Studio Joost Grootens

Studio Joost Grootens Studio Joost Grootens Most of the time we make books

For our European Culture euro banknote series, we wanted to focus less on the achievements of six exceptional individual...
12/08/2026

For our European Culture euro banknote series, we wanted to focus less on the achievements of six exceptional individuals and more on something they share with all of us: the ability to observe, interpret, express and exchange ideas — in short, to produce culture.

We did this by tightly cropping the portraits, focusing on the eyes and mouth. The eyes represent perception, reflection and attention, while the mouth represents expression, dialogue and exchange. By concentrating on these features and removing details of clothing and hairstyles, the portraits are loosened from a particular historical moment. The individuals remain recognisable, but the emphasis shifts from their status as cultural icons to the processes through which culture is made.

The source images supplied by the competition organisers include paintings and photographs from different periods. Some are formal portraits, while others are more documentary in character. We approached these images as found material. They were not redrawn or otherwise transformed; our main intervention was cropping.

Each portrait consists of two overlapping fragments: one vertical and one horizontal. These appear in complementary colours and meet in a black-and-white area containing the eyes and mouth. The overlapping crops bring the heterogeneous source material together without concealing its differences.

One difference in the source material is particularly striking: the portraits of the three men are colour paintings, while those of the three women are black-and-white photographs. The contrast is likely connected to the different periods in which these six people lived, and more broadly to the changing historical roles and visibility of men and women. Even so, it creates a distinction within the series. Rather than smoothing this out by translating the portraits into a single graphic technique, we chose to retain the differences and historical specificity of the source material.

View all the banknote designs at the European Central Bank (ECB) website and take part in the public survey.

Design: SJG / Joost Grootens, Julie da Silva Lenoir and Linda Ursem

We are honoured that our proposal for the European Culture series is one of ten designs shortlisted by the European Cent...
27/07/2026

We are honoured that our proposal for the European Culture series is one of ten designs shortlisted by the European Central Bank for the future euro banknotes.

The European Culture theme combines prominent figures from European history on the front of the banknotes with shared cultural spaces on the reverse. Our starting point was to connect these elements by considering how individual observations and ideas become part of a shared culture.

Rather than focusing on individual achievements, we wanted the portraits to draw attention to the human capacity to observe, interpret and express. Each portrait is tightly cropped around the eyes and mouth. The eyes represent perception, reflection and attention, while the mouth represents expression, dialogue and exchange. By removing details of clothing, the portraits are loosened from a particular historical moment. The people remain recognisable, but the emphasis shifts from their status as cultural icons to the processes through which culture is made.

A substantial area of each banknote has been left blank. On an object that is usually densely filled, this openness becomes an active element. It represents the space between perception and expression, where observations can develop into ideas, images, texts or compositions.

The result draws on the clarity and directness perhaps associated with earlier forms of graphic design, but applies these qualities to a contemporary question. How can a banknote represent not only Europe’s cultural heritage, but also the role of citizens in interpreting and continuing it? For us, its apparent simplicity is not nostalgic. It represents a deliberate and quietly radical form of focus. We wanted to create a public object that communicates through concentration rather than accumulation.

The reverse sides extend the idea from the individual to the collective. They show contemporary cultural spaces that increase in scale across the denominations, where people of different generations and backgrounds gather and exchange ideas.

View all the designs and take part in the public survey.

Design: SJG / Joost Grootens, Julie da Silva Lenoir, Linda Ursem

European Central Bank (ECB)

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