Saturday, May 20, 2023
Five waves for five counties: the 2023 Rhode Island license plate. PHOTO: Will Morgan
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After loving the classic WAVE for almost a quarter of a century, I had to get a replacement license plate. As a design critic and believer in a well-designed state moniker, the thought of revealing the new tag with its quintet of curly little curls created an existential crisis.
The new plate looks like it was designed by a committee, or worse, a bureaucrat. The baby blue wash is very reminiscent of the Connecticut plate, as well as the toilet bowl cleanser. Worse than the Cooler and Warmer advertising slogan, our rolling Hallmark Card is an aesthetic embarrassment. But instead of taking my word for it, ask anyone from Westerly to Woonsocket: I’ve yet to meet a fan of the new plate. People don’t like this plate.
My clothing designer son found the wavelets “cute”, but as a vegetarian he was appalled at the idea that I would choose the Atlantic Shark Institute’s newly introduced plate featuring a hungry mako shark. “Creepy” is the usual response when I tell people I’m considering the shark. But unlike states with dozens of charity plates to choose from, Rhode Island’s options are limited.
Jaws Fifty Years On: Atlantic Shark Institute license plate. RI/DMV
Ethnic diversity is one of the reasons we moved to Rhode Island, and as much as I like my Portuguese neighbors, putting Dia de Portugal on my Volvo seems about as far-fetched as adding too predatory teeth. Portugal’s Sun plate, alas, features a yellow strip suggesting that most of the water closet cleaner went into the wavelet plates. (Someday, maybe there will be a Welsh-American plate for my people, maybe with a picture of a coal mine or a slate quarry on it.)
Portugal’s National Day is commemorated by a Rhode Island plate. RI/DMV
Among the options available to non-firefighters, veterans, or Purple Heart recipients are Plum Island Lighthouse, Conservation Through Education, Providence College, Rocky Point, and others. Then there was a messy redesign of the Patriots tag, with a meager resume of six Super Bowl victories. And there’s the old standby of the community food bank’s Help End Hunger, with its unique use by Mr. Potato Head–may be a reference to the Irish Potato Famine, an event commemorated in this state.
Mr. Potato Head license plate. PHOTO: Will Morgan
A contender for my new tag is the Gaspee Days plate (Patriots 1, Royal Navy 0). A patriotic and exciting history, but imagine having a plaque with a burning ship (where are the sailors jumping overboard?). There are some confusing notes, such as a background that looks more like the Bay of Naples than Narragansett Bay, while one wonders what exactly the seven stars stand for? Maybe it’s even scarier than a shark?
Fire at sea, Gaspee Days plate. RI/DMV
It’s a feeling of real disappointment that there’s no retro tag, like California’s Legacy Plate, much less anything that speaks of Rhode Island as anything other than a place where the official just knows how to sell the state through tacky advertisements.
An ad for California’s popular and lucrative Legacy License Plate. California DMV
As much as I’ve despised scenographic license plates since their introduction a few years ago, I’m sorry to report that the Beavertail Lighthouse charity plate is the lesser of all evils. No Ocean State rhetoric, the letters are embossed, and plus an extra $20 goes toward preserving this nautical landmark.
Jamestown’s Beavertail Lighthouse cameo plate. RI/DMV
GoLocal architecture critic Morgan has an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and two graduate degrees from Columbia. He taught at Princeton and at Brown. He wants to remind people that the Ivy League is just a collegiate athletic conference.
