When Snøhetta decided to submit designs for Norway’s new range of banknotes, the agency embarked on a journey to understand not only the technical requirements of branding a currency, but also how a banknote could be the symbol of a nation. Here, Snøhetta partner Martin Gran discusses creating the “business card of a nation,” and how our collective social contract has imbued bits of colored paper with a value that far outweighs their material worth.

You designed a new currency in an era of digital payments. Were you conscious that you were making something that might soon not exist?
We had a long debate about it—whether this will be the last analog money designed in Norway. We eventually concluded that this design may not be the last, because the economic institution of money...