The female coin designers at Swissmint
Jakob Stampfer, Antoine Bovy, Fritz Landry—to name just the most famous Swiss medalists—would all be delighted by the creative designs that have enriched Swiss numismatics in recent years. They probably never would have imagined that today, more and more often, women are the ones behind these designs. Coin design has clearly become more feminine. Whether you’re talking to the young female artists in the design department at the Austrian Mint, the students at the Italian Scuola dell’Arte della Medaglia, or Fabia Lyrenmann and Anouk Röthlisberger: when it comes to coin design, no one can ignore the creative female coin designers today!
Anouk Röthlisberger
When Anouk Röthlisberger was born in 1993, Swissmint was still content to issue just one (!) commemorative coin a year, featuring—how incredibly creative!—a man’s head. That has changed dramatically. In 2024, the year Ms. Röthlisberger joined the Swissmint team, the commemorative coin division produced six coins, including a bimetallic coin, three 20-franc collector’s coins in silver, and one 25-franc and one 50-franc gold coin—all of which, incidentally, were designed by men.
Ms. Röthlisberger grew up in the Bernese Oberland and studied at the School of Design Bern & Biel. She speaks perfect German and French, so she is at home in two of the country’s linguistic cultures. After ten years working for various creative agencies in Zurich and Bern, Anouk Röthlisberger is delighted with her diverse role at Swissmint.
Fabia Lyrenmann
Fabia Lyrenmann, born and raised in Bern in 1997, also attended the School of Design Bern & Biel before earning her bachelor’s degree in graphic design at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. She then worked first in the graphic design department of a Zurich museum and then at a coffee roastery in Bern before becoming a coin designer at Swissmint in June 2025. To balance her work, she still takes on freelance graphic design projects on the side.
Why specialize in coin design?
When I ask Fabia Lyrenmann this question, she can’t help but smile: “Why not? It’s a challenge, a niche field; I’m learning a lot, and every project teaches me something new—whether it’s in the design process itself, the technical implementation, or the final coin product. I get to learn so much, and learning is fun and helps me grow in my career. I find it exciting to pursue a career that I didn’t even know existed a while ago. And, let’s face it, it’s just cool to say that you design coins—right? Creating something that lasts, that is given as a gift, or that people will still be looking at in their homes years from now, is an honor to me. I enjoy being able to convey the broad scope of a theme on the small surface of a coin.”
Anouk Röthlisberger feels the same way: “I’m in a profession I’d never even heard of before 2024. When I happened to see the job posting, it piqued my interest. I’d never heard of anything like it. Who can claim to design money? I love creating something that people use (almost) every day. I love the challenge of telling a story that touches people’s hearts within a diameter of 2–3 centimeters.”
Where does a coin designer draw her inspiration from?
Anouk Röthlisberger loves to travel. She says: “I draw inspiration from the different shapes and colors at my travel destinations. I’m particularly fascinated by the tiny details that can also be depicted on a coin. I also love nature. I enjoy discovering new things in what I think I already know.”
Fabia Lyrenmann explains: “I love gathering all the aspects of a theme to arrive at ever-new trains of thought and visual compositions. But that takes time. I have to carry a theme with me so I can keep thinking about it. In doing so, I constantly ask myself: What would I personally like? What’s best for our target audience? How can I ensure that the viewer takes something away from my design—and, ideally, even learns something?”
Swiss Commemorative Coins by Anouk Röthlisberger
Anouk Röthlisberger has created the following commemorative coins to date: CERN, 150th Anniversary of the Federal Supreme Court, Jean Tinguely, Pioneers of Swiss Aviation—for which she won third prize at the WMF Award—Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano, and Lake Geneva. Her current coin—Four Seasons / Summer—will be released on June 11, 2026; the release of the next coin, 125 Years of the Aero-Club, is planned for fall 2026.
Swiss Commemorative Coins by Fabia Lyrenmann
Fabia Lyrenmann designed the medal sold at the 2026 World Money Fair, the bimetallic coin “Animal of the Year: The Hedgehog,” and the commemorative coin “European Space Agency (ESA),” which will be released on June 11, 2026.
We look forward to seeing everything these two talented coin designers will create in the coming years.
Text by Ursula Kampmann
