Simian Design

December 9, 2004

Guilloche Patterns and Money

A guilloche element is a drawing that is composed of multiple laced thin curved lines that cross each other is a complex fashion. Where do you see these patterns? Take out a dollar bill. Or any other type of money that you might have. They’ll have this type of pattern on it.

The guilloche composition can’t be reproduced by a digital copier due to very tiny line width and a constantly alternating curve of the line.

It’s quite the amazing read. I had no idea that a) this was based of a spirograph, and b) that the spirograph was born out of Denys Fisher designing bomb detonators for NATO, c) that any system beyond 3 wheels is considered unbreakable and that d) the US Mint is rumored to have a 10 wheel system. Cool stuff indeed.

UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from a reader, we now have a link to a most amazing app for the Mac. Excentro lets you create your own Guilloche Patterns. Most fun.

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Tagged As Art, Cool, Design, Graphic Design

Comments are Open (2)

Posted at 07:49 AM

Comments

Thor

Hmmm... If you are interested in being able to create guilloche elements, you might want to check out this program. One of the most amazing apps I've seen.

http://www.excourse.com/excentro/
I believe the number of "wheels" is unlimited--- or perhaps only limited by RAM.

Personal note: I'm a webmaster/ColdFusion developer who started out stripping 4/c on a light table. ;)

Posted by: Thor | December 14, 2004 05:31 AM

Tony

That is very, very, very cool. I'm digging that app a bunch. Thanks Thor.

Heh. I did pre-press stuff out of school myself.

Posted by: Tony | December 14, 2004 07:12 AM