World License Plate redesign *Caithness and Manitoula*

[1clkgtramg]

Missouri looks way too plain, IMO. Looks more like a service plate, or one you'd find on a trailer or wagon. Not a vehicle plate.

Obviously the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is pretty iconic, along the lines of Mt. Rushmore (SD) or the Statue of Liberty (NY/NJ). That being said, I can understand your desire to not get too complicated with design.

Are you from Missouri? (that's not being condescending, its a genuine question lol) I didn't want to use anything Iconic in the state because of St.Louis and Kansas City being 2 very large and very different cities. I was also waiting to use a Dark Red base plate and since Missouri used an even more bland version for nearly 20 years, it only made sense to make a modern version.

I'm also trying to avoid even making 2 plates per state. It's just too much work and not many really care for them.

Also Missouri's current ones are very cluttered. There is a State outline, in the middle but overflows on the Characters, the stickers go in the middle, there is a random state bird on the bottom and then the month in the top left. It's just all over the place, that's why I went with the opposite. Simplicity.

I like it a lot! Looks very classy!

Thank you sir!

The Wisconsin plate with the white background is awesome. So is the retro Illinois plate. Great work! The Mississippi one is a little too fancy for such a dumpy state. They should come pre-rusted.

With 3-0, I think the White base Wisconsin plates will be the Primary plates with the brown being an Alternate.

I hope the Miss concept is saying the plate is good regardless of your opinion on the state haha. And I believe Ohio was to only state allowed to have a pre-rusted plate!!

And in case anyone missed the last page

Indiana time!

I'm a little nervous with this one since there is a lot going on. Indiana is my favourite state so I wanted to make it as cool as I could without going overboard.

There are basically 4 era's that I am touching on here.

The solid rectangles in the top left and bottom right corners are from the 60's and 80's. I wasn't sure the meaning behind it, it could be random, or it could be something to do with checkered flags? I don't know what it was but its unique and kinda interesting. I filled those little rectangles in with checkers because of the racing heritage within the state - ok well more specifically Speedway, Indiana, but you get the point.

This also takes influence from the 1979 plate that had the checkers above to the left of the State Name, but I didnt put an Indy Car in the background.

The Crossroads slogan returns from the 1999-2003 plates as well as the Gold and Navy colour scheme.

I took the current plates, removed the barcode and the always crooked county names and made it represent the flag.

In the background are more sublimated checkers - as if the gold checkers weren't enough.

Overall the plate looks clean from a distance but up close it really shows some unique qualities. I hope the Hoosiers are ok with it.

[Nyk33]

I'm gonna have to agree with you BBTV. There is nothing too fancy or in your face about any of the NJ plates and they do stand out when driving in NYC. The only thing I would prefer is if the gradient was Yellow, White, Yellow to show some consistency within it, but it's just a minor thing. I'm going to test is with just a plain lemon yellow background, see how that looks.

The NY and NJ plates aren't really that different in my eyes to the point that NJ plates would stand out in NYC compared to other plates you might see in the area besides NY & NJ.

If it wasn't for the blue on top of the NY plate it would be hard to tell them apart from a distance.

[BBTV]

The NY plate looks more orange in real life than in that picture. They're pretty different.

As much as I like the NJ plate, I hate how many of them I see in Phila. Worst. Drivers. Ever.

[1clkgtramg]

NJ is Lemon Yellow at the top faded to White at the bottom with Black dyes. New York is Gold all through with Navy dye and Navy band at the top. Also NY has the White/Blue plates as well. Unless your eyes are bad, they are quite different in every aspect.

NY uses different character series; AAA 1111. Where NJ uses 111 AAA. This is done on purpose as those who need to actually see the plates (police) they can tell right away what state it is.

[1clkgtramg]

Now for New Hampshire. I'm starting to break the order of states and just doing which ever one I feel like doing.

I saw the official New Hampshire wordmark about a month ago, and right away, I loved it. I knew I wanted to use it but that meant the plate had to be white. (Hold your breath because there are a lot of White plates coming up unfortunately).
Another thing I loved about the Granite State was their slogan. It's so no nonsense and everytime I show a Canadian, they think it's a joke ( that wouldnt last 2 minutes on a plate over here, sadly).
The idea for the divider came to me right away too. Their most recent plates featured Old Man of the Mountain that somewhat acted as a divider. I wanted to use it, but the thing is, the monument/rock broke apart in 2003. So I figured, why not make Old Man of the mountain in the green and make the part that remains in teal and make it the state shape. This also compliments the wordmark/logo at the bottom.

So while this plate is fairly plain, I hope I do it justice for the Granite Staters.

[hailstateunis]

I like the wordmark, but the old man on the Mountian just looks like Vermont.

[TheGiantsFan]

I like the simplicity of New Hampshire. Although maybe adding some stripes (maybe teal on top and light green on the bottom) could make the plate a bit less plain.

[1clkgtramg]

I like the wordmark, but the old man on the Mountian just looks like Vermont.

hmm, well, the inside will obviously look similar but I don't really see it other than the fact that it splits with New Hampshire. Either way, removing NH from it would result in it still looking like Vermont from your view so I'm not sure what to do about that. I need to include the Old Man somewhere or its just a bland plate. Here's a picture to compare.

I like the simplicity of New Hampshire. Although maybe adding some stripes (maybe teal on top and light green on the bottom) could make the plate a bit less plain.

I will try to see how that works. Gotta remember that their neighbour Vermont is a Green/White split look and I don't want them looking like similar "templates" so to speak. I'll experiment with some thin lines, preferably on the top as the mountains at the bottom may cause some issues

[Cosmic]

I'm gonna have to agree with you BBTV. There is nothing too fancy or in your face about any of the NJ plates and they do stand out when driving in NYC. The only thing I would prefer is if the gradient was Yellow, White, Yellow to show some consistency within it, but it's just a minor thing. I'm going to test is with just a plain lemon yellow background, see how that looks.

The NY and NJ plates aren't really that different in my eyes to the point that NJ plates would stand out in NYC compared to other plates you might see in the area besides NY & NJ.

If it wasn't for the blue on top of the NY plate it would be hard to tell them apart from a distance.

The NY plate looks more orange in real life than in that picture. They're pretty different.

As much as I like the NJ plate, I hate how many of them I see in Phila. Worst. Drivers. Ever.

The NY plate colors look more like this in real life:

It's an inoffensive plate, other than that it offends me for replacing the last two awesome plates.

[1clkgtramg]

I have had this one done for a while, forgot to post it.

So here is Washington DC. I got rid of that obnoxious "Taxation without Representation" or whatever in favour of a simple Flag design. Nothing really fancy here, just your average plate I guess.

[1clkgtramg]

Probably going to get some hate on this one, but oh well.

I really wanted one plate for Michigan since I think every new plate is horrible and the only good historic one is the Bicentennial 1976. The 1984-2007 Blue plates were my favourite. Maybe it was because growing up, all the plates I saw - Ontario, Ohio, Quebec, New York - were white based with blue dyes. Every freaking one. Who designed that? Who thought that was a good idea? It's bad enough that Ontario and Quebec are identical with the exception of the crown divider on Ontario's plate. Anyway, it will never make sense why Michigan chose to change to a white based plate with, yes, blue freaking dyes. As if there weren't enough around here. Have fun in Detroit trying to figure out what is from Windsor and what's not.

And don't even get me started on that stupid font. What is that? Collegiate font? I think Florida did this too. I hate it...

Anyway, I took a similar font that mimics the current Michigan wordmark and just pasted it on a blue plate. There is absolutely nothing special here, but that is why it is my third? favourite American Plate.

Bring on the "ehhh you aren't being creative" comments haha

[BBTV]

I have had this one done for a while, forgot to post it.

So here is Washington DC. I got rid of that obnoxious "Taxation without Representation" or whatever in favour of a simple Flag design. Nothing really fancy here, just your average plate I guess.

I think the thick red horizontal bars actually reduce the instant-legibility of the plate, since your eye doesn't really know what to focus on.

Not sure what other color would work though while still staying within the district's simple scheme.

[illwauk]

Mississippi and Indiana are probably my favorite tags so far.

I rather like the fact that Michigan's current tags feature the Mackinac Bridge... it makes perfect sense given the unique geography of their state to feature what connects the two peninsulas.

I think BBTV has a point about the DC tags... maybe try black or navy blue dies?

[TheGiantsFan]

I like DC for its simplicity. However, I do agree that the dies should be in blue instead of red.

As for Michigan, I like the path you took in throwing back to a former design. Should be pretty recognizable in your fictional USA.

[1clkgtramg]

wow you guys are really having trouble with the horizontal lines bleeding with the letters? lol I don't see it but it's 3-1 so I will have to fix that. I have 2 ideas in mind, one being thinning out the stripes and keeping Red dyes or just go to a black dye. I'll see what I can do.

as for Michigan, I don't mind the Mackinac one but there were 2 plates I wanted to change before I started this thread - Oklahoma and Michigan - and that's what made me want to do this. Even if I was to make another Mackinac version, it would most likely look the same as it does now which would just be a waste of time. So if you really want it, then just imagine it exists

[1clkgtramg]

Ok here is the DC fix up. I really hate the black letters. It kinda defeats the purpose of it looking like the state.... ehm... City Flag.

First is the Original. Second is Original Stripes with Black dyes. Third is Thinner Stripes on Original dyes. I prefer the third.

[The_Admiral]

What if you just had two thinner red lines at the top? Any thought to having "District of Columbia" instead of "Washington, DC"? I'll never forget you, BallWonk, you nor your crusade against misuse of "Washington"!

[TheGiantsFan]

I really like the third DC plate with the thinner lines. Maybe using that plate with black dies could work. Also, I think it would be better to use "District of Columbia" instead of "Washington D.C." because the newer DC plates use the latter.

[1clkgtramg]

The problem with naming it "District of Columbia" is that it is Politically Incorrect. DC has never existed since the 1970s? It is officially called Washington,DC - I had to do a crap ton of research on this because I too thought it was District of Columbia. I checked everywhere and it says it's formerly DC or is just missing the whole point and tells you what Columbia and Washington mean - as if it wasn't obvious. And then you get the "Is Washington, DC in Washington state?"......
Doesn't quite make sense as the "DC" in "Washington, DC" is clearly District of Columbia.

Edit: Now that I went to 15q.net, it appears he updated it since I made the plate and they now say "District of Columbia". I really don't know how to go about this, but it appears to want to use the wrong name so.... I wanted to use the full District of Columbia name anyway so I guess I will be using it.

As a side note, it amazes me that they still make the plates wrong by having the letters go over the bolts. Strict of Columb sounds like a wonderful state!


As for the Michigan thing, again, the point is to rid of all the white based plates in the area. I do not mind that Pure Michigan plate, but I'd prefer if just said Michigan. Lord knows some could be dumb enough to think "Pure Michigan" is an actual state.

[FiddySicks]

Trying to end the drama for Nevada, I have taken the Mountains - not necessarily the Sierra-Nevada's - and put them on the Purple/Blue plate. So now we have the UFO, Nightlife, Sunset inspired backdrop with mountains that can represent any part of the state. I hope this is it!

Ehh. I'd still hate to have to look at those colors every day, but it's Nevada. It's a state that doesn't really lend itself to a single plate design, so good work trying to tie everything together while still pleasing our picky sentiments

The current plate isn't bad in my mind, but it's a bitch to tell what state the car is ahead of you in my area because this is the plate that almost everyone has.

It's WAY too similar to this

This is the best plate the state has ever used IMO

It's nice because it represents Nevada as the silver state, and people can still use the tag line "DA SILVUR RUPREZENTZ ALL DA MONEE YOULL WIN IN VEGUZ!!!!"

One option could be silver with navy to represent UNR, and another option could be silver with red to represent that jenky commuter school down south.