Money can't buy you love

I think my life may just have ended.

I find myself – for hopefully the first and last time – in complete and utter agreement with likes of The Daily Telegraph, Apoplectic of Tunbridge Wells and every other gout-ridden Establishment Old Fart.

So – in a cheap attempt to reconnect with my more youthful self I pose the following Design Choice question:
Our new currency: WTF?!

Seven new coins, the reverses of six bearing crops of the Royal Arms that complete a whole shield when arranged appropriately.

The designer, Matthew Dent, described by the Royal mint as “a professional graphic designer”, imagines “the coins pushed around a school classroom table, or fumbled around with on a bar – being pieced together as a jigsaw and just having fun with them.” That’s almost as brilliant as when PwC Consulting became Monday.

And of course for the jigsaw to work we’re all going to have to keep hold of the increasingly meaningless one and two pence pieces.

When currency design works it delivers an insight into a nation’s psyche and history; it stands as statement of intent or of achievement.

This stands for quite possibly everything that is wrong about a) our country, and b) the world of design. Smug, style-obsessed, and were we to be totally honest with ourselves, not as good as it used to be.

Oh, and two more things.

Matthew, you’ve left off Wales, your birthplace.

And when arranged correctly I can create the shape of the male genitalia.

Bring on the Euro.