The Painstaking, Secretive Process Of Designing New Money

(via Fast.co Design)  Australia has a new $5 banknote, and it looks expensive. Bend the note, and a printed bird flaps its wings. The ink has texture. It even has nubs. Part of the bill has been carefully primed like paper, while part has been kept relatively pristine and pure, pushing printing technologies to their limits. And perhaps most notably, the center of the note isn’t printed at all. It’s a clear window, revealing the note’s greatest coup: This bill wasn’t printed on paper, even though the texture feels that way.