Why your driver's license is badly designed

[@LinusBoman]

The first 100 people to use code LINUS at the link below will get 60% off of Incogni: incogni.com/linus

[@orbitingancient]

Awesome video! Glad to have seen you in in the most recent Phil Edwards video. you both are so underrated.. keep up the great work! (Was thinking about the Michigan license design earlier today.. surprised to see this- glad we aren't the worst looking)

[@bflaminio]

Incogni is great, but it annoys me they didn't get a .to TLD.

[@RWBHere]

One observation about your suggested design: Grey text on a light background, an idea which Apple and others love, reduces legibility tremendously if the reader's eyesight is sub-par, or if lighting conditions are not ideal. Bright sunlight or low lighting levels make low contrast text much harder to decipher. By all means make the front different, such as by using a somewhat smaller point size, but keep it black for better contrast.

[@megadiabrous]

I am in love with you Linus

[@LoyalSage]

I was thinking at the start, “Yeah, it’s a bit hard to read at a glance, so maybe the redesign will be a little better.” Then I was legitimately blown away by how much more glanceable and aesthetically pleasing the redesign was. Nice job.

[@graceface418]

As someone who checks ID constantly at my job, I really appreciate your streamlined design. It is SO much easier to read! I've always found it frustrating that every state has a different ID layout and they are all hard to read. I wish they would all adopt your design and save us all so much effort

[@lucaslist911]

Just get a barcode scanner and scan the barcode on the back! This can be fed into a program which lays out the data in a better way.

[@graceface418]

@lucaslist911 We have ID scanners and they only tell you if someone is 21 based on the birthdate info. They do not tell you if the ID is expired or compare the person to the photo. Our scanners only work for our state as well. Other states don't scan. There may be some that do more but the ones I've used are all just a fancy birthdate calculator

[@niyablake]

@@graceface418 Either you need a better scanner or California adds way more data. When I was in the ambulance the emt scanned my ID and it told them my name ,age ,DOB , gender .

[@jasonzhan_g]

i’ve gotten into the habit of pointing out where my birthday is, the ohio id REALLY sucks extra. birthdate is hidden, tucked away from everything else into the bottom right corner in a faded color. literally no one can find it

[@LudicrousPlatypus]

I would love to see you discuss passport design, especially as Australia has quite a good looking passport.

[@lumare]

seconding this! Linus please do passport design!

[@Jamesbaby286]

I had to pull out my Victorian license to remember what ours looked like. All of these cluttered US designs made me blank on how ours looked. It's so much cleaner. It doesn't waste legibly with unnecessary things like sex, weight, and eye colour, governors signature, 2 photos, etc. It simply has permit type, permit number, state, full name, photo, address, date of birth, permit expiry, license type, and signature. I suspect our passports will probably be as efficient and therefore legible and well designed.

[@sarowie]

brilliant idea! with passport, even the security features are sometimes lovely little design features: Looking good means easier to verify when something looks off. Both the security analyst and the design expert agree that better printing technology and finer details at to the end product.

[@nickel_las]

​@@Jamesbaby286 It's even easy to provide proof of age -- your birth month and year are on the other side in huge, bold text as a background nationally.

[@evancottle3120]

​@@nickel_lasI remember when this was introduced. I was in high school at the time, the most common way to get a fake ID was to take your real learners permit to a guy who would carefully remove the DOB shown on the front, and print a new one, leaving everything else unaltered. This change stumped them for a bit but I don't think it was very long before they were doing both sides.

[@oliversharpe8235]

A tier-list of US driver's licenses would still be quit fun to watch. You could also include EU and other non-US designs. I'd also want to reiterate someone's suggesetion of passport design (I literally came through an airport today and was silently comparing passport designs), you could do both the front emblem and the ID page.

[@filiaaut]

There has been a great overhaul of EU driving licences in 2013, now they all use the same (or a very similar) layout. The data fields are all the same, and they are numbered instead of named, so 1 is always the surname, 2 the other names, 3 the date, then place of birth, etc. Not all countries use all of the fields, but they tend to be in order (the picture, at number 6, is outside of the normal flaw, but apart from that things are "in order"). They all seem to be in various shades of pink, which makes them even more similar. The main differences are in the background watermarks and security features. Of that, I can testify that despite a few nice ideas (a Marianne is engraved in both the chip on the reverse side, but also directly engraved in the translucent plastic surface on the front, which you can only see from certain angles (there are also two faces sideview on the back which both wear Phrygian caps, also engrave in the plastic, but they don't look that good)), the French one is horrendously ugly. The rosette is awful, since field 6 was not enough apparently, they reuse the photograph twice in the watermarks, and all these security features are scattered randomly, overlapping each other in the weirdest ways, and one of the photographs watermarks is directly under the data fields, and not that transparent, which hinders legibility. At least since I don't drive I barely see it. Edit: One thing I'll add is that EU driving licences are used for driving, mostly (you can use it in your own country to prove your identity in some circumstances, but it's not their primary purpose), so there isn't as much information to fit on it which probably helps. The cards that appear the more cluttered, with regards to information, are the ones from the countries which don't use the latin alphabet, and therefore have some of the information duplicated.

[@oliversharpe8235]

Perhaps the best and worst of the EU countires then?@@filiaaut

[@typograf62]

@@filiaaut Denmark had a special kind of EU driving license. At the time (1993 I think) no EU standard existed, but the government needed some money so we were told to get a new license document for a fee. As an excuse it was a "EU card". This card has not to be renewed until ripe age. But it does not stand up to being carried around. A new real EU license has, I think, to be renewed.

[@ChadwickTheChad]

Lol - europeans are always like "we still exist!"

[@cameron7374]

@@ChadwickTheChad Lol - americans are always like "look, we're America!"

[@metalxhead]

Can't believe how clean the redesign is and how easy it is to read. How does that have all the same information as the original?! Design principles are generally a mystery to me, but I feel like I've actually gotten some clear takeaways from this, without even trying. What an underrated channel.

[@PrograError]

Some "engineers" (likely some desk jockeys) probably got assigned to design the ID, and they probably choose function over form... and then the higher up added some more ideas and diagrams... creating the mess... Movie IDs probably looks and read better than the IRL ones....

[@Waffles783]

It doesn't have all the same info, they left off all the labels. It's easy to read if already are sure what ( 9:D, 12:A, 17:165, 15:M, 18: Bro, 9a:-, 15: M) are supposed to mean, but if you need to verify the license and you aren't already familiar with the layout, it'd be useless.

[@MichaelSchiciano]

@@Waffles783 If the layouts are standardized, and it's your job to identify based on that standard, but you somehow don't know what the layout means, that'd be a different problem. In addition, the layout as given has plenty of room for those number identifiers to have reminder/abbreviated indicators of what those datapoints are.

[@TimeLemur6]

As stated in the video, there should be room for a legend on the back. If you aren't familiar with the standard, you likely won't be in a situation where you need to identify these details at a glance.

[@portmanteau.]

​@@PrograErrornot engineers, bureaucrats, different breed.

[@jaredrichert127]

As a bartender, I've thought about this so often. I always assumed there was some specific reason (be it legitimate or arbitrary) to make IDs so difficult to parse. Hopefully someday it'll change. Thanks for doing the lord's work.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

A lot of it is just how much stuff needs to be crammed in there. But, some states do a better job than others do. The licenses here in WA do a lot of this stuff relatively well if you take a few moments to think about the layout. The card from does have a bit of white space with logical grouping of like information. The birthdate and address are dead center of the ID just to the right of the photo and roughly aligned to eye level. The expiration date is in the lower right and the issue date is in the middle right. There's clearly room to improve, but on the whole, they're actually pretty good in terms of organization and legibility.

[@ValpasKankaristo]

Many people have mentioned the amount of information that a driver's license must have... But must it have all of that? Is gender or eye colour really relevant in that sort of a document?

[@surfait]

CT has a good one too! the DOB is large and in the middle, and they use enough variant type to make it very easy to read. i was hoping linus would do a tier list to see if he confirmed my opinion that my state is #1 haha

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

@@ValpasKankaristo Linus's idea of a code with a key on the back seems like the perfect solution. Anyone who would possibly need that information could take the extra few seconds to check.

[@gjvnq]

Hey, how about changing the background color of the card depending on the age of the person? E.g. blue for adults of drinking age, brown for seniors and yellow for minors?

[@sebastianrasor]

As far as improving legibility, I think light gray on white is definitely a downgrade in legibility even if it is for less important information. Just because the information isn't as important doesn't mean that at some point someone who has a harder time seeing won't need to read it. It could just as easily remain black and still be visually distinguished from the rest just through layout alone

[@darkowl9]

Also if it was to remain usefully legibile, you'd need to print it with a solid grey ink instead of a halftoned black, likely increasing production cost.

[@ledorf]

No, for the love of god no!

[@Benseer]

I feel like this is a great example of why they have multiple revisions when they design something like this, as he mentioned near the end of the video! I wouldn't have thought of that unless somebody mentioned it!

[@katrinabryce]

@@darkowl9 The security printing would require that sort of thing anyway, so that isn't a problem.

[@cmmartti]

​@@katrinabryce Most ID cards are printed on-the-spot onto card blanks with special printers, using only black ink (including the photo and hologram). The card blanks already have all the background colors and fine details.

[@fubar5884]

The only thing I can't get out of my head is at 12:00 Apparently Ash Ketchum is a veteran. Now I need a documentary about his involvement on the frontlines during the '99 MissingNo. Invasion of Cinnabar Island, where thousands of Pokemon gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect their save data integrity.

[@auliamate]

Imagine a world where all government documents, websites, and portals are as competently designed as what graphic designers can cook up.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

One of these days, graphic designers are going to overthrow the government just to right these wrongs.

[@MisF1998]

Well they can hire competent designers, it's just they refuse to pay them well. That's why were stuck with terrible designs.

[@nunomoniz3788]

😢

[@cameron7374]

As long as they don't look towards the ones that just want to make it look all fancy and designer to the point where it becomes completely unusable because of that.

[@Bobo-ox7fj]

If my experience with graphic designers is anything to go by, everything would be far, far worse.

[@autumnson]

Your version looks really cool, but as a person with low-vision, I'm always worried when people start using grey fonts while reducing opacity. The original might be messier, it's harder to find specific information, but every text has enough contrast to make it easy to read.

[@chroma4545]

Love the new design, though some of the changes may break workflows that use the uglier design: 1. Moving the document ID to the back of the card means someone scanning it needs to capture both sides. This may seem antiquated, but many important systems in the US are still on paper and photocopying is the only way to keep a record of a persons license. Having information split across sides means two photocopied pages per card. 2. Same with adding a codex to the back. 3. The small, grey text of the address might not be captured on older or cheaper copiers. 4. Nah, thats all. Love these videos, they make my mornings a little more fun 😊

[@snakesoldier902]

Mentioned this in my own comment, but also it's likely that governments are actually storing names and addresses in all-caps, so you can't just switch to sentence case because you don't know the proper capitalization of words now (think McCallum, for example)

[@HenryLoenwind]

1. Who really needs the document ID? Without access to the DMV database, it's useless information that can't be used for anything. It may be useful for checking if the document is real, but police can look up the information with just name and dob anyway. However, putting it in fine print along one of the edges should be no issue for the design. 2. The codex is universal, even world-wide as it comes from the ISO document. So the only people who'd need to look it up on the backside are those who don't regularly handle driver's licences. And to be honest, the information as shown in the video was so clear that I didn't have an urge to look up the labels. 3. There are gray print colours that copy as black. Most famous example is pencil. This can even be used as a security feature, as a fake licence wouldn't copy correctly.

[@katrinabryce]

@@HenryLoenwind You can have more than one person with the same name born on the same day, so the licence number uniquely identifies them.

[@positivelyacademical1519]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@katrinabryceThe licence number (4d) and document ID number (5) are two separate things though. 4d is unique to each person and issuing authority, and 5 is unique to each document. So when you’re photo expires 4d will be the same when you renew your licence and 5 will be different. Though the simpler option would be to switch to the EU practice where document ID number always licence number followed by two extra digits (which increases by one each new licence issued to you), and 4d doesn’t need to be (and isn’t) printed separately.

[@HalianTheProtogen]

@@katrinabryce In Florida, the last digit of the driver's license number is set aside specifically for this purpose; usually it's -0, but if two people would have otherwise colliding DL numbers (i.e. same first ⁊ last name, same middle initial, and same date of birth), one gets a -0 and the other gets a -1.

[@JSG003]

0:25 The qld license is just so well designed. Very simple, not cluttered and a nice colour

[@ashameimaru]

Okay not gunna lie but that Kanto license design is dope af, enough to ask "can I get a blank version" and turn it more into a Pokemon Trainer License. And a super blank one to design other regions lmao. (Also the funnier thing, if you ever see a Japanese driver's license, it's so ...... PLAIN.)

[@doujinflip]

Mainland China driver’s licenses look a bit more aesthetic… if you look past how it’s laminated paper with a pasted photo that anyone can fake 😂

[@HalianTheProtogen]

Same here! I'd love to make Hoennese driver's licenses, since I have a worldbuilding project set in that region.

[@agustinvenegas5238]

​@@doujinflipa lot, if not most, other countries have a separate ID document so a driver's license exclusively proves you're capable of driving a car, thus leaving the safety concerns for actual identification cards

[@stefanmatthiascorneliusgla5262]

Did you get one? A blank version of this license? I'd want one too.

[@Str0b0]

American driver's licenses have so much info in them, like home address etc, and other info that could expire in a few years, like weight. I live in Northern Europe and I got my driver's license in 2002 and it expires in 2052 (and there are only few lines of the most essential info). I'm not living in the same house I did over 20 years ago. I don't think they give such a long expiry dates anymore in newer licenses in my country, though. But I think it's still 15 years. And a lot can happen in 15 years still.

[@amicaaranearum]

They do have some potentially short-lived information, but we’re required to update our licenses whenever we change addresses.

[@PrograError]

In my country, by law we are to update the address and affix the addendum over the old address at the back... ( we have both NRIC (Main) and Driver's) I'd say it's a better design than most country's but not much less cluttered... Plus now we have a "Digital Clone" of the same ... on the government App...

[@xenon9030]

The biggest difference between European and American drivers licences is, that American ones essentially serve a dual role as both a licence and a personal ID card. In Europe, those are two separate documents.

[@bencarpendale]

@@xenon9030 Not in the UK and yet our Licences still don't have blood type, veteran status, organ donor status, height or eye colour, class or whatever the restriction and end things are. I assume this is because most of that information is only needed by hospitals and I would assume the NHS has those in databases.

[@Str0b0]

@@xenon9030 I can use my driver's license as an ID for most of the "low level stuff". But if I open a bank account or need a new passport etc, I need an official ID or a passport.

[@darkwoodmovies]

I do wonder if their choice of fonts and caps-only has something to do with some scanning tech, like OCR that they used to quickly process licenses or check for subtle inaccuracies for increased security. While today's tech is definitely more than capable of dealing with more elegant designs, I'm willing to bet that the governments still use 80s and 90s tech.

[@nurdle8673]

The redesign was absolutely incredible! The information was clear and interpretable, great job!

[@sandrafaith]

Never expected a video about license design to be so fascinating. Kudos!

[@ravenpotter3]

Some of those look so bad that I as average person with a untrained eye might even think they are fake (ignoring all the features like the holographic stuff) 😅 like wow they are so hard to read and blurry

[@56independent42]

Blurriness comes from the fact they use images instead of vector graphics to show examples, meaning that there's limited resolution.

[@Ludix147]

I have come to expect official documents to be badly designed. Linus' much better design looks like a video game, almost like it's made for kids to play with.

[@n0tthemessiah]

I've been pulled aside by security in other states more than a few times so they can find my ID in the handbook because my state's design is so awful they all assume it's fake. Incredibly frustrating.

[@lilyreeves6282]

love the comparison to the Pokemon TCG! as someone who played the game from a young age and then competitively at the highest level, i can say that they are some of the best pieces of graphic design within card gaming, great for encouraging younger plays to pick up the game!

[@g0d5m15t4k3]

Absolutely this comment ! As a Magic the Gathering player, this example really helped me.

[@spacepeanut]

as a kid, we would trade them based purely off of how cool they looked

[@dylanbyrne9591]

Change your channel name to Linus Design Tips, now is the time.

[@bubbles581]

Hahaha now is NOT the time with all the drama there lol

[@curiodyssey3867]

Ooh Linus design just rolls off the tongue

[@curiodyssey3867]

Linus' Bits of Design Tips lol

[@caseys2698]

Maybe not considering everything 😭

[@DrSpaceman69]

@@bubbles581 yep, that's the joke

[@FocusSight]

Really enjoy the redesign you made at the end-particularly the fake region logo and theming from Kanto, it felt really genuine!

[@xXRedTheDragonXx]

I am a student going out of state for college. I always get people that stare at my drivers license, and after a few seconds I always end up saying "Bottom left" because that's where my birthday is on the card. It's honestly ridiculous that the location of critical information isn't standardized, because especially on the east coast, people end up in different states all the time for various reasons. I also paid extra and went through the whole process for getting a drivers license that has the whole "Real ID" thing that's supposed to be standardized. It's incredibly frustrating that this is even a problem at all. Why can't everything just be the same for drivers licenses??

[@Fred-gs1ur]

FYI, The short name of the International Organization for Standardization, ISO, isn't an acronym - it's just a word derived from the Greek 'isos' meaning equal, so it's pronounced 'eye-so'.

[@LinusBoman]

Good to know. Though slightly ironic that they made their naming convention so non-standard that they had to go around explaining to people how to say it correctly.

[@Fred-gs1ur]

@@LinusBoman Very true!

[@thomasquetchenbach4053]

I've always assumed (without evidence) that this was done at least partly to avoid prioritizing any one of the three official languages of the ISO (English, French, and Russian) over the others.

[@l3gacyb3ta21]

@@thomasquetchenbach4053 Huh, same, kinda like UTC

[@poetryflynn3712]

Couldn't it be a backronym though?

[@dijikstra8]

I guess that's one advantage of having the drinking age coincide with driving age, if you have a driver's license, they don't have to check further. But this was a really well made transormation of some truly attrocious designs. EU drivers licenses are not much better, but still slightly, we don't have these big logos (veteran, organ donor, whatever) or the address, makes it slightly less cluttered, and the format is now standardized across the EU.

[@solared]

in the EU, you can drive mopeds in many countries at 15-16, even in ones where the drinking age is 18. the driving license is visually identical, with only the small print referring to the class of vehicle being distinct. Mopeds are especially popular here in Finland, which makes it important to check every young entrant's DOB.

[@jendorei]

Most people use their national ID card for verifying their age anyway, rather than the driving license which not everyone has.

[@HolarMusic]

​@@jendorei it was always very funny to me that it's the exact opposite in the US

[@jendorei]

@@HolarMusic yeah, getting a driving license is pretty costly here. in my country it comes to around $800 but there are probably places where it costs even more. the reason is that driving lessons with a personal instructor are mandatory, you don't just learn with your parents like i think kids do in the us

[@Sasha-zw9ss]

@@HolarMusic Can you even get a driver's license without knowing how to drive? Like, some variation that's just an ID without a right to drive any vehicle?

[@juliannafranchini7975]

I've always really liked how British Columbia's licenses look on an aesthetic level, but now I'm really appreciating how much effort went into making the design readable too! BC actually has kind of a brilliant way of integrating the province's unique license classes with the needs of people doing age verification, and that's colour coding! Here, at 16 you can do a written test and get a learners license, which is red. Then, after a road test, there's a "new driver" license that allows you to drive alone with some restrictions, and that one is green. After two years, you're then allowed to take a final road test before getting your full, non-restricted license, which is blue. BC's legal drinking age is 19, so since anyone with a blue license has been driving for a minimum of three years, hey, that means they're over 19! All a busy bartender needs to do in that scenario is double check the green or red licenses from the local customers and skim the blue ones. As a bonus, one of the security holograms even has the person's birth year built into it, so it serves double duty.

[@weppwebb2885]

Just compared my Id and driver's license (german) And the difference in readability is INSANE. On the Driver's license the information seems to be grouped quite randomly, for example date of issue is right below date of birth and I didn't find my name at first because it is placed so far above the other information without being visually highlighted. On my Id the Important information just flows in. Surname, given names, Date of Birth+Nationality, Date of expiry. everything labelbeled in a different font and smaller text. Less important infos are on the back, picture takes full left side.

[@katrinabryce]

My British licence is 1. SURNAME 2. TITLE FORENAMES 3. DOB COUNTRY OF BIRTH 4a. ISSUE DATE 4c. ISSUING AUTHORITY 4b. EXPIRY DATE 5. LICENCE NUMBER 7. [Scan of my signature across two lines] 8. ADDRESS ACROSS TWO LINES 9. A/LIST/OF/THE/VEHICLE/CATEGORY/CODES/I'M/ENTITLED/TO/DRIVE

[@Croz89]

AFAIK nearly all EU (and former EU) driving licences have a very similar format, probably down to some standardisation directive at some point. Same fields on the front (with accompanying number), same table of category codes on the back. I think they might even all be the same background colour, green for provisional, pink for full.

[@EdwinWalkerProfile]

As a person who is about to renew a provisional driving licence, I do think the fact that it is the default pocketable ID in many places is problematic. Something with so many stakeholders is bound to end up as being equally bad for all.

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

This is what I love about typography, both Linus and others like Matthew Butterick stress that typography is for the readers, to help them understand the information that is being communicated. Looking nice is just a part of making the reading experience more enjoyable. It's art applied to practical use, rather than just an opportunity for showing off how artsy-fartsy the creator is.

[@Skipping2HellPHX]

One feature to add would be a braille identifier on the corner. While most legally blind people will not have a driver's license many states and provinces simply reuse the same design for identification cards and driver's licenses so a "DL" or "ID" in braille would let a visually impaired person know what they are holding do they can provide the correct card when needed.

[@sas.tronaut5055]

yay! i’ve been missing your videos. One piece of existing, and more subtle, design that i really like is that on the adult licenses for the state of Idaho, there’s a small, holographic butterfly on the back. its pretty, simple, and communicates a clear idea through common symbolism

[@robynkolozsvari]

as an Oregonian, i generally have to do a Google-search to figure out which of the two id numbers marked and labeled with acronyms is the actual driver's license number. seriously, better design would do licenses so much good.

[@xxxnightsky14]

I work in HR and I check IDs during intake. I hate looking at the licenses because they are so hard to read and every single one is different. I'm always trying to find the ID#, DOB, and EXP Date. When I'm tired, it's even worse.

[@JesseFeld]

I really like your design but am surprised you also went with a key, one of the most difficult pieces of ID-ing with the UK license is that the many dates get confused with birthdate when glancing quickly and the word 'birth' tends to be what people from other regions are scanning for (at least when they cannot find a year beginning with '19'). I know the Ontario license (for those underage) states in large print on the right the date when the person will turn the legal drinking age to avoid confusion

[@LinusBoman]

I actually made a few different drafts, with and without the text lables, and in the end I think the tradeoff was worth it. There's similar room for confusion about last and first name without the label, but if the order is standardised it should be less of a problem, and keeping the dates in separate zones from each other should avoid confusion. Ultimately there's no single answer, just one suggested solution.

[@sohigh10]

Adding even more dates makes an already confusing design even more difficult. I understand the aim is to make the math easier, but it just gets more difficult to do at a glance when you're confronted with four dates on a card. It's easier to look for the lowest number (19XX or (200X) than to find 2017 within a range of dates of issue and expiry.

[@ciangibbons6643]

​@@sohigh10As of this year all EU and related driving licenses, which still includes the UK so far, currently in issue follow a set standard that's pretty easy to follow (the last ever batch of non complainant ones is from 2012 and expired in 2022 but most countries had already swapped over beforehand). It's a straight vertical list with key identifier first. Fields 1 & 2 are names, field 3 is DoB, 4 has several sub fields including issue and expiry dates, 5 is driver number, and so on. It's actually ridiculously easy to follow once you learn the European pattern, date of birth is always the first date in the list.

[@amicaaranearum]

I would move the issuing date to the back (as you did with the document ID number); that’s almost never important.

[@kamX-rz4uy]

@@ciangibbons6643The Pennsylvania license also has DOB as the first date. It is license number followed by DOB then EXP date. The odd thing though is issue date is on its own to the right so that is the first date your eyes go to.

[@commandohazelnuts]

You have an excellent speaking voice. You speak smoothly and with a calm cadence that is hard to replicate. Almost like a child's story narrator. I also can't nail down where that accent is from but it's smooth.

[@fntthesmth423]

This video is made for me, exactly. I've been commenting on the designs of IDs since i started needing to card people at work

[@3tangents]

You might want to check out the design of Australian licences. They're not quite as nice as the one you made, but they are much more visually streamlined than the US ones. They also have a great solution for the DOB problem: the month and year are repeated on the back in GIANT font which takes up more than half the visual space of the card, formatted like "01-85". So you can see at a glance whether someone is over 18 extremely quickly just by flipping the card over. (Unless they turned 18 this month but that's an edge case which the full DOB on the front still covers.) It's a case of drinking culture leading to good design, I guess.

[@caboose202ful]

You must be from Tas, Vic or WA. I'm from Tasmania, and the first time I went to a bar in Sydney, the bartender couldn't find my date of birth despite it being listed 3 times on the card. Embossed at the bottom 'ddmmyyyy'; black text on a clear strip in the middle (against a dark bartop with poor lighting it's almost totally invisible) 'dd mon yyyy'; and the huge grey numbers on the back 'mm-yy'

[@3tangents]

@@caboose202ful You’re right, I am from one of those states. I didn’t realise there were significant differences across states, thank you for pointing out that my info was biased 💜

[@HannahFortalezza]

I was about to mention the same. Most of our licences are very easily decipherable. It also helps that we don't have certain unnecessary information such as 'veteran'

[@sch-corp]

South Australia also don't put the MM-YY on the back unless you are on a Provisional licence or learner's permit. Which makes sense because if you have a full licence, you must be over 18 anyway. (In Victoria, the one stupid state that doesn't let people get their Ps until they are 18, the numbers on the back of all licences other than learner's permits is also unnecessary...but my full Victorian licence has them all the same).

[@danielbishop1863]

@@HannahFortalezza: Here in the US, there are a bunch of businesses that give discounts to veterans. I guess having it marked on the DL is more convenient than carrying around a separate military ID.

[@lumare]

I'd love to see a "bin it or win it" review of Australian driver's licenses - for example, my south Australian one has a clear plastic window in it, just like our Australian money

[@shirro5]

I think my Australian licence is ugly as well but less cluttered as we don't list height, weight, sex or eye colour. The US looks weirdly authoritarian with that stuff. I often don't carry my licence because it is in the sagov app. When I see video of US traffic stops and they are fishing around for registration and insurance it looks so backward. The police here get all that from the plate number and no paper or stickers have been needed for ages.

[@myuzu_]

Interesting topic, there are a lot of cases where graphic design expertise would be useful, but the people making design decisions are experts in other topics (like managers, engineers, lawyers, technicians, etc.). The context focused approach is really useful for teaching basic design concepts.

[@mewr11]

I'd love to see a video comparing the graphic design of various TCGs, maybe even various print eras within a TCG.

[@TheSucread]

I love how Americans are baffled by national IDs with all the security measures. They will often ask for passports, as if the proper nationwide identification system must be fake! Using driver license as a de facto id is a significant issue, as it both excludes portions of society and further signifies American unhealthy relationship with the car.

[@Ludix147]

You can get non-driver IDs in most states

[@th4tw3irdg1rl]

American State Driver's Licenses and American State IDs are basically identical, so people who don't want to or cannot get a driver's license will just get a state ID instead. Source; I did that up until I got a motorcycle only license at age 25. Americans that have to deal with getting people's IDs from multiple states will ask for a passport instead because a passport's layout is standardized, while the state id/licenses are not. It's much easier to parse the information from three people who live in three different states when they hand you their passports rather than an ID or license. The real problem in America is our Social Security Cards, which are often asked for when applying for a new job, but are literally just your SSN printed on a piece of cardstock. There is no security with those.

[@stephenspackman5573]

I have never been more boggled than when I moved to Chicago and was told that _I need to present my driver's license to buy alcohol._ Haven't we worked out yet that drunk driving is a _bad_ thing? And yet…!

[@nathansavage8692]

Also their social security numbers which institutions piggy back off of are wildly insecure and sll but the last 4 numbers can usually be worked out with basic social engineering

[@ClementinesmWTF]

@@stephenspackman5573that’s just them being dumb, much like how there is a certain subset of society who believe that $2 bills are counterfeit or who think that being from New Mexico means you’re not a US citizen.

[@dominicmacisaac8589]

The oregon id is so painful, i have mutliple friends from college with oregon ids and every time wete not in oregon, the server can never find the dob becusse its placed exactly where you put your finger to hold the id in the first place

[@atkinsondp]

I like in NSW Australia the surname is capitalised so we can tell if a surname contains 2 words. Eg John William Robin SMITH vs John William ROBIN SMITH

[@_xeere]

I read the "you'll read this last" text second. Does that mean I'm stupid?

[@LinusBoman]

Nope, just that designer jedi mind tricks don't work on you!

[@vjhreeves]

I read it first! I've been a graphic designer since 1985 😂

[@zaidkidwai7831]

Love your videos. Been using the Atkinson hyper legible font since you made the video about it!

[@pignebula123]

Well now we’ve got to get a driver license tier list. Please, I’d love to hear about the good and bad things of each license.

[@xirabolt]

Wisconsin keeps making subtle changes to theirs. Simple things like colors of leafs and whatnot. On mine, there's a second photo in a clear window. On the latest version, the photo is on a solid background and the clear window is a hologram with your birthdate. In both cases, below the main photo is a large "MAR 86" (or whatever your birth month / year) to more readily identify if someone is close to 21

[@IsomerMashups]

I'm from Ontario, Canada, and our licenses are great. It goes: - Basic info - Number - Extra info And the boldness/size is proportional to how important the information is. Better yet, it also matches other government ID - just with a different colour of card. I never realized how bad some licenses are.

[@angelbear_og]

I've created screen forms and reports for local government agencies. I would take all their needs and then ignore most of their opinions on what it should look like in order to give them something that a user wouldn't go blind looking at. Not 100% of the time, sometimes you just have to roll your eyes and give up to save your sanity, but a good 98%. A big part of the problem is that most people in a tech position have zero aesthetic (or form factor) sense, and companies don't want to pay for the expertise of 2 people, so you get something that technically functions, but isn't very functional.

[@Castle_Bravo.]

I love the look of the Veteran Indicators on Texas and Colorado driver’s licenses

[@jadetuin9086]

Did you know that states actually has a special under-21 license that's vertical? It's not nearly as standardized, and the layouts often read better. Plus, they have special designs only used in said under-21 licenses.

[@TheLazyBot]

Love the new design! If only the government cared even a little bit about QOL improvements...

[@nowherels64]

Excellent video! I loved your use of the legend Johnny Frakes, the Spaced clip, and the Desert Bluffs poster, as well as, of course, the Ash Ketchum license!

[@philipegoulet448]

This was amazing! I'd love to see you analyze other documents like this!

[@Nathan_A_RF]

Hopefully the next step from this is to take a look at road signs. There's a huge amount of design going on there across the world!

[@AllTheArtsy]

holy hell the redesign is literally so good! O____O

[@luckytries]

I feel like perhaps there's an arcane legal rule for minimum font size in print, like there was when i was working in print in NZ. Which would block description text like the address you have there working. But it's definitely a much cleaner look!

[@KeroGero89]

Here's another change that I wish that American driver's licenses would make: have the date format follow ISO 8601. Thus, Ash's date of birth would appear as 1986-05-22. No more slashes, no more dumb order month-day-year. (day-month-year is hardly any better, because the least significant part is first.)

[@noahderrington5156]

I have always wondered why governments don’t just employ a good graphic designer to produce coherent and elegant designs for official documents. I think the Netherlands did this and it’s noticeable when visiting.

[@IkeDesign]

Your Kanto driver's license looks awesome! It reminds me of the newly redesigned Swiss passport. If you ever do another video about official documents, you might want to check it out.

[@VieneLea]

As a polish driver in UK named Prawo Jazdy, I think driving licenses are fine the way they are

[@blacky____05]

This was so fun to watch. I would also love to hear your thoughts about European licenses or IDs, and maybe see a redesign as well?

[@volundrfrey896]

With the American licences it also seems like they're just cramming too much onto them. All you need is first name, surname, card number, vehicle class, and a date of birth. Much of it could be accessed through barcode/qr like with passports. And some of it is pointless legacy information.

[@be1tube]

0:53 I read "You'll read this text first. And finally this line."

[@sas.tronaut5055]

this is what too many people dont understand about good design, its mot just about “does it look pretty” or about “can i literally read the words”, its about visual clarity and mental legibility

[@callmememe1308]

Fun fact: In 2007, An Garda Síochána (Irish Police) were trying to find "Prawo Jazdy", an Polish National who had been recorded with having over 50 traffic violations.... ...until somebody looked in a English-Polish Dictionary and found out "Prawo Jazdy" was the Polish term for a Driver's License🤦, which had been printed in the top right hand corner, with the Name being printed in a smaller font. Thankfully in the years after that, all EU and EEA driving licenses have had a standard numbered format since 2013, with the name and DOB at the top of the list next to the photo.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Never would I have expected to develop opinions about the design of driving licenses, but that's the magic of Linus.

[@felixfourcolor]

Could using grey text be problematic when old cards may have had their ink faded?

[@ChannelSho]

I think I'll use this as a reference for how to pack in information in a limited amount of space. Thanks for presenting this in clear detail with examples, both good and not so good.

[@rattrap1009]

In fairness at most concerts they check your ID at or before entry and give you a wristband indicating that you’re allowed to drink so that bartenders don’t have to deal with checking IDs themselves, but that’s still just cause checking IDs is annoying due to their layout issues

[@x--.]

I'll never forget standing next to a bar when a manager was telling the bouncer, "You can only bend a license one time when you're checking. We're trying to get people in the door." Plenty of places are doing the most basic check and relying on those who want to spend the money to do a bare minimum job faking an ID. Business is business.

[@bencarpendale]

5:36 This caught me off guard as I remembered you can have a driving licence before legally being able to drink and that the hypothetical question wouldn't really apply to anywhere else. In the UK I think you can get a provisional licence at 17, you are allowed to drink at 18 which means as long as a licence or other ID is real and assigned to that person you are at max giving someone 1 year too young a pint.

[@jeremyandrews3292]

Well, I am not sure about fading information to grey so that it's less readable, that seems to be going a bit far. Also, I do think there is value in having labels for the fields of Sex, Height, Weight, and Eye Color rather than having a key that has to be put on the back. I would say their design goes too far in the direction of making sure everything is included and readable at the expense of things being a bit jumbled in terms of design, and your design probably goes too far in streamlining things and de-emphasizing information that is considered less essential, making it harder to recognize.

[@Bane_Amesta]

This video made me check my ID card for a fun comparison (because I don't have a driver's license lol) and I can see all your points. Like I don't get why they need to know the person's weight, I don't think they have scales in police stations to check if the data is the same and the license is indeed real lmao

[@PrograError]

fat shaming /s /jk

[@jevonp]

It's to make sure you're vaguely within this size/shape range and not a stolen ID

[@danielbishop1863]

Here in Texas, the license includes height but not weight. It's probably not too useful for people who have wild fluctuations in weight.

[@andrew7955]

Something i like about Victorian licenses in australia is that I can just flip them around and see the birthdate in really large text

[@murrrr8288]

I think the font is set for image-to-text OCR, the document number is necessary for photocopies of the document and the ID info is often printed in black and white to decrease costs

[@WalterVermeir]

A core problem is that those 'driver licenses' is that they are not drivers licenses. It is a sort of 'multipass'. It makes no sense to include all that information that is not about basic name and vehicle class you may operate. - All that other information should not be on a drivers license. That should be on a identity card. Or in a database. Obviously it is a mess this way

[@richardparadox163]

Like the final design. My only critique is I would’ve kept labels for sex, height, weight, eye on the front of the card under the numbers in the same faded color/font/size as the label number. While the address and name don’t require labels as it’s self-evident, without labels sex/height/weight/eye comes off as a jumble of numbers/letters right next to each other that requires thought to parse.

[@x--.]

Yeah, especially if it isn't a national standard. Some sort of indicator on some of those would be helpful but it's a really strong revision and way better than anything I've seen. Though I wish they'd come up with something better. I'd prefer we split up identity, residency, and citizenship.

[@fastbowler]

Linus' usual insightful greatness, but with added KZbin play button! So proud of your channel and all the great hard work you've put in @LinusBoman! Glad to have enjoyed all your content all these years (lowkey humblebrag that I was an early subscriber, LOL)

[@LinusBoman]

That's very kind. Thanks for sticking around!

[@fastbowler]

@@LinusBoman Happy to see your notification that a new video is up! Thanks again!

[@drewski-qu3co]

I was with you up till almost the end when you removed physical discription and replaced them with box numbers. He shrunk from 178 cm (5'10) to 165 cm. also 5-10 could be read as 2005-Oct. So someone reviewing fake Id would say the 2 dates of birth don't match. But other than that good video.

[@amicaaranearum]

The potential ambiguity with 5-10 could be resolved by using the traditional prime and double prime marks for feet and inches, respectively (5′10″).

[@snow-shod9942]

If you look at the first example card before his changes, you can see that 165 isn`t the height, but the weight.

[@link11913]

It's an American license, so cm would never be used for height

[@drewski-qu3co]

yep, but good luck leaving your passport in the hotel safe and using license as Id when you travel abroad.

[@tobeytransport2802]

I work in a shop in a small town in Britain and I have had IDs from Poland, the UK (of Course), Ireland, France, Kansas, Ontario, Sri Lanka, India and of these i get National ID cards, passports, immigration cards and driving licenses. The information is all over the place. The photo is usually obvious but I usually ask for people to point out the date if it isn’t a British passport or ID or in an obvious place. The Non-European ones are usually the most confusing ones despite for example the french ID cards only using the french language.

[@liimlsan3]

Best thing ever is that the most common Polish name in the British traffic court system is the Polish word for "Driver's License"

[@Turelson]

And what would that be?

[@liimlsan3]

@@Turelson Prawo Jazdy! Apparently in Ireland this man racked up fifty different addresses across multiple traffic violations, until the system flagged him. Until someone decided to Google it, and realized, "the cops just looked at the license and mistook Driver's License for the guy's name."

[@nirutivan9811]

looking at my drivers license it has a similar base design than the ones mentioned in the video. But I think there is one important difference: In my country the drivers license is just a drivers license. So to proof our identity, age and things like that we have a different card. And due to this we have also less information on our drivers license: Name, Date of birth, Place of origin, date when the license was issued (that‘s only needed if your still on probation (until 3 years after the exam), cause afterwards you get one that doesn‘t expire), issuing authority, license number, what types of vehicle we‘re allowed to drive and lastly restrictions for driving (but the last two things are on the back). Other things are not on the drivers license (and many of the things (like for example home address or weight) aren‘t even on our ID).

[@scarlettohara5039]

I'd absolutely love to see a video where you review different us and world wide liscences

[@EKsUrbanTracks]

As a non-designer, watching your channel taught me to notice things like colours in your video. And yours are very satisfying, the browns and greens go super well. I thought I needed to state that.

[@HotaruMitsuki101]

...bruh, your redesigned ID looks like a Trainer's ID card. That's actually kinda cool

[@inund8]

Linus Boman: Drivers Licenses are a mess Linus Boman's end card: Cover's the video of his face with thumbnails 😄

[@AJ-Palermo]

If you think Illinois's regular driver's licenses are bad, you should see the vertical ones they give to people under 21, the information is so crammed-together and hard to read

[@stephanieparker1250]

This is cool, thanks for the info and I love the redesign! I would to see you do a video on why death certificates are completely different from state to state, even by counties sometimes. At my job I spend all day trying to find information on these jumbled messes. Many certificates have useless/outdated information sections as well.

[@Azeria]

Notable that none of those things you said about TCG card designs apply to Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Those cards are so hard to decipher.

[@roeboatwade]

Forcing every state to figure this out instead of having a centralized design feels like an intentional flaw.

[@Kaiasky]

This is so good i came here from Matt Parker and im loving all your videos!

[@TheHollowBodiesBand]

In Mexico we have separate IDs (actually, voter's carnet that can only be expedited when you are overage - 18 years here-) and driver's license. Only the former, alongside passports and military service cards may be used as official IDs

[@osmanpasha_diy]

It's incredible how much more readable your design is, but unlabeled numbers and "bro" (as well as "D - A") is just creating more questions than answers. There should be a way to put description somewhere near the data or it will be even worse than before.

[@folxlore]

u killed that redesign bro great vid!

[@Tentetnikov69]

That Kanto ID looks brilliant both from a design standpoint and just being super cool. I'd love something like that as merch! One question: Was the Kanto logo and motto something you've done before, or just for this video? If it's the latter then it would be a really interesting to see more designs for things like Pokemon region logos, perhaps drawing from stuff you've done before about London and Aus official logo design.

[@matrixace_8903]

The design is also likely because of the limitations of the card printing that they use. This means that it is usually restricted to one color, font type, and sometimes size

[@BenMarriott]

Such a great breakdown! About time to spark up the ol' debate of whether designers need to be licensed

[@LinusBoman]

Haha, cheers mate. The only downside I see is that "unlicensed designer" would just seem so much cooler on a business card. He'll justify text without indenting! He's a renegade, who knows what he'll do?

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

But who would design the designers' license?

[@Waffles783]

Old design had labels for every data, way more readable. With the new one you have to know what the numbers mean before you can know what the ID is saying. Also the contrast is so light it'd be a pain to read the address in dark bar or at night on a roadside/etc.

[@johnrehwinkel7241]

I like the general thinking, but as an Edward Tufte adherent, I concentrate on what space and ink are doing for me. The outline boxes don't add anything, they just take up space and are a visual distraction. They are reminiscent of the boxes around text in trading cards and video games, but they're superfluous on a license, especially since you're already using shading to delineate areas. The large banner at the bottom does give visual balance, but takes a disproportionate amount of room for the small amount of information it conveys. I'd probably stick with shading for visual balance, and use symbols for the concepts, probably sized and arranged for their importance to various stakeholders. Normally veteran status is just a quick check for most uses, so it could be in a corner. Organ donor status is generally only important in medical situations, where information is going to be examined closely anyway, so it can also be an icon tucked in a corner.

[@SantiagoChamo]

Fun fact! Kanto region is not fictional and is based on the real geography of the (oh surprise) Kanto region 関東地方 in Japan. So technically this could be a Japanese driving license 😂

[@wich1]

Had a nice chuckle when Linus said “the fictional region of Kanto”. Only the most populous and most well-known actual region of Japan, lol.

[@wind-flower]

@@wich1 I assumed he was just referring to "Kanto" as shown in Pokemon, which is definitely fictional not identical to the real Kanto region