U.S. CURRENCY New design to bring color to bills

Color tints will be added to neutral areas of U.S. bills.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The last time Andrew Jackson got a makeover, he ended up with a big head, slightly off-center. This time, he will get a little color.
The most noticeable features of the last redesign of U.S. currency -- the oversized, off-center portraits -- produced all kinds of derisive nicknames: funny money, Monopoly money, cartoon money.
Color is coming, and government money makers are hoping for a warmer reception for the changes. The new $20 bill, with its public unveiling set for the spring, is supposed to be in circulation as early as next fall.
Jackson is first in line for a makeover. After the new $20 makes its debut, the new $50 (Ulysses S. Grant) and the $100 (Benjamin Franklin) will follow within 18 months.
To give the new bills color, the bureau has had to buy five printing presses, to operate in Washington and at a bureau facility in Fort Worth, Texas. To run the new presses, Ferguson said, some existing workers are getting trained, and a few new people have been hired. The Fort Worth plant is being expanded, providing room for the new presses and space for public tours, he said.
Adding some color
Green and black ink is now used on neutral-colored paper. With the makeover, color tints will be added in the neutral areas of the note. Ferguson would not say which colors will be used, but said they will vary by denomination.
Money makers want the new notes to have an American look and feel, and not be confused with, for instance, the colorful euro, the paper currency of the European Union.
Recent changes in paper money design have been driven by the desire to thwart high-tech counterfeiters. Over the years, counterfeiters have graduated from offset printing to increasingly sophisticated color copiers, computer scanners, color ink jet printers and publishing-grade software.
Some anti-counterfeiting features included in the last redesign will be retained, the bureau said. They include watermarks that are visible when held up to a light; embedded security threads that glow a color when exposed to an ultraviolet light; and minute images, visible with a magnifying glass.
The new notes may sport more distinct color-shifting ink. In the last redesign, color-shifting ink that looks green when viewed straight on but black at an angle was used in a spot on some notes.