I am out of the loop, disconnected from my world, don't know what's going on, so why should I be surprised that Oklahoma will get a new auto licenses plate and that the design has already be chosen? After all Oklahoma is by construct and constitution an after-the-fact-state. You know, tell the people what you did and then ask them to support it rather than ask them up front what they want you to do.
So here are the "new designs" that were under consideration:
Number 1 is an altered view of the statue at the Tulsa Gilcrease Museum entitle "Sacred Rain Arrow"
Number two is a less altered version of the same thing.
Number three is a piss poor, and graphically misplaced rendition of the "Guardian" statue on top of the Capitol dome.
Number four is a generic cowboy jumping through a lariat loop wearing a non-Oklahoma type cowboy hat and with his spurs and chaps on no less. (wait should he not be packin as well?)
Number 5 is a hunchbacked version of Will Rogers.
Number 6 is the statue at the OKC Western Heritage Center know as "The Frontiersman" ( A thinly disguised Erol Flynn version of Buffalo Bill).
And the winner from among the cowboy and indian choices is:
A tag of Blue White Grey and Maroon with mis-matched font and caps and lower case letters in the State Name, not to mention that the 'Sacred Rain Arrow" statue is twisted 40 dregrees off verticle to make look like, er, well an Apache cupid.
This is how the actual statue looks. Is it not a bit more powerful in it actual context?
I personally think that the "Guardian", which is actually a "State" symbol would have made the better tag. That is if it were moved to the side of the plate and a better image of it used. Or at least they shouldn't screw with the original artist intent of the Arrow statue.
Actually I think the Osage War Shield and Peace Symbols from our flag gave us a distinct and meaningful symbolism on our tags, but some said it looked too much like the "tribal" tags, duh.
But, well, back to the wishy washy days of the pastel Oklahoma is OK. I can't help but think that this is just a continuance of the Nike-esque logos from the centennial.
So HoW Do YoU AlL LikE OuR NeW TaG? (Notice how the OKLAHOMA name looks like OKIAHOMVA)
7 comments:
This all snuck up on me, too.
Hey, find an image of what you consider a real-looking historical Oklahoma cowboy, and post it.
I know that in the '80s, the hat I wore with me from eastern Oklahoma to college was different than the male friends of my wester Oklahoma girlfriend wore. ...
Too much like the tribal tags? Are you kidding? WHICH tribal tag? I'm surrounded by no less than 6 tribes, all with different tags. The graphics work on each is impressive. No matter -- it's all better than the "sunny-side up" egg yolk of former tags.
Completely agree about the font weirdness.
Would love to see our license plate have the old, red-field-with-star state flag. Then we'd all be legally breaking state law!
Any one of those beats 'Famous Potatos' ...
ER, discounting all and every Texas style of the guys who drove critters "across" Oklahoma, most "original/historical" Oklahoma cowboy hats seem to be the Stetson "Boss of the Plains" style or the round crown "Stockman" hat like Will Rogers has on in his tag. Of course they smashed the crowns into six jillon variations. Even Tom Mix when not on public display wore the "Boss". There's a very good display of which style reflects which region at the Western Heritage Center.
Tribal? I think they just didn't like its "Indianess", which means they aren't going to like this much either.
"Famous Potatos" our State probably would make that the "Spud State".
Oh yes, dear God, they are now voting on a State Rock n' Roll Song!
bb-idaho: I lived in Boise for a few years and got one of the wildlife plates, just because I couldn't stand to have the standard plates on my car.
I used to have "Oklahoma Historical Society" plates on my car. I do believe I will go back to them again.
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