There are so many ways to express yourself through the creative arts. Painting, pencil work and paper folding are all valid outlets. I’m not alone in advising that creativity is very important in the job hunting culture we find ourselves in today. There’s never been a more tricky time in which to find employment so when you see a company advertise a job your first thought must be how to express your skills and attributes in a professional and interesting way.
If you turn your job hunting antennae to the smoke, our capital city, where the banking industry presides, London recruitment may hold the answer to your next career. And how better to tally finance to the creative arts than with some iconic money manipulation? I’m not advocating you go and explore your artistic side like the guys below did. There’s creativity and creativity and although I don’t think defacing our currency will harm the economy as much as the banks have done; it may cast a pall over your interview.
Defacing our currency? You were talking about artistic expression a minute ago! Well it depends on how you look at it – one man’s graffiti is another’s art; just as daubing ‘new’ faces onto bank notes may be viewed entirely differently by to whom you show it. Take James Charles for example. He amends bank notes to reflect icons of a political, artistic or media nature. He also alters the text, changing it from ‘In God we Trust’ to pithy epithets such as Mr. T’s, ‘Pity the Fool’.
Here Charles gives more than his two cents in these five dollar bills featuring emotionally withdrawn popular characters, Tin Man and Mr Spock.
The next examples lampoon fast food figureheads.
Staying with American currency, someone has gone to town with the Founding Fathers for this parody of a recent famous Apple iPod advertising campaign.
Rock stars aren’t immune to the money makeover.
Even the more tarty ladies…
Here is a great selection of the many faces of George Washington, first president of the United States. I’m quite keen on the ‘Scream’ mask with its hark back to the extraordinary Edvard Munch painting.
In the UK, where the defacing of money is considered treason (or just a waste of good, hard cash) there aren’t as many examples. More seem to be manufactured as spoof money rather than clever one-offs. Here are a couple of UK versions. Firstly, the improbable rise to fame of the humble African meerkat, thanks in no small way to the hugely popular Aleksandr Orlov commercials.
This clever £10 replica was to promote the newly regenerated Doctor as played by David Tennant. The ‘No second Chances I’m the sort of man’ is a pivotal moment in establishing the new Doctor’s character. And the ‘Ten Satsumas’? Well that’s a reference to his innovative use of the fruit to beat the Sycorax bad guys.
The gorgeous Marilyn Monroe gets her place on the UK’s highest denomination note.Booboo bidoo?
And finally…
Iconic money manipulation crosses the Atlantic once more and Homer Simpson makes his first unofficial appearance on our £20 note.
Guest blogger, Greg Coltman, is keen to get his licence to print money but until then he’ll just have to keep on typing…
