Royal Mint invites designs for new £1 coin
Howard Lake | 14 September 2014 | News
The Royal Mint is inviting designs for a new £1 coin that will be introduced in 2017. Members of the public can submit a design, together with professional designers and artists.
There is only one face of the coin to design. The ‘heads’ side will of course feature the Queen’s head.
The winner will receive £10,000 as a design fee. In addition they will be invited to The Royal Mint to see their design transformed into coins of the realm.
The new coin was announced in the Chancellor’s Budget Speech in March 2014.
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Coin to symbolise Britain
The design brief requires that the design must represent Britain in a clear and unambiguous way. The Royal Mint suggests:
“Think of symbols, heraldry, words, aspects of the natural world, man-made structures such as buildings and monuments, British achievements, whether social, political or cultural, and British institutions”.
The new coin will have 12 sides and be produced in two colours – a gold-coloured outer ring and a silver-coloured centre. Designers can choose to overlap both parts of the coin, or have two distinct sections to appear on the outer ring and centre.
The denomination ONE POUND must appear as part of the overall design. You are not allowed to include any likenesses of people, living or dead.
The coin will, according to The Royal Mint, be the world’s most secure circulating coin.
The Rt. Hon George Osborne, The Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
“Today we’re asking people across the UK to help us design the new £1 coin. Think about your favourite landmark, or a great British achievement or a symbol from our Islands’ Story. The winning design will be in millions of people’s pockets and purses. It’ll be heads you win; tails, it’s your design.”
So, what will the coin that members of the public place in charity collecting tins in four years’ time look like? You could help decide that if you enter to win the new £1 coin design competition.
The deadline to submit designs is 23:59 on 30 October 2014.
- Four charities rounding up the old one pound coins (7 September 2017)
- Let’s put philanthropy on the new one pound coin (1 October 2014)
- Last round one pound coins minted (17 December 2015)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.