Statesman

Original Design: Corin Anderson and Ian Tullis
Layout: Doug Zongker

Answer

PHI

Solution

The size of the circles and their filled-in "quarters" suggest the State Quarters. Although the pictures on the reverses of the quarters differ dramatically, all of the quarters have the year of statehood along the top and the year of issue along the bottom, in the same place. Each of the highlighted quadrants contains exactly two digits of one of these numbers:

#  Qu. State

12 UR  New Mexico
05 LR  Oregon
20 LL  California
20 LL  Colorado
05 LR  Minnesota
18 UL  Mississippi
16 UR  Indiana
16 UR  Indiana

12 UR  Louisiana
21 UR  Missouri
19 UL  Alaska
12 UR  Arizona
01 LR  Rhode Island
19 LL  Delaware
20 LL  West Virginia
19 UL  Arizona

03 UR  Ohio
08 LR  Arizona
05 LR  Minnesota
04 LR  Florida
21 UR  Missouri
12 UR  Louisiana
05 LR  Kansas
04 LR  Michigan

18 UL  Kansas
05 LR  California
12 UR  Arizona
05 LR  Oregon
01 LR  Vermont
19 LL  Pennsylvania
05 LR  Minnesota
19 UR  Alabama

20 LL  Alaska
01 LR  North Carolina
20 LL  Mississippi
05 LR  Kansas
01 LR  Kentucky
02 LR  Louisiana
02 LR  Ohio
18 UL  Wisconsin

Turn these digits into letters to get:

LETTER P PLUS LAST SCHEDULED RELEASE STATE ABBR

Since Hawaii's quarter will be the last to be released, this gives P + HI = PHI.

Other Notes

The message begins with "LETTER P" rather than just P to prevent people from getting PPLU and quitting.