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How Did the Commission Come up With These Designs
All 25 Current State Quarter designs
120 Other
Great Minnesota Coin Designs Submitted by
Artists
How The Designs Came To Be
WATER THEME NUMBER ONE
Throughout the coin design process the commission requested input from the citizenry of the state by offering everyone the opportunity to voice their opinions via a state sponsored survey. I have included the results of this survey for your consideration.
As you can see the design concept descriptons that the commission came up with represent the survey results that were obtained through the survey. The actual designs themselves were developed by the artists at the US Mint. As a commissioner I was very careful not to let my own personal opinions direct the narratives, but only attempted to convey the results of the survey. I cannot speak for all other commission members but feel this was the general feel of the commission. The designs received from the mint were a first of their kind.
After considering the above survey results and deciding on the themes of our coinage, the commission was faced with the challenge of the coin design narrative. We reviewed over 1000 narratives and designs that were submitted to the commission and then attempted to incorporate images together in five designs that would be attractive and convey the survey results. We narrowed our list of design themes down to ten and then voted on the best. Each member could vote on only two design themes and here were the results.
Minnesota was the very first state unable to submit actual pictorial designs to the US Mint. As a commission we were only able to submit a narrative description of the concept we wanted. The US Mint then took our description and rendered a design. We were not able to dictate the actual design through instructions which made it very interesting and exciting to see what the Mint would come up with based on our narratives. We were not able to send any images and relied only on the mints designers to do their best job. I do not speak for all the commission members when I say I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the designs. Although I have seen other designs submitted to this site by artists that may appear to be superior, I am very satisfied that the designs provide a wide range of themes and design schemes.
Our focus as a commission was to provide designs that were consistent with the input we received from individuals that cast their opinions on the governors web site last year and on the input and votes received from this site throughout 2002 and 2003. On the official Governors state quarter web site votes were taken on many themes, images, and slogans. Minnesotans voted and voiced their opinion on what they wanted to see on their coins. Commission members took a look at that information and tried our best to incorporate into the designs, those images and themes that were most important to the everyone who took the time to make their opinions known.
We as a commission and nearly all Minnesotans felt that water was the most important theme for our coin. Since it represents what we feel is unique to Minnesota's past and will be a most important part of our future.