SKAGGS Blog

With all of the recession talk, tightening of belts and general decline of the dollar, talk of currency and finance can be depressing. The Royal Mint positively brightened my day with the announcement of the newly designed UK currency. Who knew 50p could look so good!?

The Shield of the Royal Arms has been given a contemporary treatment and its whole has been cleverly split among all six denominations from the 1p to the 50p, with the £1 coin displaying the heraldic element in its entirety. This is the first time that a single design has been used across a range of United Kingdom coins.

The best thing about all of this is that competition was held and a relatively unknown creative designed the coins.

The new designs have been chosen via an open competition which was widely publicised in the national media in August 2005 and attracted 4,000 entries. The winning designer is 26-year-old Matthew Dent, originally from Bangor who now lives and works in London as a graphic designer.

Congrats Matthew!