Since a few days, social sites i.e. Facebook and Twitter are bombarded with declaring captions like, State Bank of Pakistan ne new banknotes jari kardiye hain. It is indeed astounding to see how masses believe these designs to be authentic without proper validation from SBP official press release.
The designs belong to me and so do the source files. As so being an artist/designer I had wished to present my designed mock-ups as a gift to State Bank of Pakistan, but it was indeed disappointing to see how they were misused by common public as a matter of idiocy. Prior to reach deserving hands, they were misunderstood as official and got viral without getting confirmed by me or SBP itself. On a related note, it even marks an authenticity question mark on cited information spread by mainstream media’s official Facebook pages.
“An essential element of any art is risk. If you don’t take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn’t been seen before?” – Francis Ford Coppola
“Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums — they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level.” – Michelangelo Pistoletto
The purpose behind innovating new currency banknotes was kept in consideration of State Bank’s devoted dedication to one of the well-known artists, Syed Sadequain. The mezzanine floor of the museum incorporates four magnificent murals created by him, making it the world’s largest collection of an artist’s work. Another room in the gallery is devoted to the young contemporary artists whose work is displayed without any cost. As a whole, this building is a treasure worth valuable antique pieces that enhances common public’s knowledge about money and the monetary system from past to present. Partitioned with doorways to historic significance of currency coins, stamps, governors, it is a forgotten heritage that is locked away at [formerly known] India House, Karachi.
The mock-ups were uploaded merely to analyze feedbacks of followers and friends regarding the designs. Also the caption given to an image album was Pakistani Banknotes Mock-ups for year 2017 – Designed by Fiza Zia ul Hannan, within which the original design drafts of present currency banknotes were also shared in the comments.
I want justice for my designed valuable art which was intended to be presented as a gift to State Bank. I want this nation to know that work of art is not something to be violated – art that had always been there around us since day one of this world existence.
My designed Mock-Ups
Taking the enviable position of being the first person to criticise. Please do realise that criticism in and of itself is of a much lesser value than the actual product, no matter how good or bad, since it is merely information about something that was produced out of dust. Please find some notes below,
– A lot less Urdu than should have been there. Maybe we should only have the English number written in English, anything else in English is not really required, or maybe everything should be bilingual.
– It is the State Bank of Pakistan and not the State Bank of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
– Maybe we should only have smaller notes and larger amounts should only be reserved for online and digital means of transactions to keep things in the record.
– Maybe the number of notes should be lesser, and in this case, lets showcase things from Baluchistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir, maybe that is what the notes need to denote.
– For Urdu, can you please use Nastaliq, it is a very beautiful font, can be argued but can not be disagreed with.
– The design are quite amazing and maybe an obverse version would not be a bad idea.