The European Central Bank has opened a public vote not on which figures or birds will appear on the next euro banknotes, but on how ten different design studios rendered the same six fixed motifs per theme, unveiling ten complete banknote series for public feedback ahead of a final decision expected around the end of 2026. The people and birds — Maria Callas, Beethoven, Marie Curie, Cervantes, Leonardo da Vinci and Bertha von Suttner for “European culture“; a wallcreeper, kingfisher, bee-eater, white stork, avocet and northern gannet for “Rivers and birds” — were locked in back in January 2025. What’s being decided now is style, not subject matter.
The two themes split the ten proposals exactly in half. Each of the five “European culture” studios worked with the same six historical figures across the €5 to €200 denominations; each of the five “Rivers and birds” studios worked with the same six birds, each paired with a European institution on the reverse — a wallcreeper with the European Parliament, a kingfisher with the European Commission, a bee-eater with the ECB itself, a white stork with the Court of Justice, an avocet with the European Council, and a northern gannet with the European Court of Auditors.
Five studios approached the culture theme from markedly different angles. Studio Joost Grootens crops and enlarges the eyes and mouth of each historical figure, with the gaze standing for observation and the mouth for expression and dialogue, while the reverse shows people of different ages and backgrounds sharing the same cultural spaces. Neue Gestaltung GmbH takes a more classic, easy-to-identify route, centering each figure against the note’s familiar denomination color, with a reverse that layers a map of Europe over constellations and everyday scenes in theatres, schools, libraries, museums and squares.
Myrsini Vardopoulou’s series for the culture theme pulls attention away from celebrity: Vardopoulou surrounds each personality with circular symbols tied to their own work rather than their fame. Jan Robert Dünnweller goes the opposite direction, taking a tactile route built from hand-drawn portraits and collaged textures, while the Spanish pairing of Rubio & del Amo and Cruz más Cruz constructs each note around a central gaze and vertical forms derived from the letters E, U, R and O.
On the nature side, the five studios treat the bird-and-river pairing as a shared premise rather than a shared style. PunktFormStrich transforms birdsong and flight speed into graphic data, while Rudy Guedj and François Girard-Meunier connect abstract landscapes across the six notes through an evolving band of light.
The remaining three nature proposals push further from illustration. Atelier Goppel-Toperngpong uses water itself as a metaphor for collective European power, while Isabelle Daëron overlays hand-drawn and vector patterns to express movement and interdependence across the set. Ville Tietäväinen goes furthest structurally: the full six-note series becomes a sequential river journey, with the imagery moving progressively closer to the sea as the denominations climb.
More than 1,200 designers applied to the EU-wide design contest behind these ten proposals; 25 were invited to develop full submissions for one or both themes, and an independent jury of 21 experts across graphic design, communication, neuroscience and history — one nominated by each euro area central bank — narrowed the field to the ten shown here. Not every pitch came through official channels: back in 2025, Lithuania’s Ancient Woods Foundation put forward its own unofficial proposal, campaigning to put the critically endangered capercaillie on the €100 note, though it never entered the shortlisted 25.
“Euro banknotes are more than a means of payment, they are one of the most tangible expressions of Europe,”said ECB President Christine Lagarde, describing the goal as designs that combine beauty and meaning to reinforce a shared identity. ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone framed the redesign as part of a longer-term effort to keep cash secure, efficient and close to the people who use it.
The public survey is open until 21 September 2026 at surveys.ecb.europa.eu, running in parallel with an identical survey conducted by an independent research company among a representative sample of euro area citizens. The Governing Council is expected to weigh jury conclusions, a technical assessment and both survey results before settling on a final euro banknote design around the end of the year — after which the winning proposal still faces further development, testing and production before entering circulation. It will be the first complete euro banknote redesign since their introduction in 2002.
Anyone curious to see all ten in full can browse the complete set of design proposals or the ECB’s dedicated image and video archive, while the original January 2025 decision on the six figures and six birds themselves is documented in the ECB’s motif selection announcement. The independent jury’s own reasoning is laid out in its published report.
Future Euro Banknote Design Proposals by European Central Bank | Designers: Studio Joost Grootens, PunktFormStrich, Neue Gestaltung GmbH, Rudy Guedj and François Girard-Meunier, Myrsini Vardopoulou, Jan Robert Dünnweller, Rubio & del Amo and Cruz más Cruz, Atelier Goppel-Toperngpong, Isabelle Daëron, Ville Tietäväinen — Public survey: 23 July – 21 September 2026