House Note 'STELLA' - Born from Stardust with KINEGRAM ZERO.ZERO®
KURZ is proud to share a recent collaboration with Bundesdruckerei on its ‘STELLA’ house note, which builds on the success of IGNIS - the world's first black banknote - to further push the boundaries of conventional banknote design. The note was awarded the prestigious IACA Excellence in Currency Award 2026 for ‘Best New House Note’ at the Banknote Conference in May 2026.
‘STELLA’ has been designed in the format of a credit or ID card, reducing ink consumption and the overall production footprint. Rather than simply scaling down the features of a regular banknote, they have been intelligently redistributed to improve efficiency while maintaining a distinctive aesthetic. The design follows an edge-to-edge architecture in which the perimeter becomes the primary functional zone.
A KINEGRAM ZERO.ZERO® patch featuring a KINEGRAM® VIVID effect complements this architecture. It is divided into two elements positioned at opposite edges of the note, each containing part of the diffractive structure. The design depicts the curvature of space caused by a black hole at the center of most galaxies. In the left-hand segment, the denomination (3K) emerges in striking diffractive lettering made possible by KINEGRAM® technology.
We are proud to have contributed to this project and to have helped bring ‘STELLA’ to life together with our partners, whose technologies and expertise also played an important role in shaping the final design.