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World License Plate redesign *Caithness and Manitoula*


1clkgtramg

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Thanks guys. Yea I really hate the US State Flags - I wanted to rebrand, but its a touchy subject that I didn't see polite of a non American bothering with. But just pasting a Seal on a Navy Background is pretty weak.

As for the License Plate font; I got them from FontSpace I believe. And the name was License Plate. There are a few letters that arent perfectly parallel though so you'd have to do some small edits. If you wanted me to make a personalized one, i could do it.

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Thanks to Bucfan56, I finally received a good suggestion for a Nevada alternate plate.

Just so everyone is clear, the background is Silver Chrome and is obviously shiny on different angles.

This is based off of the 1937-1965 plates Nevada used that featured a stainless steel background and painted letters. If you ask me, I'd say it was pretty clever and ahead of it's time even though it was easy to do. This one is generally the same with painted wordmarks and embossed characters in the shade of Blue featured on the main plates.

Hopefully this is the last of Nevada.

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That's a bingo!

Simple, clean, and a PERFECT update to those plates. I want one, NOW.

Thank's for the effort! This is a really fun thread.

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On 11/19/2012 at 7:23 PM, oldschoolvikings said:
She’s still half convinced “Chris Creamer” is a porn site.)
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I'm glad you like it. Hopefully your new plates look like this haha.

A few have mentioned to go to simply "Big Sky" so I may just do that on my final post when I show all the states in alphabetical order.

I don't know how to make the steer's head more prominent. It's on both plates and as a divider, it can't be too large. Wyoming's was only large because it was already like that so I worked around it. The Steer isn't as detailed so I figured it would look bad if magnified.

Magnifying the one used on the current plate won't be much help. It's a horrible vectorization. I'm hoping to make a much cleaner one sometime. I have a small obsession with working on a comprehensive rebranding of the state - license plates, flag, etc.

The current flag is a mess. If you have to put the state's name on the flag in order to differentiate it from Kansas and numerous other states, you are doing it wrong.

My inspiration is Alaska, who have done a great job with a very simple, yet meaningful job with their flag. The colors are taken from that of the Great Alaska Railroad, and in turn, I've become fairly obsessive about using the colors from the "Big Sky blue" passenger train design from the Great Northern Railroad. It's just a beautiful train:

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I made this in about 1 minute lol

Would this be alright? Taking into Consideration that the Steer's Head would be better looking.

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I don't understand putting an advertisement for a the tourism dept. on a license plate that will be primarily seen within the state. PA's current plate has the same issue. A fancy plate by nature is a subtle advertisement for the state - ski slopes, sunshine, etc. Might as well sell the ad space on there and have Publix have their logo on Florida's plates. That's obviously an overreaction, but IMO having a .com on a plate isn't all that dissimilar.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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Maybe not, but my personal preferences aside, that looks much more like something that would actually be used here.

A couple more thoughts now that I can see more of the fine details:

-AWESOME rendering of the Milwaukee Center. Now I sort of hope you ditch the 100 E Wisconsin tower just so it doesn't get lost lol

-Everything else though? So, soooo eighties. That's not your fault though.

-The outline on Wisconsin seems a little superfluous and doesn't really add anything. I'd get rid of it.

-Brown is one of my favorite colors, but I wonder how the white background version would look with the brown replaced with red? I know you may have to change the colors of the barn and sun, but the previous version of this tag used red, and I felt like everything that has been changed since then is a downgrade.

-I'm starting to think I was just so geeked to see brown and light blue (one of my favorite color combos) representing my home state that I hadn't really considered how cheesy and dated the overall design is... again, not your fault. I want to see more of the states, but maybe after you're done, would you consider a complete overhaul of Wisconsin? I'd be more than happy to help you on that.

The outline on Wisconsin was a last minute add on because I thought someone was gonna ask for it, I didn't like it though.

I kinda like the 80's feel to it. I like the colours too, I'm sure it would look strange changing the colours of this design since the Welcome signs look like it; but I could try. I can lighten the colour of 100 E Wisconsin to make it stand out more.

I'm not sure if I will completely redo Wisconsin since I spent so much time on it to make sure the 2 Wisconsinites were happy lol.

Illinois time? It seemed unanimous that the Double Blue look was the favourite, so I basically did that. It may look like I spent very little time on it, but I actually made the font because I couldn't find one that was just right and all the old ones weren't large enough. So I probably spent more time than necessary on it, an Hour at most haha. Anyway, here it is. I was debating whether or not to put the website on the bottom, but the site is illinois.gov so I didn't want to be repetitive.

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Here's some late love for Illinois. Perfect. I miss these plates and would welcome an update. Nice work.

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No love for Illinois?? Oh well.

Here is Iowa, yet another city/farmscape plate - which was done before Wisconsin.

after searching for some good old Iowa plates, I found none. They were all pretty tasteless and just weird; until I stumbled across the College plates. They are pretty basic, but they have a stripe the goes across the top that is equal to the height of the "I" and "a" in Iowa.

As soon as I saw it, I thought it would be great to have a city on the left/tall side and farms and such on the right/short side.

And that's what I did. Very minimalist, but I wanted to get rid of the cluttered plates that Iowa had. The buildings are all silhouettes of actual buildings - most being in Des Moines. And I added Hawkeye State to the bottom; even though it could relate to the University stuff, I think it's somewhat of a statewide idea as well as it being the official nickname.

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Is that the Davenport Bank building in there? (Wells Fargo now.) I've been in that clock tower. These are nice, too. Growing up on the border the "blue plate" drivers were often disparaged, so this would restore that option. "Hawkeye State" would lead to an increase in Iowa State plate purchases due to little brother syndrome.

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I don't understand putting an advertisement for a the tourism dept. on a license plate that will be primarily seen within the state. PA's current plate has the same issue. A fancy plate by nature is a subtle advertisement for the state - ski slopes, sunshine, etc. Might as well sell the ad space on there and have Publix have their logo on Florida's plates. That's obviously an overreaction, but IMO having a .com on a plate isn't all that dissimilar.

You'd be surprised how many Florida plates are around Ontario. If a website is ever necesary on a plate, Florida would be the one. Im pretty sure Florida has the most Canadian tourists than any other state. I often find that the websites are just a space filler and arent meant to be taken too seriously. Also Florida's current? plate has an obnoxious "Myflorida.com" so I figured this was a safer alternative.

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I'm glad you like it. Hopefully your new plates look like this haha.

A few have mentioned to go to simply "Big Sky" so I may just do that on my final post when I show all the states in alphabetical order.

I don't know how to make the steer's head more prominent. It's on both plates and as a divider, it can't be too large. Wyoming's was only large because it was already like that so I worked around it. The Steer isn't as detailed so I figured it would look bad if magnified.

Magnifying the one used on the current plate won't be much help. It's a horrible vectorization. I'm hoping to make a much cleaner one sometime. I have a small obsession with working on a comprehensive rebranding of the state - license plates, flag, etc.

The current flag is a mess. If you have to put the state's name on the flag in order to differentiate it from Kansas and numerous other states, you are doing it wrong.

My inspiration is Alaska, who have done a great job with a very simple, yet meaningful job with their flag. The colors are taken from that of the Great Alaska Railroad, and in turn, I've become fairly obsessive about using the colors from the "Big Sky blue" passenger train design from the Great Northern Railroad. It's just a beautiful train:

Builder.jpg

I made this in about 1 minute lol

Would this be alright? Taking into Consideration that the Steer's Head would be better looking.

14001131695_9742bf269c_b.jpg

It'd be better than we have, though I'd change the black to #363630 "GN Gray."

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Thanks guys. Yea I really hate the US State Flags - I wanted to rebrand, but its a touchy subject that I didn't see polite of a non American bothering with. But just pasting a Seal on a Navy Background is pretty weak.

As for the License Plate font; I got them from FontSpace I believe. And the name was License Plate. There are a few letters that arent perfectly parallel though so you'd have to do some small edits. If you wanted me to make a personalized one, i could do it.

License plate fonts are tough, I mock up mine using one called Driver Gothic Pro. But the reality is that the 3M default font used on Montana's plates is a travesty. Look at the difference here: http://www.plateshack.com/montana/montana.html The plates up until the 2004 Flat are WAY more legible from a distance.

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Ok, time for another intermission. Here are some more plates for my imaginary country - that still has no name.


First up is Kawartha.

Hopefully the divider is obvious enough that I don't have to explain the meaning :)

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Next is North Kawartha

My country will be one that likes to flirt with the boundaries of Politically Correct terms and innuendos and such. Similar to New Hampshire's slogan, this one is pretty recognizable. Much like Nevada, North Kawartha is home to Casinos and .... you can figure it out (don't know the limits of material able to post on the forums) Not only that, it boarders the Laurel Mountains and Central Lakes as well as bordering the Indian Ocean to the North West, so there is plenty of climate change and wildlife in the area despite it's area size being relatively small.

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Ok one more fantasy plate and then I will post Minnesota.

Now before someone starts saying it's stereotypical or some nonsense, this was my friends idea and yes he is homosexual.

Mitchoia is the first state/country in the world to legalize Same-Sex Marriage in 1980 with Civil Unions being allowed since 1973 - just ahead of Netherlands. It is a relatively small state as it was separated from East York in 1930 due to difference in opinions. Mitchoia quickly gained a reputation of equality in the Country and thus it's nickname is "The Fair State". The pink plate was issued since the beginning (no relation to anything homosexuals, not saying they like pink... hell, I like pink lol) and it represents the Cherry Blossom Trees that grow in the region - similar to Japan. The LGBTQ Rainbow Flag was added in 1995 after a vote was held, 72% were for the addition of the Rainbow Divider to the License Plate. Those who didn't want the Flag included, could have one without it free-of-charge. The state has 43% of individuals who would consider themselves LGBTQ - the largest of any State or Province in the World.

Anyway, enough back-story, hopefully it reduces the chance of an argument.

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Thanks :)
Upon making the North Kawartha, I realized it looked a lot like Delaware too, but since my country is on the other end of the world, it shouldn't matter :P




Minnesota time.

I was really against another Blue plate so I made somewhat of a compromise. I introduced a cream colour to give it some life and removed the website title thingy. The water is a lighter colour to make up for the gradient-esque found on the current ones. The Trees are back to their normal spot and the canoers are moved to the bottom right lol

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And just for a giggle in the spirit of the Playoffs, I made one with the Minnesota Wild colours. I originally wanted to do this even though I was trying to stay away from college/sports teams so here is what it would have looked like had I broken my rule.

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Well nothing too fancy here, just a cleaned up version of the current Kentucky plates. My favourite plate from KY is the worst one, the one with the smiling sun haha, I even bought one :P
I kept the Racehorse logo but moved it to the bottom. The Blue band that was at the bottom with the county names was moved to the top somewhat as a tribute to the 1989-1997 plates.
There are sublimated horses and fence on the blue strip, another nod to the 89-97 plates.

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What about a bluegrass-colored alt plate for Kentucky?

So a green plate? Pretty sure Bluegrass is a Region in the northeast part of Kentucky. Michigan and Indiana are Blue based and Tennessee is Dark Green based so having another Blue based plate in that area would cause problems.

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10 a sea time

I kept the Green look but made it a solid rather than rolling hills. On the Tennessee website they had this cool state shape with the 3 regions split with little images on them. I thought it was pretty cool and the colours were very similar so I used it at the bottom. The Grand Divisions Star is the divider since it makes no sense that it isn't right now - I believe 1992-1995 was the only one to include it. It a shame really, it's the most iconic symbol of Tennessee and they chose this marshy green and busy plate that just bothers me for some reason. That's probably why this one is so different.

I'm starting to get worried though, I seem to have a lot of solid coloured plates. Does it look lazy? Because I am putting quite a bit of effort in each but most times I opt for the simple, legible look. Maybe I'm playing it too safe. Let me know your thoughts on this.

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