Location: Close enough to make a beer run during a TV timeout
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Do we need 7 digits on the new plates? With 6 digit plates there are 17 million combinations. Take away some that cannot be used (like FAG) and let's call it 15 million. The reason we are running out now is that we have been using the same plates for 30 years. If we change up the plates every 15 years we can stick to 6 digits.
Do we need 7 digits on the new plates? With 6 digit plates there are 17 million combinations. Take away some that cannot be used (like FAG) and let's call it 15 million. The reason we are running out now is that we have been using the same plates for 30 years. If we change up the plates every 15 years we can stick to 6 digits.
or just reverse it with numbers first (eg: 111-AAA)
Do we need 7 digits on the new plates? With 6 digit plates there are 17 million combinations. Take away some that cannot be used (like FAG) and let's call it 15 million. The reason we are running out now is that we have been using the same plates for 30 years. If we change up the plates every 15 years we can stick to 6 digits.
They can't re-stamp an old unused number until the old plate is turned in (which I imagine would build up over time taking away a lot of plate numbers). Also they don't use I O or Q so there's a whole bunch of combinations gone.
edit: my bad, it looks like they never re-stamp numbers.
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"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity" -Abraham Lincoln
Do we need 7 digits on the new plates? With 6 digit plates there are 17 million combinations. Take away some that cannot be used (like FAG) and let's call it 15 million. The reason we are running out now is that we have been using the same plates for 30 years. If we change up the plates every 15 years we can stick to 6 digits.
I don't think plate design has anything to do with it. By your theory, if it's being called in it they have to add an extra step for calling a new or old plate, and change the database for CPS/RCMP. Calling in a plate for a potential emergency I'd think they'd want as few variables as possible to ensure speed, efficiency, and to eliminate possible errors. Photo radar would now need some sort of image detection to determine the same number on a new or old plate vs. what I assume is some form of OCR recognition used now (no idea, but I'm guessing that's an automated system). Can't imagine duplicate numbers being used just because the background picture changes.
That being said, it still bugs me they didn't just reverse numbers/letters first before adding another digit.
Last edited by DownhillGoat; 07-17-2014 at 09:21 AM.
Do we need 7 digits on the new plates? With 6 digit plates there are 17 million combinations. Take away some that cannot be used (like FAG) and let's call it 15 million. The reason we are running out now is that we have been using the same plates for 30 years. If we change up the plates every 15 years we can stick to 6 digits.
You know the plate number has nothing to do with the artwork on the plate?
My car is ABC - 555; you can't just reissue ABC - 555 in 15 years to someone else because it has a picture of a mountain on it. To be able to legally differentiate tag numbers, you'd then need some way of tracking those different plate issuances (say, perhaps....an extra digit!). And guess what, we're back to 7 digits.
"No way officer, that photo radar ticket isn't for my ABC -555 Wild Rose version, thats clearly a picture of a wheat field. Or maybe this should go to ABC - 555 MountainRange".
I was going to post a kids design contest suggestion but only to troll our fellow designer posters here.
This post does a much better job than I could ever have hoped to. Bonus points awarded for the kids are the future reference. That's gold.
The kids can probably also come up with far more creative ideas than the "pros" because their minds aren't as locked down. Kids have more passion and desire to get things accomplished.
I never understood why we added another number to the end of the plate. With the 6 digit plates (ABC 123) there are 17 million combinations. We ended up adding a number (ABC 1234) bringing that total to 170 million. But if we had added another letter to the front instead (ABCD 123) we get 457 million. Or best yet keep it 6 and allow letters or numbers for all 6 spots we get 2.2 billion combinations. problem solved forever, not just the next 15 years.
I have 3 or 4 old Alberta plates in my garage from vehicles we've had in the past. I'm sure many other people do as well. Overlapping car sales or vehicle write-offs.
The amount of work and money to reissue old plates properly is much more than simply adding another number to the plate.
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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Wildrose licence plate competition not ethical, says Alberta artist
Quote:
Amanda Shutz, a graphic designer in Edmonton, likes the idea of helping charities but says a contest means many artists would not be properly compensated since only the winner would receive something.
"Designers aren't being necessarily paid for their work and, while the end result someone is donating funds to charity, it's really unethical to be expecting people in the creative field to be doing design work for no payment."
Like Shutz, Graphos President Laurier Mandin is opposed to designers doing work for free. Although the Graphos plate is already complete, Mandin is refusing to submit the design on principle.
"We've been in business for 22 years and a lot of young, up and coming designers really look up to us," he said.
"And that was where we felt we couldn’t go and enter a contest that was kind of against what we would otherwise stand for, just because it would be easy for us.
Brent Nicols believes that the design for one of Alberta’s potential new licence plates illustrates not Alberta, but Sweetgrass Hills in Montana.
Quote:
With stylized wheat in the foreground and rolling hills and mountains in the background, Brent Nicols recognized the scenery decorating one of the options for Alberta’s new licence plate immediately.
The Calgary man has travelled extensively in southern Alberta and says it’s the spitting image of a place he’s been before.
The problem is, Nicols alleges, that place isn’t in Alberta.
“That’s Sweetgrass Hills in Montana,” he said firmly. “I know that for a fact.”
Quote:
If a person stands facing south near the Alberta hamlet of Manyberries, Nicols said they’ll see the same view that’s on the plate on the other side of the Canada-U.S. border.
“I’ve been to this place, I’ve travelled the whole of southern Alberta,” he said. “That’s the Sweetgrass Hills. I don’t care what anybody says, I’m telling you that’s what it is.”
As an Albertan, Nicols said he considers it a personal insult that one of the plate designs might not even be representative of the province.
“It’s beautiful scenery,” he said. “But it has nothing to do with Alberta.”
Quote:
In a statement, 3M Canada spokeswoman Carla McFarlane said Service Alberta requested a “representation of an Albertan landscape.”
“The mountains in the designs were meant to generally represent the area landscape and were not intended to represent any particular mountain range,” McFarlane said.
Amanda Shutz is kind of stupid. There is nothing unethical about holding a contest where only the winning design gets something. Her reasons for choosing not participate in said contest are valid, but Christ, don't whine because you aren't going to get paid to not do something you weren't going to do anyway.
As for the Montana mountains, unsurprising given that plate is just random clip art.
Last edited by Resolute 14; 07-23-2014 at 07:33 AM.
Amanda Shutz is kind of stupid. There is nothing unethical about holding a contest where only the winning design gets something. Her reasons for choosing not participate in said contest are valid, but Christ, don't whine because you aren't going to get paid to not do something you weren't going to do anyway.
As for the Montana mountains, unsurprising given that plate is just random clip art.
Honestly the story from CBC framed the argument really poorly. Especially with it's use of term graphic "artist" and the Wild Rose muddying the waters of the debate with their silly contest.
In a broader sense the design industry struggles with the common misconception that what we do is "creative art" and that the most "creative" piece is always the best for the client/project. When really, we're providing a service to a client and doing a job.
When a client/business comes to us and says "I need an [X] to promote my [Y]" it's really no different than when I take my car to the shop and say "I need an [oil change] for my [car]".
The "design contest" as it were amounts to spec work, which is basically asking agencies/designers to work for free while awarding business the only one party, leaving the other parties unpaid for their work.
And it is work, this is a job, designers have families to feed, mortgages to pay, and clients to answer to. Just like any other business with have a process we follow and need to turn a profit at the end of the day.
While this video is meant as satire, it does a decent job of hitting the nail on the head. We don't try to haggle free work out of other service vendors, so why is design any different?
But I think you are completely wrong. First and foremost, this is an opportunity for someone to say "My work was chosen as the best" for the next 40 + years. That is a selling point for future work on other projects. Never hurts to be able to claim a feather in the cap like having almost every vehicle display your work.
And what if you don't win. Well c'est la vie. You can still display your concept in your own shop/building etc if you like. Consider it research and development. Sometimes efforts like that don't pay off. It is a cost of business. Get used to it.
In my business, many request for proposal are very time consuming, with the vast majority of the "work" for the project being conceptualized in order to even submit a bid. If I am not the winner of the bid, I have still done work for free.
One of the worst problems today is that big governments and big businesses are in bed with each other but it is actually a three-way and we are the ones being screwed. The taxi cab industry is a great example. Choice is artificially limited and we likely are not getting the best option, nor the best value. This is an opportunity for everyone to compete on an even playing field if they choose.
I see nothing wrong with that. Heck, I encourage it.
I don't disagree jaydorn. Like I said, her reasons for choosing not to participate are valid. But any individual's choice not to participate in a contest is (1) not news, and (2) does not show a lack of ethics on the part of the person holding the contest. There are innumerable such contests held for a variety of reasons. i.e.: X92.9's exposure CD cover art contest.
The article is basically an attempted smear peace using this particular graphic artist as its launching pad. Except that instead of making Wildrose look bad as intended, it makes Amanda look bad, and her profession by extension.
Proposed licence plate design uses Montana image, claims Calgarian
