Design B is one of the five Rivers and birds proposals in the ECB shortlist. It was made by PunktFormStrich, a small Austrian studio in Salzburg that works mainly on branding and visual identity.
| Design letter | B |
|---|---|
| Theme | Rivers and birds |
| Designer | PunktFormStrich |
| Based in | Salzburg, Austria |
Design B — PunktFormStrich. Complete family of six denominations, fronts and reverses. Design proposal only: it does not show an issued or approved euro banknote.
Who they are
PunktFormStrich was founded by Hans-Christian Kogler and Gregor Sams, both graduates of the FH Salzburg university of applied sciences. The studio’s usual work is corporate identity rather than security printing, which makes its presence among ten finalists chosen from more than 1,200 applications notable in itself.
What the proposal shows
The studio approached the theme through data. Each denomination carries one of the six bird species chosen by the ECB — wallcreeper, kingfisher, bee-eater, white stork, pied avocet and northern gannet — but the surrounding graphics are derived from measurable properties of the birds themselves: the sound of their song, translated into horizontal bar structures, and their speed in flight.
The reverses place European institutional buildings against a map of the continent, so that the natural and the civic halves of the theme sit on opposite sides of the same note. The result reads as an infographic system rather than as illustration, which the ECB’s own description picks up when it speaks of encoded information.
Where it sits in the process
Design B is a proposal published for public consultation, not an approved banknote. The survey ran until 21 September 2026, and the ECB Governing Council is expected to select one design around the end of the year before development, security testing and production preparation begin.
