Number Plates
2023
There are many things I love about England. Our car number plates are not one of them. There is a regional identity that the US capture with their uniquely creative licence plates that I find fascinatingly beautiful. So I reworked the English number plates using the 48 ceremonial counties* to recapture some of the culture through the artwork.
Most of the number plates include the motto, flag colours and icons that are aligned with the county: Eg. Gloucestershire has a green, blue and cream flag with the motto 'Ever Forward' and the county known for cheese rolling. I also used the American plates as a starting point but keeping the UK legal number plate font. Some counties that don't have official flags include: Bristol and South Yorkshire. Because of this, for Bristol I supplemented the design by using graphics from around the cit to create the name [the 'B' is from Banksy's tag]. All together I used a mixture of serif and sans serif fonts along with blackletter. I wanted to give them a modern feel but with a nod to their history.
*Ceremonial Counties are areas of England to which lord-lieutenants are appointed.
