Crypto Biz Magazine—July, 2014/Issue.02

VISUAL CULTURE AND
CRYPTOCURRENCY
by NIKKI OLSON
Imagine yourself designing a
new cryptocurrency. You develop
the protocol and other specific
software attributes, and perhaps
you’ve already settled on a name
for your currency. Now you’re at
the point where you have to create
your cryptocurrency’s imagery…
How do you decide how it will
look, and why?
Creating and decoding the significance
of visual attributes is an
exercise in visual culture.
What is “visual culture”?
Visual culture refers to aspects of
culture that are communicated or
evidenced in visual mediums.
It can refer to anything from
explicit art to fashion, from
logos to typefaces—essentially,
it’s anything that corresponds
to a culture that is
processed visually.
and paper currency being a source
of nationalism and national iconography.
For over 2.5 millennia, currency
around the world has been a way in
which countries have made visual
their self-image, ideals, aspirations,
history, mythology and many other
things. The most common images
on money are of people (commonly,
national heroes), but also popular
are buildings, local flora and fauna,
the common themes communicate;
and can design in this space be
categorized in any way?
A survey of top crypto currencies
reveals that the digital aspect of
cryptocurrency is a consistently
highlighted and/or central attribute
in design. Binary digits and/
or circuitry are common, as are
aesthetics denoting a futuristic kind
of elegance and sheen. Another
thing to note is the frequent
use of historic and even ancient
language symbols. The “D”
character on the Devcoin, for
instance, which also appears on
Dogecoin, is the historic character
“eth,” which is used in numerous
languages of the Middle Ages,
including Old English.
Others reach even
further back.
Zetacoin
uses the
Greek
Page.10 July.2014
Crypto Biz Magazine
While there are many interesting
visual facets to the
cryptocurrency culture itself,
in this piece I’ll focus on
cryptocoin logos, elucidating
the contrast between nationstate
currency and cryptocurrency
from a visual standpoint, as well as
explore the common symbolism
used in cryptocurrency design (and
the meaning it conveys).
The visual aspects of nation-state
currency have a rich history, dating
back to approximately 600 B.C. in
Lydia (present-day Turkey), which
is where the first coins with artistic
symbols and pictures etched into
them appeared (Standish, p.15).
The Greeks quickly followed, and
in both instances the images on
coins were symbolic logos, often
representing the city-states that
were producing them. What would
ensue would be a 2,600-year history
of a globally shared practice of met al
Examples of ancient Greek
coins, which followed the first
coins from Lydia, (present-day
Turkey) 600 B.C.
and methods of transportation.
In general, the visual
aspect of nation-state currency
can be thought of as
a source of citizen education,
artistic enjoyment, and of course,
communication and propagation
of national values.
It should be quite clear that the
visual aspects of cryptocurrency
are of a vastly different orientation.
Cryptocurrency imagery almost
unanimously takes the form of
circular logos, often of 2 or 3 solid
colors. There are of course a few
significant counter-examples, which
I will turn to in a moment, but first,
I pose the question: what are the
common visual themes? What do
alphabet’s “Zeta,” and Primecoin
uses its “Psi.”
What kind of meaning is conveyed
by historic lettering? One could
argue that the addition of historic
lettering serves to give the logo
an official feeling, as well as to
emphasize positive attributes of
stability and longevity. In addition,
some instances of ancient letters