World License Plate redesign *Caithness and Manitoula*

[webdav]

Here's a quick take on Montana that I put together using the "official brand logo" from Montana Department of Tourism (aka Helvetica Neue with tracking.) But I used the old Great Northern Railroad "Big Sky Blue" paint scheme as inspiration for the blue and dark "GN Gray" look. I simply inverted it to put the blue on top (like a sky should be.) Rather than just plain horizontal lines, I curved the lines in the same manner they curved at the front of the train design.

And a couple of VERY quickly assembled "retro" plates with fake emboss to show how I'd do the retro thing. The font isn't quite right, but I was hurrying. It should have rounded corners, nothing straight, like a font would when pressed.

You'll notice I also re-drew the bison skull icon. I've got a bunch of versions of that icon I've drawn, but this one gives a subtle hint of the outline of Montana, if you look closely at the left side.

The main difference that I think would make for a huge improvement is to get rid of 3M's default font for the numbers. It's square corners toss out years of tweaks that license plate makers made to the type that used to get used. They (3M) offer updated fonts that some states use which are much more legible than the condensed version that Montana uses.

Trivia: The 3-277391 was my first-ever license plate on my first car. I had it until I saved up to get the vanity plate "BASE HIT" later down the line. (I played baseball in high school.)

[Halian]

webdav, I am in love with those Montana plates.

[1clkgtramg]

I like them too. I noticed right away the outline of montana on the head, I think thats the best choice of all the steer's heads.

May I ask what fonts the serial numbers are? I wouldnd mind using those.

[webdav]

I like them too. I noticed right away the outline of montana on the head, I think thats the best choice of all the steer's heads.

May I ask what fonts the serial numbers are? I wouldnd mind using those.

It's called Driver Gothic Pro.

[1clkgtramg]

well here is an untouched Pennsylvania lol.

[webdav]

webdav, I am in love with those Montana plates.

Thank you. I'm afraid that the only chance I'll get to actually design a plate would be a specialty plate for a charity. I think they (the state) wants to keep the default ones as ugly as they can to encourage people to buy specialty plates.

My other obsession is our flag. I wish we had a more iconic flag. Ours is just another "seal-on-a-bedsheet."

[1clkgtramg]

webdav, I am in love with those Montana plates.

Thank you. I'm afraid that the only chance I'll get to actually design a plate would be a specialty plate for a charity. I think they (the state) wants to keep the default ones as ugly as they can to encourage people to buy specialty plates.

My other obsession is our flag. I wish we had a more iconic flag. Ours is just another "seal-on-a-bedsheet."

Really tempted to look into making a few flags. I do like simplicity though, none of this seal junk. I like simple lines that have meanings, and symbols like the Steer Head. I'll see if my interests strengthens and give it a shot.

Now hopefully we can go back to license plates here

[1clkgtramg]

Let's take a trip to Australia since I'm still in a very Aussie mood lately.

Now a reminder to those who may not follow this thread closely, this is now a World License Plate Redesign. Although the American and Canadian plates were to be taken seriously, these ones are more for fun. The dimensions are 6x12 which are your general North American sizes. I do believe that Australia is 12inches wide as well so essentially these plates could fit on the top 2 screws.

I will warn you now that there are only 2 landscape plates, the rest are plain/abstract/whatever you want to call them.


I will start with Tassie and Victoria.

I went really simple here. The random object - which I assume is mimicking the shape of the island - acts as a divider and for the first time the personalized plate effects the state wordmark.







For Victoria, I made a design which I thought was very clever. I know their logo has this triangle with the southern cross on it so I thought it would make for a good divider. I then checked out what the actual plate looks like and it's pretty much the exact same oh well...

[TheGiantsFan]

Can't really say much for Penna since it's pretty much the exact same plate.

I like these two Aussie designs. Well done!

[mamiller99]

Good lawd, that Ohio plate is one heck of a beauty.

[1clkgtramg]

Watching AFL again, reminded me to post more Aussie Plates.

I went very patriotic with this one - or stereotypical if you wish. I used the Australian colours, the southern cross and a Kangaroo. Since ACT owns an exclave called Jervis Bay (a penincsula of New South Wales), I gave Jervis Bay a separate plate, albeit very similar to the ACT version. I actually had an older design that had a gold bar to the left - similar to Maryland - but I decided to scrap it because it looked messy. This way, the name fit a lot better. Also notice this is the first design of mine that overlaps on the bolt/screw holes.

So here they are. Again, pretty simple stuff.

[1clkgtramg]

When I started Australia, I did Western Australia first and chose the gold base with black dyes - completely forgetting the fact that New South Wales is like that and I planned to keep it that way. So what was the alternative? Black base with gold dyes. I also wanted to make a black plate so I guess it was better this way.
The Lion and 4 stars make their way to the bottom, there isn't much info about the true meaning behind them, but variations have existed since Australia was "discovered" by the British. The divider is the state flower doohickey.

[TheGiantsFan]

I'm loving these Aussie plates! They're very colorful!

I like ACT's simple patriotism, although it suffers the same problem as the District of Columbia having the top boltholes covering the state name.

NSW is just simple and classy. Reminds me of the old black California license plates.

[1clkgtramg]

Most of Australia's plates have this Diamond divider. Since I had countless logos/symbols for dividers on the the other plates and Queensland already had a fairly detailed plate, I chose to keep the diamond divider. Queensland - much like every other state in Australia - has a large distinction between City and Country, so at the bottom, I made an Outback meets City meets Ocean landscape. The Palm Tree is present on the current Coastal Plates and the Windmill is present on the current Outback Plates.

[mamiller99]

Some REALLY solid Aussie plates.

Funny story, I was driving thru McDonald's, and saw someone w/ an Ontario plate, from Guelph. Not gonna lie, it was a kinda awful. Kinda neat also seeing someone from Guelph in Austin, Texas

[1clkgtramg]

Some REALLY solid Aussie plates.

Funny story, I was driving thru McDonald's, and saw someone w/ an Ontario plate, from Guelph. Not gonna lie, it was a kinda awful. Kinda neat also seeing someone from Guelph in Austin, Texas

Haha, we do like to drive long distances since our commutes to work take about an hour or 2 one way every day haha. There is no such thing as rush hour since it always is rush hour, much like California.

I've seen a few Texas plates over here as well.

[TheGiantsFan]

Love Queensland's plate. I've always loved how well orange and brown go together. Another solid concept!

[lancealot]

I would maybe try double blue for nsw rather than black and gold, people will see it and instantly thing wa

[1clkgtramg]

I would maybe try double blue for nsw rather than black and gold, people will see it and instantly thing wa

Hopefully not if WA is the opposite colours. It was accidental as I started with WA and made that gold based completely forgetting that NSW is that way. But I took the challenge and I believe they are different enough to not get mixed up, especially since at this point, they are just for fun.

Also, I did a fair bit of research for each of these anyway and noticed that WA used quite a few Gold plates from 1978 to present.

NSW on the other hand had the exact same thing as well as a few black plates in the 1930's-1950's. So I had to chose, and I elected to go with the "Golden State" for a gold plate.

Anyway, here's your home state of South Australia. Most were fairly boring but I did come across a "Gateway to the Outback" and "The Rose State". I first tried the Rose State look, but couldn't draw a Rose for my life and figured Pink/Red with White dyes wouldnt get much hype. I remade the Gateway look, debated to put some city life on it but didn't want to be too similar to Queensland. The overall design is slightly similar to my Arizona plate, but I used the left side to put the motto - something I debated to do with Montana.

[TheGiantsFan]

South Australia is BEAUTIFUL! However, I think a gradient would make this plate look much prettier than just solid lines separating the colors.