Puffin License plate
About The Plate
My task was to create an Oregon license plate that established an ongoing form of support to wildlife rehab and animal care.
This project not only had me dealing with the creative aspect of designing the plate, interfacing with the DMV for feedback & review per their plate guidelines, but also the management of promotion and fundraising of a preorder campaign.
The Oregon Coast Aquarium is one of three facilities in the Pacific Northwest, and the only in the state of Oregon, authorized to provide critical care to endangered marine animals like sea turtles, snowy plovers and Guadalupe fur seals. While this rehab care is funded in part by admission prices and donations, having a dedicated, ongoing source of funds could be a major game changer for future animal care goals.
Like any new plate design at the DMV, a minimum of 3,000 plate orders must be met before the plate enters production, and can be chosen en masse by the public at any DMV location. This meant planning a variety of marketing campaigns & ways of spreading the word, both to members, donors, and the general public.
Of course, no plan survives first contact–the initial momentum we had for fundraising heavily tanked when only a few weeks after we announced our new plate the Oregon Zoo also announced theirs. Given the shared target audience–along with other situational differences–this caused both campaigns to drag on longer than traditional for fundraising. Additionally, while in the past several years the Aquarium was able to drive virtual attendance to a tufted puffin chick hatching & live burrow camera, that wasn’t the case this past year. Unfortunately due to egg viability our husbandry team were uncomfortable with having a burrow cam, so that cross promotion planned there was unable to go through.
Despite hurdles and hiccups however, the plate was fully funded by October 2025, and to be available at Oregon DMV’s in early 2026.
The design for the plate originated as a one-time design for a partnered beer. After being well received locally, when later brainstorming license plate concepts a revised version of the can’s art was proposed. After a bit of tweaking, the design was viable for the plate.
Eventually the puffin emerged through the review gauntlet as the victor. While the DMV had small tweaks along the way to fit their guidelines–mostly lighting and color contrast as to pass toll camera tests–the final design retains the original’s fun and curious nature.