Quote:
Originally Posted by monkeyman
Out of curiosity, how would you grade the three designs put forth by 3m? They look like at most a " C" effort to me.
|
I'll give you the lame non-answer version first.
At the end of the day, we can give grades and argue about aesthetics till the cows come home but personally, my issue is with the basic decision to go down the "more-is-more" trend of illustrated/photo route that you see with a lot of plates these days.
I come from the design camp that thinks that license plates need to put emphasis on functionality first, because things like legibility and simplicity are important for something like this. So in my opinion, going down the route of a "illustrated/photo" background of a landscape, as opposed to a more graphic route, is not the best direction in the first place. I think designing a license plate takes a lot of restraint, because it can easily be over designed. I have a feeling there were a lot of chiefs involved in this process.
However, if we are going down the illustrated route (and to try to answer your actual question) I think the 1st one with the mountain/field is not that bad. The colors go well together and it's aesthetically nice, if not very original. Not great by any means, but not offensive. Id give it a B- considering the parameters.
The white-strip gradient one on the other hand is truly bad. The gradient is bad enough, and once you put the stickers on, you will barely even see the mountain. Comes across as very lazy. F.
The other one just seems way too washed out. It can't make up it's mind whether it wants to exist or not. I'd rather it didn't. D.