyer, “Les billets de banque,” Nouvelles de l’estampe 52–53 (Comité national de la gravure française, 1980), 14; Jacques Mathyer, “Quelques remarques sur le problème de la sécurité du billet de banque en 1975,” in Publications: papiers valeur, billets de banque, impression [Recueil de notes, actes de séminaires, minutes de séances, mémos internes et publications diverses de l’IPSC, 1934–1987] (Institut de Police Scientifique et de Criminologie, 1988), 117-B.
[83] Monestier, L’art du papier-monnaie, 44.
[84] Bruno Théret, “Une monnaie sans âme ni culture : l’euro en ses tristes symboles,” Le Monde diplomatique, December 2001 (Le Monde SA, 2001): 4–5..
[85] On the concept of creative destruction, see: Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Harper & Brothers, 1942).
[86] On the concept of Kaizen, see for example: Masaaki Imai, Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success (McGraw-Hill, 1986).
[87] Helleiner, National Currencies, 1411.
[88] Monestier, L’art du papier-monnaie, 30.
[89] Cortat, Monnaie de nécessité, par. 19.
[90] Monestier, L’art du papier-monnaie,30.
[91] David Wolman, The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers – and the Coming Cashless Society (Da Capo Press, 2013 [2012]), 110.
[92] Ibid.
[93] Ibid.
[94] De Heij, Designing banknote identity, 369.
[95] Zeid, Money: The branding of a country, 1.
[96] Author’s translation: Miller, Le Dollar de Roosevelt, 90.
[97] Miller, Le Dollar de Roosevelt, 90.
[98] Author’s translation: Miller, Le Dollar de Roosevelt, 90.
[99] Monestier, L’art du papier-monnaie,30.
[100] Ibid.
[101] On the post-colonial concepts of mimicry and hybridity, see: Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994).
[102] On the theory and practice of branding, see for example: David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name (Free Press, 1991); Adam Arvidsson, Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture (Routledge, 2006); Michael Beverland, Branding the Authentic: The Role of Storytelling, Heritage and Experience in the Consumer Marketplace (Routledge, 2021); Leslie de Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald, Creating Powerful Brands (Routledge, 2011 [1992]); Giep Franzen and Sandra Moriarty, The Science and Art of Branding (Routledge, 2008); Sébastien Hayez, “Marquer la chair : les origines du branding,” étapes 271 (étapes éditions, 2023): 74–81; Sébastien Hayez, “Sceaux magiques : le pouvoir des marques,” étapes 272 (étapes éditions, 2023): 66–73; Tilde Heding, Charlotte F. Knudtzen, and Mogens Bjerre, Brand Management: Mastering Research, Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2020 [2009]); Douglas B. Holt, How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding (Harvard Business Review Press, 2004); Kevin Lane Keller, Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity (Pearson Education, 2012 [1998]); Naomi Klein, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Picador, 1999); Michael Pickering, Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001); Al Ries and Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (Harper Collins, 2009); Jonathan E. Schroeder et al., Brand Culture (Routledge, 2006).