“…a ghost or a portent, depending on which side of time you were standing…”
My youngest son dislikes bedtime. He enjoys being in bed and reading, but he dislikes the process of moving from ‘not bed’ to ‘bed’.
I sympathise. During summer holidays when I was a teenager, I’d listen to BBC Radio 1 during afternoons while I was drawing or reading. The late Steve Wright ran the afternoon slot from 2 until 5, and I would always get a strange apprehensive feeling as the end of the show approached. Years later, whilst living at home after graduating my degree, I’d get the same feeling - always around 5pm. It’s still my least favourite time of day.
Years later, I came to learn that this was a ‘liminal space’ - a transitional place or time between one experience and the next.
Having spent much of the last week in airports and hotels whilst visiting the Berlin World Fair of Money, I’ve been thinking about liminal spaces, and their application in design.
The concept of liminal spaces feels like it belongs mainly in motion graphics or video (and illustration, I guess), but in the field of coin design, there is an underused opportunity to play with the idea of transitional experience, and its place within a narrative.
You pick up a coin. You look at the design. What’s the next action you take?
You turn it over. For the briefest of moments, you are in a liminal space where the narrative of one design sits in your mind while you anticipate the arrival of the next one, and the coin edge is the liminal space you occupy during that transition.
The entire reason I got into coin and medal design in the first place (through the BAMS student competition at college), was the notion of storytelling. A coin or medal has 2 sides, and can be used to deliver all kinds of narratives, such as setup/ punchline; question/ answer; or opposing/complimentary statements.
The act of turning a coin forces the viewer to think about what they’ve seen, and what they will see. Narrative can be resolved on the turning of the coin, or it can carry the viewer back to the first design in a repeating cycle.
Edge decorations on coins (in the UK at least) stem primarily from anti-theft measures introduced in the 17th century. The phrase ‘Decus et tutamen est’, meaning ‘an ornament and a safeguard’, was suggested as an edge inscription in 1662 by John Evelyn as a way of preventing anyone from shaving gold from the edges of a coin.
Milled and lettered edges are commonplace today, and often reflect the topic of the reverse design, especially in commemorative coins.
To pass from one side of the coin to another, one must experience the liminal space of the coin edge, and this provides another opportunity to create narrative - another ‘side’ of the coin.
I wrote my degree dissertation on ‘Peanuts’ - Charles M Schultz’s famous strip cartoon. The thesis was that the characters are allegories for social groups in post-war America (reading it back, I cringe at the number of logic holes!). Peanuts cartoon strips are habitually 4 panels long, following the pattern of setup, conflict, failure, resolution. The final panel is always the most important, bringing a kind of Kubler Ross curve to the preceding events - anger, acceptance, bargaining.
Daniel Leonard’s ‘3nuts’ plays with this format by removing the final panel from Peanut’s strips, leaving a dark world of angst and uncertainty - an unsettling liminal space.
image credit: 3nuts.com
The introduction of memetic ideas such as ‘Weirdcore’ and the ‘Back Rooms’, along with the popularity of the ‘walking simulator’ genre have spawned a rise in liminal space videogames.
However, the concept really first appears in survival horror games from the late 90’s, such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
‘Pools’, inspired by the artwork of Jared Pike, draws on the eerie feeling of being alone in an environment that should be crowded and noisy - there may be people just around the next corner, or perhaps you missed them at a previous turn…
Resident Evil was a notoriously tense video game, and this is curiously heightened by the ethereal music in the infrequent safe areas.
The repetitious music is at once calming and disconcerting, and draws to mind my favourite example of a liminal experience - Mac’s WTF (what’s the flavour) advert circe 2007.
The Mac’s ‘WTF’ slurpee advert campaign, created by Bos Advertising, won several awards, and many of the adverts would be considered uncomfortable by today’s standards. They are surreal, challenging and at times grotesque. However, they are also brave and absolutely unique within the soft drinks market. ‘Hoseleg’ is my favourite, because it reminds me of those unsettling late afternoon periods. The long shadows, empty housing estate and clear sky combine to create a calm, yet eerie scene. I find myself wondering what the inside of Hoseleg’s house is like, deep in shadow, and why no other residents are out in the sunshine.
All these examples lean toward the unsettling, and I’m sure you’re asking what relevance they have to coin design.
Looking beyond the individual cases, the core principle of liminal spaces is a transition between one experience and the next. From the known to the unknown. This concept has been used in these examples to capture a viewers imagination, to enhance a story, or to provide a contrast to a particular scenario.
Coin design, by its nature, requires a lot to be said in a small space. Putting the craft of relief sculpture to one side, coins are, at their core, incidences of graphic communication - combinations of text and images, used to deliver a message or story.
It frustrates me when I see coin designs with text that echoes the content of the design, rather than expanding it, or providing new meaning. It’s often the case that the coin text will be repeated again on the packaging, and this redundancy feels like a wasted opportunity. Such squandering of the canvas wouldn’t be accepted in a piece of graphic design on our degree course.
The collectible coins at Berlin showcased some of the most exotic and detailed design work in our industry. New production techniques have stretched the boundaries of what is possible and what can be considered a ‘coin’. With the decline in coins as currency, the commemorative market has a new freedom, untethered from just producing collectible versions of circulating coins.
Interestingly though, as soon as a commemorative coin is struck, it is usually placed in a capsule or pack, hiding the edge from view. That liminal space that could create tension between what has been seen and what will be seen remains…unseen…
What creativity could we bring to these edges? Inscriptions that challenge our understanding of the design topic, or give us pause for thought during the act of turning the coin? Or perhaps even more exotic sculptural elemements that create physical flow between one side and the next, such as are often seen on medallic art.
Ultimately, not every coin will provide (or require) the opportunity for this depth of design, but it’s important that we continue these conversations if only to remind our industry how exotic and complex coins are, and how much scope they hold for creativity. As disposable income shrinks, designers must work harder and smarter to draw buyers in, and demonstrate the value of human storytelling.
I’m a man on the edge, and I’m not afraid to use it…