Wednesday January 22, 2025

Why world's passports look different

Published : 19 Oct 2020, 11:58

Updated : 19 Oct 2020, 12:02

  DF News Desk
DF File Photo.

Pity the poor passport. Essential though it is for travel abroad, and for proving that we are who we are at home, it’s fated to spend its time hidden away for safe keeping, its pages rarely scrutinised by anyone but weary bureaucrats, reported British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Its twin tasks are to distil the identity of both bearer and issuing nation, but it often leaves us cringing at our own photographic likeness and puzzling over the antiquated sense of nationhood that crests and gilt lettering convey. And yet, the passport is an artefact rich in visual and historic narrative – one that gestures to our universal similarities even as it highlights borders, said the BBC report.

Traditionally, passport design has rarely invited curiosity. For instance, Taiwan’s design – a dark green jacket emblazoned with a stylised sun shining from within a plain gold ring – is typical of administrative aesthetics at their most staid, the report added.

Click BBC to read the detail original report.