License Plates Get a Retro Update
The new Texas license plate is black on white with little adornment. Image courtesy the Texas DMVTexas drivers will soon be getting new license plates, but they might look a little familiar.
A new design for state license plates, called the Texas Classic, is coming to a DMV near you. The look is decidedly retro: black on white, with the Texas star, a state silhouette and “Lone Star State” emblazoned at the bottom.
“I love it,” said Marc Ferrino, design director at GSD&M, an Austin advertising firm. He calls the new design a welcome departure from previous, cluttered plates.
“I think a license plate is the place to be simple,” he said. “I think it should be functional at first, practical, and all those things before it should be heavily designed.”
But many of the new design decisions are driven by security: The Texas Classic has bigger letters and a simpler alphanumeric pattern, and two anti-counterfeiting threads embedded in the plate.
Travis County isn’t distributing the plates yet; counties must first exhaust their inventory of older plates before they start issuing the Texas Classic.
