NE Creative

What Cheer Launch PaulRust.com

What Cheer has designed and developed the website for comedian Paul Rust. Paul Rust is a comedian living in LA but was born in LeMars, IA. He is co-starring in the upcoming movie I Love You Beth Cooper. The website includes videos of Paul's hilarity and a blog (which Paul has only updated once on June 18th). What Cheer also designed the background image for Paul's twitter account, @paulrust.

The New License Plate Winner Is...

The State has thrown out the winning plate design that was announced earlier this week. Turns out Collegehumor did skew the voting results. Three publications include the Omaha World-Hearld, the Lincoln Journal Star and TMCnet.com have run articles about newly announced winning plate design (seen above).

Fromt the LJS article:

College Humor posted a link to the survey on May 7, asking its users to vote for the “boring” No. 2 design, which won.

Info earlier in the week that votes coming from the site were “spread evenly” and that the results were valid despite the effort of College Humor were inaccurate, said Jen Rae Hein, spokeswoman for the governor’s office. Now the state has canned all votes that came in from College Humor.

“I now have evidence that shows it is clear that the site’s malicious intent was realized,” Beverly Neth, director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, said at a Friday morning news conference. “I regret this situation, particularly the conflicting information I received and that was passed along.

“However, I am taking responsibility for this situation, and I am here to make this right.”

At least they admitted they were wrong, fixed their mistake and now we have a better plate to stick on the back of our cars. Hopefully the next time this event comes around they will take the next step and send out a RFP to the local design firms and ad agencies to commission them to create a design or design options for the license plate. What they come up with isn't going to make everyone happy, you never can but I think that partnering together with the DMV the chosen design that is a product of a researched and thoughtful process in which we focused on what truly characterizes Nebraska. 

Adrants On the NE Fail Plate

From Adrants post: Nebraska Punk'd Into Ugly License Plate Design

So the Nebraska design community is up in arms over the state's new license plate design calling it "boring, uninspired and ugly." A site, Get Ready For Action, has been launched telling "The Story of How Gov. Dave Heineman Got Punk'd and an Entire State Was Shamed."

You see, four submissions were made to the Governor's office. College Humor saw then and told their vast audience to all vote for the ugliest of the four designs. That design won and is now destined to become the state's plate. That is unless this group of disgruntled creatives can mount enough support to get the thing changed.

In addition to the website, there's videos, images and a blog.

The goal of this effort is to "get as many people around the nation to laugh at Nebraska and the awful way our governor has handled the entire situation."

While the group agrees the "plates aren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things," we offer up a more definitive viewpoint; It's a fucking license plate.

Be that as it may, the group hopes to "remove the notion that we are a boring, uninspired, and ugly state."

NE Fail Plate Backlash

Disgusted by the new NE license plate designs? There is a place to voice your complaint now. Commentor Mavwreck brought to our attention two websites to allow you to do just that.

nefail.tumblr.com
Here you are view some great submission mocking the new plate. Here is my favorite.

www.getreadyforaction.net
Here you can read the whole story about the of how Gov. Heinemen got punk'd. It also has useful information on how and who to reach out to in order to try and change the plate before 2011.

Collegehumor Celebrates "NebraskPWNED!"

Collegehumor has claimed victory in sabotaging the results for the NE 2011 license plate contest.

"This isn't a victory for Collegehumor. This is a victory for all of us. Together we pranked the entire automobile-owning population of Nebraska. Congratulations."

I don't know who to believe about this but in the article Collegehumor claims that the State did not count their votes which I find hard to believe when it was a simple select option field in a form where we did not have to enter in our license number. If the State is using Drupal or something similar they would be able to track the IP address where they could then determine were the voter came from but I doubt a) they would use that kind of content management system to power their website and b) if they didn't want to spend the money on hiring a design firm they certainly wouldn't have spend the money on having its employees sift through the 109,000+ entries to determine if the voter used an IP address in Nebraska. 

Collegehumor also states that the State claims the Collegehumor votes came in evenly across all the license plate choices. Now why would Collegehumor set up a post that asks its followers to sabotage a poll by voting for the worst choice but the results so an even distribution of votes across all choices? Did the saboteurs suddenly have a moment of compassion or sympathy for us Nebraskans? Doubtful.

Jack and John, a morning radio show in Lincoln had a great post on their blog about this called Nebraska's Barf-tastic New License Plates: Chosen By A College Prank? I don't know who is telling the truth even more after reading this posting because Jack and John said that the four plates were leftover designs from the last license plate competition! Gesh. This seems to becoming a PR hassle for the DMV and Gov. Heineman. Who have both underestimated the power of social media and social networking. A couple of years ago this probably would have gone right over our heads.

Nebraska License Plate Fail

From the Thought District YouTube Channel. The video description says it all:

Nebraska has a new license plate design. With a vote fueled by College Humor: http://www.collegehumor.com/hotlink:214800 and a local design community in a uproar, we have nothing to say except what is in this video.

NE Plate Winner Announced

The voting has been tallied and the winner has been "chosen." The black gradient plate has won. Unbelievable. Perhaps our time and talent would be wasted on design these plates if this is what the "people" have voted for.

Perhaps College Humor had something to do with too. In a post called "Ruin a Nebraska: Everyone vote design 2 so Nebraskans get boring license plates" CH.com has spread the word about the contest and I believe successfully has sabotaged our contest, resulting in the new NE plates being the boring black gradient design. Thank you College Humor and thank you Governor for making us the butt of another joke.

 

36 Point Says Yes to Spec

The guys at 36 Point have a simple solution for the NE Lisence plate debate that doesn't involve sabotaging other designers. The solution is to set the type in Helvetica Bold all caps,  36/36 and use 185 Red as the color all on a stark white background. Below is the 36 Point plate up against the four current choices.

An open letter to Gov. Heineman on NE license plates

From Drew Davies:

Governor Heineman,

I am writing to express my opinion on the recent license plate design and selection process. As a professional designer, I can tell you that I am extremely disappointed in how the State has handled this matter.

Please understand that this is not an issue about whether the four plates currently being displayed are good or not. My concern with these license plates lies in the process, not the designs. Complaining about the options provided isn't going to solve the problem; we need to work towards a true solution. The State of Nebraska should hire the services of a professional designer/firm and compensate them for their time and expertise, just like they pay their accountants, attorneys, and other professionals. You wouldn't possibly think of holding a public competition to solicit free legal advice, or free building design. Holding a public design competition indicates to the people of Nebraska that you believe professional design has no value whatsoever.

Some say we shouldn't spend precious tax revenue on projects like this. If this is a budgetary/tax dollars issue, then why spend the time and money resources on a public voting charade at all? If you're foregoing a professional designer to save tax dollars, why are we using State resources to design various license plate options, post a web site where people can vote on the plates, and promote the process? If it's only about saving tax dollars, just select the most effective option internally and implement it.

It's also been suggested that people should understand that the primary function of the license plates is vehicle identification for law enforcement. As an information designer, I agree whole-heartedly. But if that's the primary argument, why is there a design competition at all? Why not just red letters on white plates, the way they used to be?

The way in which you and the State have handled this matter has been a slap in the face to professional designers across the state. These same designers are creating a huge economic impact on the state, and raising the image of Nebraska both within the state, and across the nation. I hope you will more carefully consider your actions in the future.

Thank you for your consideration,

Drew Davies
Owner / Design Director
Oxide Design Co.
Omaha, NE

Jim Lauerman Wants a License Plate Redesign

The NE Plate Debate continues...Now Jim Lauerman, CEO of Bailey Lauerman, in an article today in the OWH, says that four designs are "embarrassing" and should be considered scrapped. Amen Mr. Lauerman, who according to to OWH article golfs with the Governor. Additionally Bailey Lauerman designed the NE license plates in 1996. However Mr. Lauerman has offered to enlist graphic artists from the state's top marketing firms to, at no charge, to design a new plate. Sign. Mr. Lauerman no spec work. Please do not bail out the State for their bad decision making at the last second with FREE work. Please don't even offer your own talented designers, at no charge, to design a new plate. Please. Instead you could use your influence and expertise in helping the State create a RFP for the upcoming plate design change in 2017.