That is rather ugly.

But better than the Euro sign!

Looks like a rip-off of the Euro sign (and the yen) though....

Hey, have I succeeded in devising a major currency symbol? Well, this calls for a celebratory glass of vodka.

Writing the sign quickly by hand, one ends up with something like this:

Still recognisable and distinctive, not confuseable with any numeral, which is what you want in a currency symbol.

Evidently there's still nothing from the Russian authorities on this one.

I very much hope that they make the top-left soft. BTW I've seen Latin text fonts that have a /P like that, and in the right context that can be wonderful.

hhp

To my way of thinking, the design in Dezcom's post, a Cyrillic R with the horizontal lines through the stem, is the simplest and most natural choice.

But since so many countries use $, and, in fact, more than one country uses £, I don't see a problem in saving trouble and using the existing symbol for the Philippine peso, unless, like the Euro symbol, it is trademarked. (Given the value of the Euro, I would have expected the EU to just use $ for that!)

" currency symbols should be invented by greengrocers writing on pieces of cardboard boxes"
I agree. It was approved by the Bank of Russia though.

"Here is a gallery with 20 proposals that appear to have been rejected."
I thought there were some pretty good tries.
One got close, but no one went for the Potemkin Ruble.

Seriously though, will a one-bar R work, like Yen 'n Dolla'?

Cheers!

Sure John, you and the Washington Redskins :-)

ChrisL

Hmm. How to reflect the Latin R without being too blatant.

Inspired by Bifur, how about this:

Evidently the Russian authorities have not yet finalized anything. Or does anyone know otherwise?

Why not just plain old Ѫ or Ѡ ? Nobody uses those anymore, and they look plenty expensive, and they already have Unicode slots and are already provided in finer fonts. And they're w i d e r than other currency symbols, suggesting the ruble is worth more.

Interesting approach, however you don't want something
that's hard to squeeze into a monowidth-numeral scheme.

hhp

Has anyone heard any new developments on this?

The most recent I can find is here: http://publishing.yudu.com/A23p4/rbth-30-08-07/resources/2.htm
The page uses some strange kind of Flash viewer. It seems to suggest the P with crossbar at the lower stem (as John Hudson showed above) is the design that won out.

Here is a video on the topic, also dating from last August, reaching the same conclusion:
http://Russia Today via YouTube

Lebedev has prices featuring Ruble symbol, eg:

http://www.artlebedev.ru/everything/shar-404/

Could be assembled on the fly, adding a dash to a P/p and backspacing.

Also, a "lower case" version for OSF would be cool.

Agreed. why would they use anything else?

But, the big question is: They appear to have managed to get along just fine without one up until now. Why the sudden need for a symbol?

But hey, it could be worse. Here is a gallery with 20 proposals that appear to have been rejected.

Indeed, it does appear to be double-struck. It doesn't seem to work quite well enough with the font I have, but I guess it's a sufficient workaround until it gets its official Unicode slot and broad font implementation. Few of the other submitted designs even had this as an option.

I am inclined to think John Hudson's makes the mosr sense or something close to it.

ChrisL

Yeah, but how about in Helvetica...

OMG, it's Latinized
Off with the leg!

***

Meta Extra Bold should be interesting :-)

Meta Black Ruble...

And we thought the Yen was cramped...

I think I know how I'll make mine: one bar through
the top counter and one through the bottom stem.

hhp

hopefully this has not been approved yet as the first article hints at. i hope the other 2 final designs are superior to this.

This site has some interesting takes on the symbol:

http://www.directdesign.ru/rubl/main.html

Click on the link that says Знаки и участники (just above www.index.ru). Vladimir Efimov of ParaType has a couple of ideas in there.

Steve, I don't seem to be getting anything.

hhp

for those of you having troubles navigating the page referenced above, you can check out Vladimir Efimov's proposals here, here & here.

or you can browse the submissions by clicking on the little, black, numbered circles to the right of each name in the left-hand column.

here's an interesting concept. i doubt it'll fly in the post soviet era, or do Russians still use the hammer and sickle imagery?

Hrant, is absolutely nothing loading on the page?

Paul, yes, the hammer and sickle are still around, and there seems to be growing nostalgia for them. There was recently quite a battle over possibly removing them from the official Victory Banner, but they remain.

I wasn't really impressed with the majority of the proposed designs.

Here's my take, though it might be mistaken for the Perscription Rx symbol, it's easy to reproduce by hand without looking like an extra letter or a manipulated P.

I like the diagonal solutions, especially if it can be made
to look both like an "R" and an Er - that would be brilliant.
Especially if the top-left of the letter is rounded.

The Hammer & Sickle are regaining ground, but only in
an informal, and mostly nostalgic way - you'd never ever
be able to get that symbology adopted officially.

Steve, I have it working now - sorry.

Andrew, too much like the Rx symbol.

hhp

I would think that Russians would prefer a symbol that resembled the cyrillic Р (ER) instead of the latin R. I found it strange that so many of the proposed designs did incorporate the latin R.

It's probably some internationalistic requirement.
The Indian Rupee isn't set in Devanagari!

On the other hand, a Er posing as an "R", like with
two diagonal legs, and a rounded top-left, would rule.

hhp

A little Googling:

The United States Abbreviation Theory

One of the most popular theories is that the dollar sign is derived from the initials of the United States. If you superimpose a capital "U" on a capital "S" then drop the lower part of the "U", what you end up with is a version of the dollar symbol with two strokes. This theory was endorsed by the American libertarian philosopher and staunch defender of capitalism, Ayn Rand, in her novel Atlas Shrugged. Chapter 10 is entitled the Sign of the Dollar. Rand claimed the dollar sign was the symbol not only of the currency, but also the nation, a free economy, and a free mind.

Origin of the Euro:

Arthur Eisenmenger designed the € as a generic symbol of Europe years before the new currency was mooted. 'I drew it without much consideration,' he said in an interview some years ago. 'I wasn't thinking of the Euro at the time, but just something that symbolized Europe.'

So my guess would be they chose the Latin R for Russia, not Ruble, and that the symbol should represent Russia more than just a simple mark representing the type of currency.

Maybe something like this... just less like a squid:

hhp

Another P/R, slightly reminiscent of the goose step.

What is an Er, Hrant? I like your squid, looks menacing in a friendly way. Anyone remember The Day of the Triffids?

I still haven't been able to find out the three finalists, but I have found this which gives the 20 finalists:

http://www.rian.ru/photolents/20060613/49420820.html

> Rand claimed the dollar sign was the symbol not only of the
> currency, but also the nation, a free economy, and a free mind.

Was.

hhp

Marc, your glyph is nicely evocative of the waviness typical
of Cyrillic letterforms, but I have to think the bureaucrats
need lines and circles only...

The Er is the Russian letter (and the first in Rouble when spelled in Russian)
that looks like a "P", although it can have (and previously tended to have) a
soft top-left.

Ah: http://www.rian.ru/photolents/20060613/49420820_8.html _
A lot of them are really promising though - impressive.

hhp

I want a swiss franc too with the swiss cross in it! lol

The easy way: flipping round a paragraph sign. See Trajan, Giddyup and... Dolly, remarkably R-like. Not to mention the more obvious stiff ones.

I would think that Russians would prefer a symbol that resembled the cyrillic Р (ER) instead of the latin R. I found it strange that so many of the proposed designs did incorporate the latin R.

The first article mentions the Russians wanting the Ruble to become an international reserve currency—fat chance—so it makes sense to design a symbol that will make sense to foreigners. Especially when the government is expropriating corporations to sell them to foreign investors.

I can't help but think that these new currency symbols are PR stunts (with the exception of the euro which had some political issues too) - after all the banks and financial institutions do not use anything as archaic as symbols, they use the ISO currency codes, USD, GBP and RUR.

By the way, if the World Bank's currency is the Wolfowitz, has it been devalued against the euro, and will it need to be renamed?

> fat chance

True, it's the Yuan's turn next.

> Especially when the government is expropriating
> corporations to sell them to foreign investors.

That stopped with the departure of the criminal Yeltsin.

> has it been devalued

Devalued? If you count to zero, I guess.

hhp

Actually, the problem with using the correct Cyrillic "Ruble" initial character, which looks like a Latin P, is that it's already taken. Here are most of the currency symbols.

More info here... http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U20A0.pdf

That P with the bars is the Peso

Cheers, Si

That P with the bars is the Peso
Specifically, it's the Phillippine Peso. The Mexican Peso is indicated by the $.

Most currency symbols belong behind bars ;-)

I think the type of structure I'm talking about is dissimilar enough.

Simon, that's quite quotable! :-)

hhp