Macro Week 5

Eat the rich

Week 5 of 5

Team

Food is more than fuel. Consider the ways that food is a medium of exchange when an influencer shares a plate of food on social media, when it is hoarded or witheld by those with power, when the desire for it is supplanted by a costly injection. In an age of dematerialisation, food remains stubbornly and emphatically physical, sensory, high-touch and frictional. Design a currency based on food.
Project partner: Revolut

Ayesha Saleem
Keya Bangera
Mary Mehtarizadeh
Niki Marathia

Steps

Having been told that we’re not showing how the individual bits of our research connect a few times over the past few weeks, we decided to show how each step led to the next through a flow chart.

Figure 1. Steps with learnings flow chart

Synthesis

Figure 2. Creative toolkit synthesis, drawn by Ayesha Saleem

Figure 3. Picking out design features for our banknotes, drawn by Ayesha Saleem

Sketches

We had a last look at the current Bank of England designs, to consider any features we may want to keep in our banknotes:

Figure 4. Front of the Queen Elizabeth II note Bank of England (2025) Polymer £20 note specimen front [Photograph]. Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/polymer-20-pound-note (Accessed: 10 April 2026).

Figure 5. Back of the Queen Elizabeth II note Bank of England (2025) Polymer £20 note specimen back [Photograph]. Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/polymer-20-pound-note (Accessed: 10 April 2026).

Figure 6. Concept sketches, drawn by Keya Bangera

Printmaking

We decided to explore printmaking techniques for our designs. After consulting the technicians at the printmaking workshop, we decided to go with gelli printing. We brought bananas, oranges, oats, fennel seeds, nigel seeds, leeks, onions, rocket leaves and cabbage to use as our main subjects.

Figure 7. Cabbage leaf

Figure 8. Leek

Figure 9. Rocket leaves

Figure 10. Preparing yellow ink

Figure 11. Laying oats on red ink

Figure 12. Leeks and onions

Figure 13. Banana & orange peel

Figure 14. Blue gradient

Figure 15. Yellow gradient

Figure 16. Placing prints to dry

Figure 17. One of our red prints

Figure 18. Learning to emboss

Figure 19. Embossed rice on paper

Figure 20. Our prints drying

Prints

Debossing plates

Figure 21. Debossing plate design, created by Mary Mehtarizadeh

Figure 22. Laser cutting our plates

Bank notes

Figure 23. Our final designs, cut out and debossed

Figure 24. Red: 5 frounds | Blue: 10 frounds | Green: 20 frounds | Yellow: 50 frounds

Figure 25. Debossing detail

Video

Figure 26. Our teaser video, directed by Mary Mehtarizadeh and Ayesha Saleem

Presentation

Figure 27. Red banknotes and oats

Figure 29. Yellow banknotes and cabbage

Figure 31. Installation close up

Figure 28. Red prints close up

Figure 30. Yellow prints close up

Figure 32. Snippet of our final presentation

Feedback

The project was well received on presentation day, with our industry partners praising our participatory methods and the way we communicated our journey. Some of the constructive feedback we received included considering how the notes would fold to fit within a pocket or wallet, given that we had been experimenting with their size and shape. We were also encouraged to create a user flow, so that the user journey is clearer.

Reflections

Realisation
The day before our presentation, we shot and edited our video, debossed our prints and cut them into notes, set up our installation, and finished our slides. It was my first time printmaking, so I was also figuring things out as we went. We had intended to emboss the banknotes, but due to an error with our design files, we ended up debossing them instead, which we didn't have time to correct. As a result, our final designs were rushed, and both banknotes and installation could have done with more finessing.

Collaboration
One of the most rewarding parts of this project was how many people contributed to it. We wanted all those who helped us to feel that the Fround was partly theirs, so we gave banknotes and prints to everyone involved: our project partners, Andras who helped us develop our system, the team at Hackney City Farm, and the amazingly talented voiceover actor in our video. It felt good to spread the joy of having made something together.

Future
There is ongoing research that explores how people who experience food insecurity can move toward affordable and nutritious home cooking. Stephen et al. (no date) are co-creating a healthy eating toolkit at the University of Aberdeen together with the intended beneficiaries. This approach resonates with what we attempted through the Fround, by making money that spreads the message of the importance of nutritional food without pointing fingers. As a future direction, perhaps the Fround could renew its designs seasonally, and feature recipes from the toolkit with the fruit and vegetables in season at that time.

Sources

Bank of England (2025) £20 note, Bank of England. Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/polymer-20-pound-note (Accessed: 10 April 2026).

Stephen, A., Lawrie, L., Allan, J.L., Petre, O.A., Kyle, J. and Thies, F. (no date) Co-creation of a Healthy Eating Toolkit for Adults Experiencing Food Insecurity Using the Behaviour Change Wheel Guide for Intervention Development. Unpublished PhD research. University of Aberdeen.