I’ve been going against the grain by insisting that we consider ₲ for the currency symbol. And, I’m aware that the community has already decided on ツ for the currency symbol. However, the case I have for ₲ is simply because it looks like like a symbol for money. We have $ and ฿ which have already distilled themselves in the minds of many as symbols for currency. I argue that emulating or having the association with existing archetypes is important for adoption. This is the main reason why I advocate for ₲ as the currency symbol.
The other reason for ₲ is that it incorporates the letter G which is obvious to stand for the word Grin. I understand that ツ is to stand for the meaning behind the english word grin (a smile), however I’d argue that the name for Grin was chosen because of harry potter lore (Gringotts Bank) and the fact that the there is an english word which means to smile is only an association. I don’t mind this association necessarily, however I would prefer if ツ looked more like a currency symbol while doing so.
An alternative to ₲ that actually settles both idiomatic ideas (the letter G and the smile) and would look like an existing currency symbol would be something like this:
(=
If you notice this kind of resembles the symbol for euros, €. However, it would need more evolution to resemble a G. If only there was an inverted ツ this would more closely resemble the ideal symbol.
Let us assume we have the ability to one day have included in the unicode table of currency symbols, our own ideal symbol. This is what I imagine that symbol could look like (bare in mind this is a rough idea and I’m not a font designer by any means):
Looks somewhat like a G and a smiley face while also similar looking to the euro symbol, €. So it is meant to include the three points I made above: 1) Looks familiar as a currency symbol. 2) Resembles a G for the name Grin. 3) Resembles a smiley or grin.
This symbol could be tweaked to look more official with serifs and cleaner lines (as I said I’m not a font designer and this is a quick design I put together). And still it remains the case that we don’t have the means to include this into the unicode standard quite yet.
So I purpose in the meantime we could use (= as the currency symbol as it is the closest we have to such a design and could stand in as a temporary solution until we have such a symbol officially included in a standard like Unicode. Also, I’ll add that it is easy to type on most latin based keyboards (qwerty, dvorak, and mobile virtual keyboards)
