IU alumna designs new 2010 penny

After IU alumna Lyndall Bass came up with six or seven new penny designs, one of them was chosen to appear on the back of the 2010 Lincoln One Cent coin.

Her design will be featured on the one-cent tails side.

The design has a shield that was used to represent the union during the U.S. Civil War and the inscription “E Pluribus Unum,” which means “out of many, one.” Across the shield is a scroll that states “one cent.” “The United States of America” is also written at the top of the coin.

“It symbolizes Lincoln’s preservation of the union by his resolve to keep the states together,” Bass said.

Michael White, the spokesperson for the U.S. Mint, said the U.S. Congress authorized a new design for the coin but specified what kind of design it should have. The Secretary of the Treasury approved the final design.

The design was also approved after discussing it with the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, according to the U.S. Mint’s Web site.

The penny has seen a variety of designs. There was a design that was used from 1909 to 1958 and then a different one until 2008, according to the 2010 Lincoln Cent’s Web site. In 2009, there were four different designs on the tails side of the coin that depicted stages of Lincoln’s life.

The 2010 design will be used from now on as the only design.

Below the scroll read Bass’s initials because she did the design, which she describes
as simple.

“I had to really work at making it interesting even though they wanted such minimal,” she said.

Bass said one of the ways she made the design interesting was by curving the letters. The whole process took Bass about two months.

Bass said she submitted two designs during the final round. Prior to the 2010 design contest, she had done 12 assignments for the U.S. Mint, but this is the first time her design will appear on a coin.

“My whole goal was to win one,” she said.

Although Bass said she knew she was in the finals, she wasn’t sure if she would win the design contest.

Bass was part of the U.S. Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program, which gives artists the opportunity to create designs for coins, according to the program’s Web site.

Bass was chosen as a design candidate after being selected by two advisory committees, White said.

Bass received some of her training as an artist at IU. She received her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University in the 1980s.

She now lives in Santa Fe, N.M., and is a classical realist painter.

Bass said the most exciting thing about having her design on the coin is the opportunity to be part of history.

The penny with the design is in circulation in some areas, but it will become nationally circulated later this year.

“It’s a historical point,” she said. “It gives me a lot of exposure. It provides more status for the designer. I will be out there for the rest of my life.”