Nebraska License Plate Design Contest

Here we go again...We went down this road already so you don't want to see my vent but this pisses me off. Bland license plates that will reflect our state as we drive to other states and others drive through our state. Spend some money, help a small design business out. I won't go on a rant, rather here is post from Archrival's facebook page. Enjoy.

Why Public Design Competitions Are Bad

The State of Nebraska is missing a huge opportunity. The license plate is more than just a functional sheet of metal, it's a branding opportunity. As the state tries to grow its tourism and change the perception of being a boring piece of flat land, it should think about all its touch points. The license plate could have been a big one. Instead of creating an image that enhances Nebraska, the four designs presented as our options do us one worse: it maintains and reinforces the status quo.

It's hard to critique the amateur designers--- they did the best they could and took part. In many ways we applaud them for making the effort to get involved. Rather, we have to look at the final designs as a result of the process. With an image opportunity so big, how could the State think it's even a semi-good idea to have an open-ended design contest? This would have been worth the time, effort and money to pay for the best talent the state has to offer. Nebraska has some incredible design talent. But you won't get them through a non-paid open call for entries. Instead, you'll get the amateur works you see with our final four. You get what you pay for.

The designers who submitted ideas should be thanked. But at the end of the day, the plates should not be designed by "the citizens of Nebraska" but rather by the professional designers who call Nebraska home. Should we expect that the next state building design be done by people with a fleeting interest in architecture and a copy of Google Sketchup?

Also, each plate directs people to Nebraska.gov, further illustrating how off-strategy the entire process is. Have you been to Nebraska.gov? What's the point of sending consumers there? This should have pointed to the Visit Nebraska tourism website, tied into the over-arching message of the State.

Omaha, Lincoln and the entire State have a lot of exciting things happening, a rise of the creative class of young professionals, flourishing with new ideas and emerging talent. We wish our leaders would catch up.

A couple of years ago GQ asked Duffy and Partners to redesign the Minnesota State License plate, lo and behold see what happens when you put a talented design team to the task...

If you feel moved to say something please send the NE DMV a message. You can use the NO!Spec Design Contest Protest Letter.

Comments

[Drew Davies]

Zach,

Just wanted to say thank you for posting this story. It's an issue that needs to be brought to the public's attention, and I'm pleased to see you and Clint both taking on the issue with passion and professionalism. I'm looking forward to seeing Nebraska hire one of the state's highly-talented design firms to redesign the plates in 2017.

[Brian Wetjen]

Right on, everyone. It's amazing that the "best" of the submissions still leave us with these terrible choices. I sincerely hope that the state of Nebraska can move toward supporting local professional designers in the future. We truly have an amazing amount of talent here that could do wonders for our state if used. Keep fighting the good fight.

[NE Creative]

A fair write up expressing our frustration at the license designs but not how the State got the designs, in a open competition. Great quotes from Clint Runge and Drew Davies

http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10626208

[Carl Zulauf]

I think the main problem here is that the competition did not get much attention until the four mediocre finalist had already been chosen, so I think paying for some publicity is better than paying for a professional.

Case-in-point: That Minnesota license plate you offered is garbage. It says nothing about the state. It evokes no emotion what-so-ever. Sure, it has that kind of sleek industrial design that consumer products make their money from, but it is completely devoid of ANYTHING related to Minnesota. The license plate should make some connection to the state's identity and that one utterly fails.

An open competition allows a venue for artists, who aren't profit driven, to help define Nebraska's current identity. Even if the result doesn't evoke emotion or make a direct connection to Nebraska, the fact that an independent Nebraskan artist created it and the fact that Nebraskans voted on it provides some amount of "de facto" connection.

I would pick two of the four finalists over that Minnesota garbage any day... the two that aren't simple gradients.

Its great to have creative design companies in Nebraska, but do I think the state should pay one of them to design our new plates? No. Let them enter the competition like anyone else. Maybe the state should offer a cash prize for the winner, but that would be as far as I would go.

[Charles Hull]

Carl

The Nebraska creatives who are upset about the license plate designs are not looking for a project on which to make a profit, rather the point we are making is this was a job for professionals, who understand branding, are good at developing clean, effective design, and practice it on an everyday basis as their livelihood. This will cost money, as professionals in any profession generally do not give away their time and expertise.

It would be money well spent, considering there are 2.2 million registered vehicles in the state of Nebraska that in turn make millions of impressions every day on residents and non-residents alike, instate and out of state. A license plate is an important piece of a state's brand identity, and it should be handled as part of an overall strategy. The state of Nebraska spends millions of dollars every year with professional agencies on advertising and design, so hiring a good design shop to design the state license plate is not an expense issue. And no branding shop is going to get rich off a license plate design project, but they should be compensated for their time and expertise...that's just common sense.

As far as professionals entering an open public competition like everyone else, why would we put time and resources we could be billing to a client towards doing free work for an entity that could easily afford to pay for our expertise?

Let me turn this around - I see that you do "enterprise programming for a large investment firm". I assume you are good at it, and that you charge a fair price for your time and expertise. Would you do it for free for the state of Nebraska?

[NE Creative]

@Carl
I will have to disagree with you about the the MN plate being "garbage" but that is your opinion. If you went to the link and read the GQ article you would have seen it was on of three designed and there were well thought out reasons for the design:

"Minnesota is a state with a strong conservationist attitude; that's why we see the tag being made from a postconsumer recycled material that tends to be dark in color. (This will also help mask the grime of Minnesota's winter road sludge.)

The new shape reduces the amount of material needed while keeping the same footprint for the bolts. The information has been streamlined to maximize readability. The large space between the letters and numbers was removed, and a slight color shift was added to more easily distinguish numbers from letters at a glance.

Stratum, the typeface on the plate, was chosen because it's easier to read from a distance (and, as a bonus, was designed right here in St. Paul).

The renewal stickers were designed with slightly different shapes so that user can easily see which tray to play them in. Blue and green were chosen for their associations to water, which is considered one of Minnesota's greatest natural resources."

And to Charles' point since you say it is ok to have open design competitions; a brand like Children's Hospital could have just had an open competition and used that logo for their rebrand.

[M]

I agree that it would have been nice to better publicize the contest to give more local designers a shot at free publicity (should they choose to do so). A prize to help compensate the work of the finalists would be a nice touch, too.

[Emily]

What is wrong with the current NE plate design? Why are they changing it?

[The Mighty Favog]

I don't know that it necessarily takes a professional. I do know that it takes far more imagination and more of a knack for design than exhibited by any of the contest finalists.

I look at the designs we have to pick from and am tempted to think they were done by some pol's brother-in-law.

I'm an amateur -- and I'm not an artist -- but I can do way better than this. And have. In pretty short order.

http://revolution-21.blogspot.com/2009/05/even-i-can-do-better-than-that.html

http://revolution-21.blogspot.com/2009/05/ok-if-you-didnt-like-that-one.html

[Travis]

Nice post Charles and I think the examples shown above by revolution 21 are exactly why the design should not be put up to a public forum. No, your designs are not better than the choices we currently have presented to us.

[The Mighty Favog]

Travis,

OK, Mr. Professional Designer, put your freakin' money where your mouth is. Do better.

What, you don't have an hour in your hectic schedule of designing logos to tackle a license plate? I mean, if mine are so awful, surely you can best them in no more time than I spent on them.

Design talks. Bulls*** walks.

But what do I know? I'm a member of the public.

[The Mighty Favog]

Oh, Travis, by the way. . . .

The original World-Herald story on the license-plate flap noted that the most horrific plate (the black minimalist one) was the work of a "graphic-design vendor." I do believe that was the plate that made one designer "gag," according to the next day's story.

The two least offensive plates were the work of "the public."

So much for professionals, eh?

[Travis]

Mr. The Mighty Favog,

Apparently you didn't read a single comment above yours which stated exactly why professional designers aren't/shouldn't be submitting. Start at the top and read down the page.

[C_ _D]

I don't think it was a contest ...

"Nebraskans submitted two of the designs -- the meadowlark and the Capitol -- in previous years. The other two are in-house designs."

"All four are attractive plates, said Gov. Dave Heineman."

fremonttribune.com

[Eric N]

"Design talks. Bulls*** walks."

This thread got REALLY funny really fast.

[The Mighty Favog]

Travis writes:

"Apparently you didn't read a single comment above yours which stated exactly why professional designers aren't/shouldn't be submitting. Start at the top and read down the page."

I read them. I just think they're bogus -- the state isn't going to hire you, so you just sit and carp. It is what it is.

You sit and make snotty comments WITHOUT putting your money where your mouth is. Where I come from, we called that chickens***.

I criticized the state's proposals. I admitted that I'm an amateur, and then I put forth some alternatives. For what it's worth.

You thought they weren't worth much. I couldn't care less. I don't like some of your logos. I imagine you couldn't care less.

But the difference is this: I put myself out there, exposed to the snarkiness of people like yourself. You, on the other hand, take pot shots at stuff but offer nothing better, hiding behind "I don't work for free."

Well, fine. It's your labor. Just as it's my right to tell you "Design talks. Bulls*** walks."

And, really, should folks engaged in a profession that's so fundamentally subjectively oriented REALLY be so uppity? After all, *everybody* can say you suck and have an equal shot at being proven right sooner or later . . . particularly as times, trends and tastes change.

[Flttlau]

It's a nice idea to have the license plate artfully reflect some positive attributes of the state of Nebraska but that is not a rule, and once upon a time our license plate, like every state, was a boring t color plate without a design. Now, I don't want that again, but if someone designed a kick-butt plate that didn't represent corn or the capitol or tom osborne and it just plain looked cool, well, that's fine with me.

I want an awesome design and I agree that we need skilled paid artists to do it. But let them do it. The Minnesota plate design is both awesome and hopelessly lame at the same time but it is an acceptable design if only used for 3 years anyway.

[Kevin Fitzgerald]

http://www.collegehumor.com/hotlink:214800

This might have had something to do with the awful gray plate winning. As if Nebraska wasn't the butt of enough jokes.

[rockett]

The MN plate is ugly