This is the entry I had submitted to Indian Rupee Symbol Design Contest. http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/03/indias-currency-symbol-design-contest/
The Proposed symbol of “Rupee” is the synergy of several themes namely: antiquity and modernity; Indian-ness and the International culture; the East and West. The symbol has all the elements that projects its attributes that are strongly recognizably Indian about it and at the same time it has all the characteristics that makes it a part of the family of popular international currency symbols such the Pound (£), the US dollar ($), Yen (Y) and Euro (€). The focus of the design of this symbol was mainly along the following lines.
Thematic aspect of the symbol : The symbol of Rupee must represent the unique characteristics of the essence of India — the symbol must be representative of what we can recognize as Indian character. Historically it must represent country’s rich past and it must present itself as the attestation of one of the culturally pregnant civilization. It must represent the India’s concept uniqueness in acting as a bridge for the East and West. Also it must signify the Indian spirit in “unity in diversity” — representing the fact that in today’s troubled times India can be an example in how people of different cast , race, color, language and religion live together in harmony and proper. Last but not the least, thematically the symbol must live upto the promise that Rupee is committing to the world at large that it has the stability which is required by any currency to be the player in the global stage.
The origin of the word “rupee” is found in the Sanskrit word rūp or rūpyāh, which means “wrought silver,” originally “something provided with an image, a coin,” from rupah “shape, likeness, image.” The Sanskrit word rūpyakam (Devanāgarī: रूप्यकम् ) means coin of silver. Also the case is true for the Hindi word rūpyāh (i.e. रुपया ), that was coined by Sher Shah Suri (1538-1545 AD) who introduced the silver Rupayya or Rupee coin. So from Hindi language :रुपया the proposed symbol takes the first character.
Considering this the symbol takes its character from the First two characters (i.e. “Ru”)of the English name “Rupee”. Of course , the representation of the different characters from the two polar opposite script system (English standing for Western Philosohy and Devanagari as a part of Eastern philosophy) were represented in such a way that it results in an unique design concept that do justice to both of the script systems. The ”Ru” comes from the the Latin script/English script that is most representative of the West , its culture and historical ethos and by making it the part of the symbol makes it truly the point of synergy that represents the world harmony and peaceful coexistence of different cultural and regional elements. This also is the representative of India’s nature of tolerance and respect for different languages and culture, on the basis of which different people of varied cultural, language and racial domains live together and prosper in India even in today’s troubled times.
Attempts were also made that the glyph elements are merged in such a way to create the new aesthetic graphical representation that will contain in it-self the memory of the traditional use of abbreviations of the word “Rupee” and ”Rupees” as “Rp” and “Rs” respectively. If the proposed symbol is closely observed , next to R the “s” seems to be there in Flipped vertically. Similarly the presence of “p” next to “R” can be felt where “p” seems to be flipped with 90 degree clockwise. Representing these two aspects with out any prominence in the symbol shows how these two past elements of “Rupee” character are deprecated.
The expectation from the proposed symbol references the fact that this could be a powerful part of the country’s brand iconography, a signal of stability. And the concept of “stability” can be easily convinced by the international mass through the use of “horizontal lines” found in almost all the currency symbols. The lines provide the symbol the required visual link with existing well-known currency symbols – and that makes it visually one of the same family of symbols that of others and preserving its uniqueness at the same time.
The symbol uses even lines of same thickness for its representation. As the soul focus behind symbol is to make it from a “simple graphical elements that will make it easy to write and easy to remember”. Apart from this the symbol is designed with the spirit to look unique as well as with the familiarity elements in the family of other major currency symbols. Last but not the least the concept is to have a clean and even weight – not overloaded with strokes or have any minor unnecessary lines.
