It's time to give American bills a makeover.

Spare a moment to consider the tribulations of the U.S. dollar. It’s not just losing ground against other major currencies—its 60-year-run as the world’s reserve currency is threatening to come to a close. In a world where brand has become the ultimate substance—where a stained name like Philip-Morris (PM) can be reborn as shiny new Altria (MO)—maybe a design makeover is just what the dollar needs. Or so believes Richard Smith, a New York designer who is leading a grassroots campaign to redesign the U.S. dollar.

In May, Smith launched a blog and posted his suggestions for a new dollar—an abstract, boldly colored set of bills with a psychedelic flair. Other design blogs began to notice, particularly those in Europe where currencies have been upgraded recently (even, in Switzerland, involving a design competition run by the central bank). Soon fellow designers were sharing their submissions. “It started in a tongue-in-cheek way,” Smith says. “But people started taking it very seriously.” To date, he’s received some 50 designs.

Many designers built their dollar brands around themes, as Michelle Haft did in embodying different aspects of the economy of seven different bills, including the work force, industrial production, the Federal Reserve, and personal income. While cynics might scoff at a shopping cart on a U.S. dollar, the bright colors present an optimistic view of the economy that is rare these days.

Countries from Japan to Denmark include their great artists on the currencies. As designer Dean Potter explained when he created these bills featuring artists and a geographic image associated with them, “We’re a culture, not just a government.”

America’s ability to churn out enduring cultural icons makes a popular theme for new dollar designs. Kristofer Layon, a professor at the University of Minnesota, asked his students to design a new dollar. Many of them incorporated classically American cultural figures, such as Barbie, Superman, or, in this bill designed by Christina DiMeo, Billie Holiday.

Oprah and Michael Jackson are some of the American cultural luminaries who appeared more frequently on dollar-redesigns. But for returning a bit of charisma and breezy confidence to the beleaguered dollar, it’s hard to find a better image than Jack Nicholson (although the inclusion of the Overlook Hotel, from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, may not be so inspiring). Design by David Muller.

A healthy portion of the proposed dollar redesigns featured American archetypes coupled with a contemporary design. Thomas Garcia Moreno included the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and the seals of the Federal Reserve and Treasury that exist on dollars today.

Submissions that Smith received also included a few cynical views of the dollar, the economy, and the future. In addition to a few wags who included corporate logs prominently on new dollars, Lou Rera offered up a 10-cent bill that had echoes of hard times in the past.

Smith hosted a design contest and let readers vote on the best. The winner came from Kyle Thompson, a freelance designer in Venice, Calif. Thompson’s currency included philosophers and political thinkers—Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Smith, etc.—who influenced the founding fathers. Like many dollar redesigns, it also included a more hopeful tone. As Thompson explained, “A new system of U.S. currency should be hopeful and positive, while simultaneously reminding citizens and the world at large of the ideals on which the United States was originally founded.”

For 70 years after the U.S. Mint began producing copper cents in 1793, the United States relied on coin currencies. The Civil War prompted many to hoard coins for their intrinsic value as metallic objects. Enter Salmon P. Chase, President Lincoln’s political rival and Treasury secretary. Chase established a national finance system and designed the first U.S. paper dollars. Chase’s portrait remains on the $10,000 bill. The Treasury secretary still has authority over the dollar’s design, although no one has yet proposed including a portrait of Timothy Geithner.