Designing the Euro

The European Commission (EC) was given the task of creating the euro symbol as part of its communications work. There were three things the design had to accomplish:

• It had to be easily recognized.
• It had to be easily written by hand.
• It had to be pleasing to look at.

The EC had more than 30 designs drawn up. They selected 10 from those and let the public vote, which narrowed those 10 down to two. From there they made their final selection. The design that was selected is based on the Greek letter epsilon, and also resembles the "e" as the first letter of the word "Europe." The two parallel lines through the center of the "c" represent stability.

The euro is abbreviated as EUR. This was established through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).