Long before I was Patrick Riley of The Lost Ogle—a revolutionary, groundbreaking, and highly influential figure in Oklahoma media who now spends his afternoons writing old-school blog posts in hopes some older wiseass will pay just 69 cents to read them—I was Patrick Riley the Creative Services Coordinator: a 26-year-old kid with spiky, salt n’ pepper hair who spent his afternoons designing and writing newspaper ads, brochures, direct mail pieces, and all sorts of other knickknacks for MidFirst Bank.
Although the pay sucked and my then-boss—some lady named Beth—was super strict about arriving to work on time, it was a great job. I’ve never been much of a manual labor type, so spending my days picking out fonts, photoshopping images, and explaining to higher-ups that, no, I don’t have the ability to convert a PDF to Word, was a solid gig.
In fact, the only real downside—besides making $12.50 an hour—was having to submit projects for approval.
As a graphic designer or creative, there’s nothing more demoralizing than spending hours, days, or even weeks brainstorming and developing concepts, only to have them rejected by a stiff with an accounting degree whose biggest qualification was going to college with Jeff Records.
Actually, scratch that.
The only thing worse than having your project rejected because some numbers guy doesn’t like the color red is when the numbers guy turns into an art director and starts micromanaging the project.
“Can you make the logo bigger? Can we put a burst in the top corner? Can we use a white family instead of a brown one? Thanks!”
They’d request these changes, seemingly unaware that in the final design, everything is where it is for a reason.
You want the logo bigger? Fine—but I’ll have to find a new image, crop it tight, condense and lower the weight of the headline, and drop the body copy down to 9pt. Doing that will make the ad nearly unreadable and far less visually appealing—but hey, you make more money than me, so I guess you know best.
Anyway, I bring up this long, lede-burying gripe about a job I had 22 years ago because—thanks to Channel 25—I’ve learned that stiff bankers with no visual taste, design skills, or eye for color are still micromanaging creative projects, leading to lackluster designs and creatives that look amateurish, forced, and completely out of touch.
This time, the banker in question is J. Kevin Stitt—Governor of Oklahoma.
Last night, Wendy “Suave” Suares with Channel 25 documented how Kevin Stitt and Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell got their grubby, untrained hands involved in the selection of Oklahoma’s new license plate—overruling the advice of design professionals, ignoring focus groups, and brushing aside common sense—to leave us with the Red Scare plates we all know and loathe today.
Wild stuff, huh? Can you believe the Governor and his chief lieutenant who spearheaded and micromanaged the effort to deliver our state an underwhelming, insanely generic logo and catchphrase for tourism purposes would do the same for our license plate?
Imagine That™, huh?
Reading and watching the Channel 25 report definitely triggered some flashbacks to my Creative Services at MidFirst days, especially the part that documents how Stitt micromanaged the design process.
I guess the first version of the plate that was designed by professionals—one with a white background that paid homage to The Guardian plates that once dominated Oklahoma roads—was approved and ready to go, only for it all to be thrown back on the drawing board because some tall, unqualified white stiff with a massive ego got involved at the last second.
Through an Open Records Request, we learned the journey to this design took a detour. It was another design that initially got the green light from Lt. Gov. Pinnell's office. It was primarily white and featured the Native American statue, the Guardian.
Emails in March 2023 suggest just slight changes to that design, but three months later, the team gets word from the Lt. Gov.'s chief of staff that Governor Stitt wants a different plate instead, featuring a red star. The team considered both a white background and a red background, deciding to go with a primarily white plate, with the star in the middle.
"We have a winner," a June 8, 2023 email said. "He said he was ready for this version to move on to the next step of being sent to 3M."
As evidenced by the fact that most cars in Oklahoma are rolling around with eyesore license plates that are redder than a monkey’s ass, obviously, the white plate “with the star in the middle” ended up not being the winner in the end.
That’s probably a good thing.
The whole 46 Star thing is supposed to pay homage to our state’s original flag—something that was inspired by our socialist roots—and at last check, it’s always been a white star surrounded by red, not the other way around.
Something tells me, though, that thought never really occurred to the powers that be. I guess they were under the direction to do the opposite of what a focus group said because the Governor knows better than anyone:
Several designs were shown to dozens of Oklahomans from all across the state. The report obtained by FOX 25 reveals the most popular plate was the original design, with the Guardian statue. The red plate designs were among the least popular.
Months later, discussions began about changing the design yet again. An October email from Lt. Gov. Pinnell's office to the designers asks, "Could either you or someone on your team hop on a call with the Lt. Governor at 10:30 to discuss the license plate? We may need to go in a different direction with the design, and he wants to talk it through with you all."
The next day, designers submitted three new variations of the new plate. All of them had the red background. Days later, an email confirms Governor Stitt and Lt. Governor Pinnell both signed off on the final plate in the color least liked by the focus group, with the "Imagine That" tagline.
If I’m being honest, I’m not a fan of focus groups or groupthink, or even grouper!
Sure, if done right they can provide quality input and feedback, but they shouldn’t be the final decision-maker. That responsibility should always fall on the professionals, experts, or creative services coordinators who get paid to make those calls.
That being said, if you show a focus group a variety of design options, and one is unanimously voted to be the worst, you probably shouldn't go with that one.
Unless, of course, you're an arrogant, tasteless buffoon who thinks he knows better than everyone else because he won the work lottery and exploited people with bad credit during the subprime mortgage boom... then you should totally trust your instincts.
Because they're part of the legitimate media, Governor Stitt wasn’t pleased that Channel 25 was digging into his tasteless, micromanaging ways:
There is no law that says that the results of a focus group dictates (sic) the license plate for the state. If it doesn’t suit your fancy, there are over 100 different other designs to check out. The Governor, Lt. Governor, Department of Tourism and Department of Commerce worked together to decide on a license plate design. Any recommendation from a focus group would aid in informing that decision.
In all credit to Governor Stitt, the state does have a wide variety of license plates – some of which are worse than the default one he messed up – to suit, or even tickle, your fancy. I know this because I ranked the “best” ones:
While the Governor was defensive toward the station and attacked the credibility of focus groups, Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell released a statement that shows how clueless he is when it comes to advertising:
The final plate design was inspired by one of the most popular specialty plates and incorporates elements of the sample designs that focus groups liked.
I hate to break it to our Don Draper wannabe Lt. Governor who has an advertising degree from ORU, but that’s the worst possible way to design anything.
You don’t create a strong, cohesive visual identity by raiding a junk drawer of “popular elements” and then slapping them all together like some sad, government-issued vision board.
When that happens, you end up with a disconnected wing-dinged monstrosity like the one below:
Oops. That's the other bad Oklahoma license plate that an equally inept governor who just watched Hunger Games micromanaged. I meant to share this one:
Anyway, I guess you can read or watch Channel 25’s full report over on their website.
I’d like to thank them for triggering some bad memories from the otherwise fine Creative Services days, and for reminding me that Kevin Stitt and all stiff bankers should stay in their own non-creative lanes and let the experts do their work – even though they won’t, because they make more money than you.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
