MESSAGE
| DATE | 2008-11-26 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Coin Design with Free Software
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Coin Desgin with Free Software
For a dutch text click here.
Introduction
The Dutch Ministry of Finance organized an architecture competition for
which a selected group of architectural offices (unstudio, nox, ...) and
artists were invited, including myself. The goal of the competition was
not to design a building, but the new 5 euro commemorative coin with the
theme 'Netherlands and Architecture'. The winner will be rewarded with a
nice price, but most of all with the honor: his design will be realized
and will be a legal coin within the Netherlands.
I approached the subject 'Netherlands and Architecture' from two points
of view. On one hand I paid tribute to the rich Dutch architecture
history and on the other hand to the contemporary quality of Dutch
architecture. These form also the two sides of my coin. Traditionally
the front of the coin needs to portray the queen, while the back side
displays the value of the coin.
Front side
When someone looks closely (click above on picture to enlarge) to my
portrait of the queen, it becomes clear that her portrait is constructed
with names of important Dutch architects. On the outside the names are
clearly readable, while they slowly get smaller to the center. Under a
magnifying glass all names are readable, but not with only the human
eye. It is fascinating to see how an old medium like a coin can be in
this way a 'compact disc' of information.
The tension between what is readable and what not, is also a metaphor
how time shapes history. Some big names of the past, might be smaller
names in the future and vice versa. To reflect this idea, I chose to
order the architects not alphabetically or chronologically but in a new
way: I used the internet as a seismograph and ordered the architects by
the number of hits on the internet.
Of course this order changes over time and as such this is another time
stamp on the coin besides the number '2008'. Only the first 109
architects fitted on the coin, so that was immediately the selection.
Apparently becoming famous goes exponentially:
In order to achieve the image I developed my own single-line font
system. I let the line width change within the same character in order
to evoke an underlying picture:
Back side
Nowadays Dutch architecture is famous for its strong conceptual
approach. This translates itself in the fact that there are not only a
lot of books about Dutch architects, but also by Dutch architects.
On the back side of the coin I treated the edge of the coin as a book
shelve. The books rise as buildings towards the center. Through their
careful placement they combine to outline the Netherlands, while birds’
silhouettes suggest the capitals of all the provinces. The following
scheme reveals the process:
One of the issues was how many books to take: many thin books or fewer
thick books. With one very thick book you would only get a circle. To
get the best approximation of the Netherlands you would need books of
only one page, which is not optimal either. Therefore I needed to find
the optimum between these two extremes which you can see in the scheme
below. On the left you see the approximation of the Netherlands, in the
middle you see the 'skyline' of the books and on the right you see the
difference between the 'skyline' of the books and of the border line of
the Netherlands:
The following is the idea sketch for the birds. Each bird flies above
the capital of each Dutch province. In the final coin these random birds
are replaced with a bird which is typical for that province.
Technology
The whole design was done for 100% with free software. The biggest part
consists of custom software in Python, of course within the SPE editor.
For the visual power I used PIL and pyCairo. From time to time also
Gimp, Inkscape and Phatch helped quite a bit. All the developing and
processing was done on GNU/Linux machines which were running
Ubuntu/Debian. In the end I had to collaborate closely on location
together with the technicians of the Royal Dutch Mint (coin factory). So
all the last bits were done on my Asus Eee PC. (I am still wondering why
Asus doesn't offer Ubuntu on its netbooks.) The Eee laptop took a bit
longer (30 seconds instead of 3 seconds to generate a whole coin), but
did the job just fine. For looking up the number of hits on the
internet, I rediscovered Yahoo, which provides a much better api for
automatic querying than its competitors. Of course the jury judged only
the design and not the software used as others used Maya, Illustrator,
...
And the winner is...
I am proud to announce that I won the competition! So soon 350.000 Dutch
people will use the fruits of free software. I would have loved to
release the coin under the GPL, which could maybe solve the financial
crisis. However for obvious reasons I was not allowed to do that. There
will be also special editions for collectors which can be bought world
wide: a massive silver edition for € 30,95 and a massive gold edition
for € 194,95. They will be probably sold out quickly as these are real
collectors items. The coin is released in all Dutch post offices to the
public the same day as the Intrepid Ibex: 30th October 2008.
Here are some scans of the real coin:
The coin will be advertised 20 times on prime time on Dutch television
with a nice video clip (will be available soon) and advertisements will
run in several newspapers. Today was the official launch of the coin,
with from left to right: myself, Secretary of State for Finance De
Jager, the Chief government Architect Liesbeth van der Pol and Master of
the Mint Maarten Brouwer...
--
http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"
"The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society."
"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."
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