Back To The Drawing Board

Please. I hope it’s not to late to rethink the design of this new specialty plate (cropped here for formatting). Instead of telling the world that we are the “Creative Capital” why don’t we try showing it. The ProJo reports today — “Wear your heart on your bumper” — that the Division of Motor Vehicles will approve production on this plate once a minimum of 900 orders has been reached. Proceeds will benefit the Rhode Island Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, hence the little animal doodles.

It pains me to pick on a group of hard-working volunteers devoted to helping animals, but this artwork is fussy and amateurish in the extreme. It looks like it might have been clip art. I could do better and I suck at art. Maybe they could just remove the animals and leave the background, that would leave a wading bird in the water.  My recommendation is to go to the RIWRA website and make a generous donation without ordering the license plate.

While we are on the topic of bad specialty licenses — the Mr. Potato Head plate is not only hideous but ethically problematic. While Hasbro can say the image promotes the R.I. Community Food Bank, his little sign is way too small to read and looks more like a shovel or a mop. Meanwhile motorists are forced to view the larger Mr. Potato Head which provides Hasbro with free advertising where it has no business advertising. Happily these plates seem pretty scarce; the article states that since 2002 only 2,200 have been ordered. Which brings up the second problem — seems likely that many of those purchases were made by Hasbro managers and employees who had little choice in the matter.

Froma Harrop recently took up the matter of specialty plates in “License plates are not bumper stickers.” Some thorny speech issues have arisen around the country.

States have jumped on the slippery slope of letting various business and social interests promote themselves on the specialty license plates. Now they have slid into the U.S. Supreme Court, which has taken the Sons of Confederate Veterans case.

And one can only imagine the potential aesthetic problems of a right to life plate.