New Penny Doesn't Make Cents?

Not so fast...look before you throw that penny away!

Have you noticed? Check that shiny little bronze coin next you get it, look closely... notice something different? Rather generic? Yes well unfortunately the US Mint has decided to redesign the Lincoln one cent coin. Let's be honest: American money isn't pretty. Our bills and coins are jumbles of incomprehensible symbols--every spot of ink has meaning, down to the number of spikes around the treasury seal, but it'd be a stretch to say they all cohere into a worthy whole. Well-respected graphic designer, Michael Bierut calls our currency "a cake that has been decorated to within an inch of its life." What it lacks in aesthetics, though, U.S. currency makes up for in quirk. It feels old, authentic, a little mysterious, and therefore valuable. It's money, after all.

Abe falls victim to a series of bizarre redesigns.

In honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday, the penny fell victim to an image series of four cartoony tableaus of Lincoln's life: his famously non-descript log cabin; a hilariously buff, superhero Lincoln reading on a log; a disproportionately statuesque Lincoln standing in front of the Illinois Capitol Building (which everyone will mistake as the U.S. Capitol); and finally the U.S. Capitol Building itself, bizarrely under construction. As a set, the coins look nothing like each other--"United States of America" appears in different type sizes; "One Cent" in different sizes and arrangements--and individually, they make no sense as a timeline of Lincoln's life.

It gets worse. Last week, the mint unveiled 2010's penny--Lincoln on the front, as usual, and a simple shield on the back. Gone is the Lincoln Memorial, maybe the most emotionally and socially charged building in the country. Gone is the wonderful level of detail (remember when you first discovered the tiny Lincoln statue in between the columns?). Compare it to 27-year-old Matthew Dent's redesign of Britain's coins--the best use of a shield on currency I've seen. Dent's redesign is contemporary but still complex; the coins work alone and as a set. Ours is simplistic and fake-looking. The penny is valueless enough as it is, and a one-dimensional design like this only makes matters worse.

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