New $10 Bill
March 8th, 2018 by PotatoThe new $10 bill was just announced, and it’s vertical. I’m getting dizzy just looking at it, and my wallet OCD doesn’t know what to do. This doesn’t fit with the design of any of the other bills (will we be getting new $5/20/50 bills soon to match?), and it’s a problem. I am exactly the sort of person (to no one’s surprise) who always puts my bills in my wallet facing the same direction, in ascending order. When I worked at the theatre, my till was similarly rigid. Having a bill that doesn’t face the right way is going to be uncomfortable.
Some people are pointing out that while wallets universally hold bills horizontally, tills hold bills vertically, so this may make some sense to someone.
To that I say, ok, you have a point, but we didn’t have to screw up the whole bill, we could have part of the bill satisfy each method — see illustration below. And I don’t really care that much about which way the art and design elements face — a top-right number for the value aligned for horizontal placement would fit with other bills (or top left for the back side), and then the bottom of the vertical layout could have a vertically oriented number for better use in those settings (particularly tills).