Design F is the most obviously hand-made of the European culture proposals. It was drawn by Jan Robert Dünnweller, a German illustrator who works in editorial and cultural commissions.
| Design letter | F |
|---|---|
| Theme | European culture |
| Designer | Jan Robert Dünnweller |
| Based in | Southern Germany |
Design F — Jan Robert Dünnweller. Complete family of six denominations, fronts and reverses. Design proposal only: it does not show an issued or approved euro banknote.
Who he is
Dünnweller comes from Passau and works from southern Germany. Alongside his commissioned illustration work he teaches illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. His practice is rooted in drawing and printmaking rather than in the vector-based graphic design that shapes several of the other shortlisted proposals.
What the proposal shows
The proposal takes the European Union motto, “United in diversity”, as its organising idea and builds each note from a collage: hand-drawn portraits of the six selected figures, set against watercolour grounds and assembled from forms, surfaces and textures that only add up when seen together.
Each figure is surrounded by objects and images associated with their work, and the reverses show the shared cultural settings attached to the motifs — performing arts for Maria Callas, music for Beethoven, education for Marie Curie, libraries for Cervantes, museums for Leonardo and public squares for Bertha von Suttner. The jury singled out the watercolour backgrounds as one of the artistically most interesting elements in the whole shortlist.
Where it sits in the process
The proposal was published on 23 July 2026 and opened to public comment until 21 September. The images are design proposals under evaluation; they are not issued euro banknotes and must not be presented as final designs.
