It does seem odd that Natwest and RBS have gone for two completely different designs.
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Just waiting for Monzo to go for something like this now! Hot Coral card could do with a refresh I think…
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The only thing is that I wouldn’t really know what to do with it. I’m not the greatest fan of the colour but it seems to well known to change.
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I wouldn’t propose changing the colour, just the design!
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There already is a version of the hot coral design with numbers printed on the back and no embossing - the front is just 100% coral!
Unless I’m confusing something here, that design is now standard in the US?
All they need to do is bring it over here, which should be easy.
Also, on the RBS beach hut, I’ve posted some thoughts around that before but I suspect it’s quite likely deliberately putting “inoffensive stock photo” in the forefront and virtually hiding the RBS brand in an effort to “detoxify”. People think “financial crisis” when they hear RBS, even now, so they usually make great effort to refer to it as “the royal bank” or “Royal Bank of Scotland”, with the logo alone usually used as the shortened presentation.
Outside of Scotland, the RBS name is almost always downplayed completely, in favour of NatWest.
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Good points about RBS. The front of the card doesn’t even say the name of the bank on it, only the symbol.
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I’m not sure what you would do though. The obvious thing would be to make it portrait, but I’m not the greatest fan of most of them.
Is that NatWest debit card the upcoming Visa card? It’s absolutely disgusting.
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There’s been some cool Monzo concepts in this thread and I think the American version is a bit different?
Obviously there would be fan boys/card collectors that would want the new card but I do wonder if that even comes into it? Can’t be that many that would lie to get a new card.
It’s something I’ll never know the answer to but I’d love to see the data on “lost cards” from other banks when they’ve changed the design.
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Namely these… from Dribble
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The American version, currently, is just like the U.K. version except it doesn’t use embossed numbers - it uses printed numbers which are on the rear of the card.
The front of the card only includes the Chip, contactless logo, Mastercard logo, and the word debit alongside the distinctive Monzo wordmark.
It think that would be a decent refresh of the design, although the concept above looks great too and might be better in the longer term as most banks seem to be going portrait now.
Edit: Found it!
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Stick the debit bit on the back and it brings the design in line with plus and premium cards. Matches Apple Pay better then as well.
The coral colour of the physical cards is a bit like marmite. But in Apple Pay, it’s really clean and looks great.
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56% of the votes are clearly by people from the NatWest Debit Card Design Team
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If you did a “blind test”, selecting people who were not NatWest customers and asking them which of the two cards they preferred (with no messaging attached), I’m sure you would get an overwhelming preference for the “old design” and comments along the lines of “more professional”.
Telling people what’s new and what’s old always skews results, as people feel they “should” like what’s new more.
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I don’t understand how they could approved that design. The colours are awful and the three lines on it are just messy. Probably the worst main card of a bank I’ve ever seen.
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Yes, I really have no idea why they decided to make the RBS card portrait but not the NatWest one too?
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@Peter_G
Can we make a poll for the best card design. I’m curious
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That would be a monstrous poll! And you’re bound to miss someone’s favourite card and have to start over!
Thinking back to the iOS beta wiki and just how many apps are out there! Factor in most of those come with a debit card of some kind, and many will have multiple designs for varying accounts and tiers! And then you’ve got Revolut who are bound to account for at least half* of the poll options!
I don’t envy @Peter_G should he be willing to take on the challenge!
*exaggerating for dramatic flair
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Yes, it was a long list, but we did a pretty good job in the end (even if I do say so myself)!
I do think the results of a poll might be interesting.
For what it’s worth, though, Child & Co and Curve Blue are two of my favourite cards. Although that may just be because I think the blue colour looks good.
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