▼ The book is an icon. The book is a sign, having symbolized the divine word, knowledge, wealth and power. Today, the book has become a mutable medium, capable of functions commonly considered outside of the book's scope through digital technology. In particular, personal devices that perform basic functions, such as playing music or taking photographs, alongside more advanced operations such as geolocation and speech interpretation and recognition, have redefined long established industries. They have rapidly eliminated technological barriers while simultaneously shifting their function to include more of our daily experiences. Traditional book and ebook advocates tended to focus on this condition as binary, with one format being preferable to another. While both groups have valid arguments, at the root of their disagreement lies the digitization of long established icons and a concern for their significance as the concept of the book evolves to include electronic experiences. This thesis will argue that the book has been able to maintain its iconic status despite translation into varied electronic formats. Formerly, the book has been defined objectively; now the book is defined subjectively, considering the electronic evolution of book experiences. Advisors/Committee Members: Blankenship, Sherry.

▼ My thesis research is focused on money and redesign of the Serbian national currency - dinar. The current design of banknotes and coins is bellow the artistic level of the Serbian and Yugoslav dinars used in the 19th and 20th century. In my opinion, these are the problems: lack of the expressed national pride through symbols; inconsistent representation of historic figures; low artistic level of drawings of buildings and nature; poor understanding of Serbian rich history and its connection with the present time. I consider banknotes and coins ambassadors of every country because on them one can read about a country's culture, history, and nature; that is why I designed an attractive and modern currency. I am working in collaboration with the National Bank of Serbia in Belgrade, and my redesigns will be considered by the Governor and Treasury for possible implementation. Since I wanted to better understand the previous designs of money in Serbia, I wrote a historic overview in collaboration with Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, National Museum, Belgrade and ten other state museums from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which not only provided the needed and rare material for my thesis but their curators are also special advisors on my project. As a measure of protection for my currency, I designed a completely new, sans-serif font entitled Serbiana. Serbian is the only language in the world that uses both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet: I included both alphabets for this project. I believe that this unique, brand new font, will contribute to the originality and beauty of my redesigned banknotes and coins. Advisors/Committee Members: Adleta, Don.