Opinion Making money

The art criticism might seem excessive,but you cannot blame the ministry for being image conscious — this rupee sign is meant to indicate the shape of things to come. As the signifier of India’s ascendant economy,it is supposed to set us apart from the others who use the “Rs” abbreviation (Nepal,Pakistan and Sri Lanka). There was no practical need for the symbol — the three-letter ISO code for all international banking and business remains INR,and in fact most currencies do not even have a symbol. It is purely a branding exercise,a bid to stand up and be counted in the world.

We know that money is meaningful mass communication. The iconography of currency notes and coins tells their own stories — the heads and tails of political authority,the profiles and state insignia and mottoes,along with the look of legal tender. Currencies seek various effects with their design elements,and there’s plenty of room for whimsy. The US dollars’ complex filigreed frames are meant to deter forgery,Japanese yen notes have a spare,dignified aesthetic with fields of irises and pictures of cultural figures,Mexican and central American currency forge an assimilationist ideal with their depiction of indigenous populations. The euro eschewed emotive images of great men and women and stuck to generic bridges and gates,as it attempted all-round acceptability.

But finding a currency symbol presents greater challenges,in terms of economy of expression. It is an abstraction of an abstraction. With a few lines and curves,it has to convey something of its context,be anodyne enough not to offend any sensibilities and interesting enough to be memorable in a scroll of similar icons. The search for a Russian rouble sign has taken decades now. There are other factors,like making sure the dimensions don’t exceed a 0,so that it fits into accounting spreadsheets. It has to be easy enough for anyone to scrawl.

Designed in 1996 by an anonymous team of four,the euro symbol was freighted with significance. According to the European Commission which chose it,“inspiration for the… symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon — a reference to the cradle of

European civilisation — and the first letter of the word Europe,crossed by two parallel lines to ‘certify’ the stability of the euro.” Meanwhile,the pound sterling comfortably shared its symbol with Italy for ages — it is a slash on the letter “L” from libra,a Roman unit of weight.

We live in a world where all that is solid melts into sign,and visual culture is hotly contested territory. For instance,the minute difference between fonts like Helvetica and Arial matter profoundly,and not just to typography enthusiasts. Just look at the fierce global backlash against the goofy Comic Sans font,with protests and ban petitions (“Comic Sans walks into a bar,bartender says,‘We don’t serve your type.’”). Our cities are a “chatter of signage”,as LRB art critic Peter Campbell puts it,“an almost anonymous structure which you read by way of notices,badges,signs,logos and banners” where “the battle between one message and another has escalated”. In short,a visual trigger matters more than ever.

Creating an icon that lodges itself in the memory is hard,but the rewards are worth it. An emblem has to imprint a whole universe of meaning,in a way that needs no words. The hammer and sickle conveys industrial and agrarian solidarity. And if impatience needs an ideogram,what better than Microsoft’s little hourglass? The Nike swoosh is now so recognisable that the company has shed its name from the logo. Playboy claims that it once got a letter in its Chicago office with no mailing address on the envelope,just a drawing of the famous bunny.

And once the brand has sunk in deeply enough,the logo is merely a calling-card. Apple’s tree-of-knowledge associations might not immediately suggest itself to everyone,or the fact that the three-point star of the Mercedes-Benz logo was originally intended to convey its sway over the land,sea and air. That doesn’t detract from the phenomenal power of either brand.

However,the real mark of acceptance of the Indian rupee symbol will lie in how keyboards incorporate it. When the euro symbol was created,it created confusion among different computing applications but,by now,the dollar,pound sterling and euro line up on a Mac keyboard — the yen takes a couple more keystrokes. How and where will the Indian rupee find a place? The creation of standards is where dominance is asserted,and if our currency symbol finds an easy place in international keyboards,that would be symbolic evidence of our currency in the world.

amulya.gopalakrishnan@expressindia.com