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Narrator: It takes one person to spend money, but many people to create money. These are
the people from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, also known as the Money Factory.
Meet Brian. He's one of the Banknote Designers at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Brian: My job is to design United States currency.
One thing about being a bank note designer is it's 98% thinking. You have to think about
what you're going to do and think about what's going to work when it gets on the press. The
easiest approach when designing, it's a big puzzle. You take different pieces and aspects
of America or different things and piece it together almost like one united, almost like
a story.
Different icons, such as the eagle, because I know we hand draw those and to end up seeing
those on a note is pretty awesome, because you know, it's like your artwork is all over
the world.
Narrator: Once the design team has finalized the design, steel plates need to be created
for the printing press.
This is Dixie. She's a script engraver and puts the finalized design into steel.
Dixie: If you notice your money it has lettering on it and it also has numerals on it to denote
the denomination. While we have designers that pick up and make designs, my job is to
interpret their designs in steel.
Sitting and cutting script, because it's very rhythmical. You're just looking in your die
through your glass and twirling the die around and cutting it.
There's not too many artists that could say that they've had their work replicated billions
of times.
Narrator: Once the plates are created, the money starts being printed. Blank currency
sheets are brought in. First, the background images are printed. Then presses print the
backs of the notes and then the faces of the notes. The final step is the printing of the
serial number and Treasury and Federal Reserve seals.
Once the bills are printed, they're cut and packaged into "bricks." The completed loads
are transferred and securely stored in the Federal Reserve Vault.
For more information on the latest bill design, visit NewMoney.gov.
For more about the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, including taking a tour, visit MoneyFactory.gov.
For more information on money and more, visit Kids.gov.