Currency Redesign
Food Stamps / SNAP Coupons
Poverty is a serious issue in this country. Because the government-issued paper coupons were too easy to counterfeit and were sometimes traded for drugs or alcohol, all government benefits are now transferred through a debit card. Also, to eliminate some of the social stigma regarding food stamps, the name of the program was changed to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Knowing this, I found many more reasons to continue to pursue this redesign. As a frequenter of the Fredonia Farmers’ Market, I came to notice that a few of the farms represented there accepted EBT cards (electronic benefit transfer). It made me wonder how common it was to find farm stands and farmers’ markets, typically cash-only operations, that took debit cards, let alone government-issued debit cards. Thus, I decided to redesign paper coupons in relatively small denominations to alleviate this problem. Because these paper coupons were originally eliminated due to counterfeit problems, I also made anti-counterfeit measures an important aspect of my design.
I decided from the beginning that the coupons needed to be accessible to differently-abled people, particularly those with blindness. In my research, I read that a large percentage of SNAP participants were elderly or disabled. My overall goal in my approach to this redesign was to use design to create a sense of pride about using these coupons. They were designed to reference US currency for the sake of helping people maintain a sense of normalcy when handing the bills to a cashier, while remaining distinct enough from US money to assure there was no confusion about what type of currency was being paid. Along the same lines, I sought to make the type on the front and back of the bills incredibly legible and quickly-understood, especially regarding the denomination.
