Success for the First Security Designers Forum

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My presentation will focus on my career in banknote design and the contemporary design inspirations that drive me.

**The professional journey as a banknote designer, inspired by my favourite projects that fuel my daily work.​**

I’ll take you through my journey, starting with graphic design and evolving into the field of security design. I want to highlight my key milestones that have significantly shaped me as a designer. By showcasing a selection of graphic to banknote design projects—I aim to demonstrate the underlying thread that connects these diverse fields: a commitment to precise, impactful content creation where every message is crafted to resonate with its viewer.

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Banknote engraving is not a one man show, but commitment still is.

The road to success is all about working in a team. Shared
motivation is something needed to evoke personal commitments. I will talk about my experiences beginning with classic hand engraving, experimental printmaking and how to cope with todays challenges in
digital banknote engraving.

I will try to focus on two questions:

(1) When we design a banknote, what is it that we are dealing with? – I will argue that we are dealing with an original, or that we are trying to create an original. But what is an original? In terms of philosophy? In terms of physics? And does the term ‘origination’, with which we are all familiar, perhaps have something to do with it?

(2) The theme of this conference is ‘Holistic Design’. But what exactly does this little word ‘holistic’ mean? What is our sense of wholeness? – Isn’t it a contradiction to be whole? Because to be whole, the whole must contain everything, and that means it must also contain its opposite: the not-whole. Will that still be whole? And how can we ever begin with the whole? In a beginning, what begins is not yet what it will become. So in the beginning, by definition, the whole is not yet the whole. But if we do not begin with the whole, we cannot begin with it at all. Neither in our thinking nor in our designs. Or perhaps we are
missing a point. Perhaps we need to change our thinking. And maybe we need to
change our design to a completely new design of the whole. A design where
leaving means returning…

I will then try to show how these two questions relate to the design and production of a banknote. I will focus particularly on the concept, as I work mainly as a concept designer and will speak as such.

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As a designer, you are often asked how you can
still create a beautiful banknote with all the specifications and technical
restrictions. 

In my talk, I will explore this question. I will put the design process into words by looking at the world from above!

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Despite the recent focus on applied optical effects in banknote
security, traditional printing methods remain some of the most effective tools
against counterfeiting. In this presentation, we will explore how these
techniques can greatly enhance the value of banknotes in terms of security and
visual appeal. By examining the newest housenote, Autumn, we will showcase a
variety of innovative effects created through offset, intaglio, screen
printing, and other methods. This exploration will demonstrate the significant
potential of printed features in modern banknote design.

Traditional Security document designs have a long history of being secure, hand engraved artwork printed on a small piece of secure & durable paper. With the never-ending introduction of increasingly complex and sophisticated “security features” and highly complex, layered substrate that includes its own security elements, design integration has never been more intricate, challenging or critical to the success of a secure document in circulation. 

Jorge Rodrigo Peral and Jason Roosen will discuss these challenges and CBN’s approach for mitigating manufacturing risks while pushing the design boundaries, maximizing security and functionality while simultaneously integrating the tradition of art with the world’s most secure features.

Creation of a new security document is an exciting and complex project requiring a number of parties to align. This presentation showcases the how the physical process is far more colourful than the polished process description may indicate.

A challenge designers encounter during product design is how to find the right balance between manufacturing capabilities and alternative technologies. A good and secure document often pushes the boundaries of the manufacturing capabilities to be in desired security zone.

This presentation aims to identify this desired security zone and various means to quantify them. Highlighting the important role of designer to succeed in utilizing this innovative way of thinking security zone while trying to achieve best possible holistic security design.

Security zone thinking helps to consider whether new document has reached sufficient security level for its purpose, within the limits of the manufacturing industry.

In the current environment, more document examinations are performed through a computer monitor than in person, yet document design has not adapted sufficiently to keep up. In this talk, we will look at some of the challenges, and discuss some of the possible solutions.

The complexity of our world is greater than it has ever been before. Amongst many fields, we have deconstructed our image of reality into small isolated entities, which no longer serve in representing the big picture.

A way to overcome this structural divergence in our cognition is to build a consistent model from these isolated entities and create a new existence by embedding this model in reality.

Thus, the model represents itself, referring to its own existence.

Lukas applies this method by bringing his project to life which combines Art with Security Printing and Encrypted Design.

His Full-Sheet Intaglio Artwork enables a Blockchain-secured Provenance. Code is not just hidden in the artwork, the code has become the artwork itself – and vice versa.

The Intaglio Engravings he creates do not try to imitate a reality outside themselves, but are rather a virtual microcosm optimised for Intaglio Printing.

This virtuality is then embodied in reality, through the 60 tons of pressure of the Intaglio press, and thus has a true physical representation of itself.

His work challenges the perception of value, since his highly secured Banknote Artworks are not issued via a Central Bank, its value is conserved within itself, and sealed by the Security Printing industry and Lukas’ art and craftsmanship
skills.

Lukas will take you on a journey displaying the evolution of this long-term undertaking, which is applied research in Security Printing, and constitute innovative world novelties on various levels.

In the fast-paced world of security printing, maintaining high standards of
quality and robust design while accelerating production timelines is paramount.
Security designers and printers face the challenge of creating intricate,
secure patterns that not only safeguard against counterfeiting but also ensure
printability and production efficiency.

This presentation explores why a specialized security design software
environment is essential for achieving these objectives. Unlike commercial
software options like Adobe, dedicated security design software offers tailored
features that significantly enhance both creativity and efficiency.

In my presentation I would like to talk about the issues that we face day by day as high security document designers. On these difficulties we develop all necessary tools for the designers to be able to create an aesthetic and up to date high security products. I tell you about how the software helps us deal with the problems that arise and supports us to stay creative to respond quickly and flexibly to newer and newer – sometimes completely nonsensical – expectations.

Take a look behind the scenes of the banknote design projects I’ve worked on. I’ll walk you through how I got started with banknote design and share some of the personal and technical challenges I faced along the way. I’ll show this according to four projects, each created on the substrate «Durasafe®» from Landqart. Over the past decade, I’ve been challenged to design on this innovative material, by combining artistry, security, and functionality. I’ll highlight key aspects of each project where I was deeply involved and showcase some of the methods and techniques I used to bring these designs to life.

CCL Secure has been innovating in polymer banknote design for more than 30 years. This experience has taught us how to further optimise designs for fully integrated polymer banknotes, with collaboration being the cornerstone to producing the best results. Our presentation aims to explore three collaborative models and draws upon our experience of working with central banks directly, central bank’s own design team and commercial printers’ design team. We will illustrate our presentation with a number of case studies and examine the approach for how we can help with future projects.

The use of colour is critical to the good design of banknotes and passports.  Coloured inks have been used to provide security on banknotes and passports for over 150 years.

This presentation will start by considering the history of colour in banknotes and passports.  It will explore some of challenges that designers can create when incorporating colour into their designs.  Choosing the right inks is crucial to ensure that the relationship between colour and design is maintained throughout the production process.

Design for testability (DFT) approaches are largely adopted in electric/electronic data processing equipment design since 1940s/50s. The purpose is to increase the efficacy and efficiency of the measuring and testing activities.

Continuously increasing complexity and sophistication of banknotes requires a similar approach. Built-in capabilities and features should be included to facilitate test and control. These must be already conceived in the design phase and should be verified against the capabilities of the quality and process control tools, before entering mass production.

Expected benefits from a DFT approach to banknote design, are:

\- Reduced production set-up time, due to simplified instruction of QC tools

\- Lower investments, due to compatibility with available QC tools

\- More stable working conditions of control tools with fewer runtime adjustments

\- More reliable controls and measurements, with less false indications or rejects.

The presentation will provide provide some practical suggestions to banknote and other security documents designers, for improving testability and printing process control by means of automatic tools installed in the printing line.

How can banknote and security documents designers benefit from SICPA’s long-standing expertise in formulating inks to meet the highest level of requirements? In this presentation, we will share our insights and best practices on how to create appealing yet functional designs that leverage the full potential of printing technologies. We will also showcase some of the tools and guidelines that SICPA is developing and making available to support designers throughout the creation process.

In most countries issued banknotes must be fit for a semi-automated or fully automated cash cycle. This means that, during their lifetime, the banknotes are in frequent contact with various input and output machines which are equipped with different inspection sensors.  The first contact with an inspection machine is usually before the banknotes even leave the printworks when, after the various and diverse printing and sheet cutting processes, the final single notes are inspected by Single Note Inspection (SNI) machines. Thereafter the notes are likely to be in regular contact with banknote processing machines which will all use some form of inspection to validate the notes.

A banknote designer has to consider this critical aspect when they create a design for a new banknote or new banknote series; they must be suitable for an increasingly automated cash cycle, which means efficient, secure machine readability.

Design for Manufacturing – Will highlight design issues that can be avoided or worked around for the known machine constraints and propose new technology that can help designers to have more liberty/flexibility in the future.

By elucidating the origins of Chinese traditional culture and art, I aim to enhance the audience’s understanding of the conceptual design behind the Dragon Year commemorative banknote. This piece is not merely a commemorative note; it encapsulates the Chinese people’s aspirations for a beautiful life.

Takeo will explore how Komori printing equipment can uniquely support
security designers to maximize design capabilities.

Process control is a critical tool for banknote producers, enabling them to detect printing defects at their source. This approach helps minimize production waste and reduces costs while maintaining high-quality standards within controlled
limits. The design of a banknote not only dictates the production processes
required but also influences the quality control plan that will be implemented.
This plan includes the selection of QC and inspection tools, the frequency and
type of controls, and the methods for data collection.

In this presentation, we will explore the modern quality control tools used in
banknote production lines. We will also discuss how considering the inspectability of a banknote during the design phase can prevent potential
issues, ensuring a cost-effective and high-quality manufacturing process.

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What makes a good Level 1 feature, what specifically needs to be taken into account as a designer and what are the potential stumbling blocks?

And who is actually” Public First” and how have the requirements changed over the past few years? Which conclusions can be drawn for the future?

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Art and Technology is a union that is needed to create security features. There are certain roles each topic play in security feature design which tie into how a
security feature will ultimately be perceived. Kara discusses how these roles
impact the success of a security feature.

We demystify the current state of AI by exploring its actual capabilities and limitations. After a short intro into the working principle of AI, we first outline essential prerequisites for the successful commercial implementation of AI applications. Finally, our journey will take us through some real-world applications of AI in the field of fraud detection.

The user-centric design of High-security Documents, like
banknotes and passports is crucial for a fast and reliable
authentication process. By following the human perception abilities
Security Designers craft beautiful and technological advanced high-security
documents, but mostly limited by requirements for machine readability. These
paradigms might be outdated – with the use of  state-of-the-art
technologies smart-devices become an extension of the human senses. Discussion
about the implications of “extended sensibility” and
augmented reality to the design of the next generation of security
documents.

OFS has initiated two projects that revolve around smartphones, AI and storytelling.  

Authentification in your pocket: Together with an external
partner, OFS has developed a handy smartphone feature for banknotes. A sample note was developed to test its functionality and to explore the integration
options. Storyline and feature design are closely linked.

How can we use AI to drive design excellence? Facial expressions are revealing.
Attributes such as strength, conscientiousness, intelligence and confidence can
be read between the lines of a smile and the angle of an eyelid. Can we use AI
to make portraits on banknotes more attractive?

We talk a lot about security design as an important part of a
secure document. As a basic rule we emphasize that in secure design/printing we
cannot use the basic CMYK colors and commercial screens/raster, however, at the same time more and more security products are printed with digital printing
technology.

In most cases security design is connected to some key security
elements such as Guilloche, Micro-text, Latent Image and many others. These
elements are security elements and they protect the product only if they are
designed and printed based on strict rules. These rules are not flexible, they
are limited by the existing technologies of the commercial market. 

A security document printed with digital technology can resemble
forgery. The question is: Can we print a security design with digital
technology?

As digital printing is more and more utilized in the security
printing industry not only for personalization but also for printing the core
design, we have to understand what is possible and what is not, in order to
produce quality security products.

It is also important to note that security features should not be
borrowed from traditional security printing but should be developed
specifically for digital printing. One of the biggest advantages of digital
printing is that all the documents can be personalized not only with a simple
serial number but in a very complex way. We can personalize the design as well
as any of the printed elements.

The biggest question after producing these products would be: How
do we authenticate these items? Certainly there is a solution and there is no
need for special tools, only the ones that we have on us on a daily
basis. 

During the presentation we will discuss the possibilities of
digital printing in security design and we will certainly present features and
samples.