What about Virginia?

https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/dmvnet/plate_purchase/intro.asp

ChrisL

ITC Clearface | Massachusetts license plate italics

Wow. That Virginia is unbelievable.

how about this virginia plate?

https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/images/plp/SCVbg.gif

Kenteken by LeFly (Netherlands):

http://www.vepar.demon.nl/lefly/

Italian number plate font by Michele Berionne and Brian Kent:

http://www.targheitaliane.it/vari/font.html

The 3M monstrosity used on new flat plates in several states isn't available as far as I know. Examples here:

http://www.plateshack.com/y2k/Montana2/mt2y2k.html

No final font distributed as far as I can tell, but neat reading nonetheless:

http://www.typeworkshop.com/index.php?id1=Helsinki_Lahti_10_2002&id2=05&...

I can post to the number-plate collectors' list I'm on and see if I'm missing any.

Are you just looking for serial (the letters-and-numbers) fonts, or every font used on a number plate somewhere? Kansas deserves a mention for going from Trajan to TNR Bold... with Papyrus on the personalised plates.

Oops, forgot one... Penitentiary Gothic by E-phemera (California):

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ephemera/penitentiary-gothic/

I've seen other interpretations of the UK and German fonts with varying degrees of success. I can post 'em here too if you'd like.

What I'm looking for specifically is (commercial) digital typefaces that are interpretations of, or were inspired by letters and numbers on license plates. So only fonts that are available for use on Mac and Windows computers apply.

For example I don't know if I want to include Eduardo Recife's Misproject. Though it is a very nice grunge font, it's merely scans of actual plates and not an interpretation as such. Penitentiary Gothic on the other hand could indeed be included.

I don't want to go the other way around and include "regular" digital fonts that happen to appear on license plates, like the aforementioned Trajan and Papyrus.

To clarify even more -- I'm looking for that particular 'somewhat awkward character shapes stamped in metal' aesthetic. You know, the rounded corners, bizarre half serifs, peculiar shapes to prevent confusing one character for another etc.

"I’m looking for that particular ‘somewhat awkward character shapes stamped in metal’ aesthetic."

Sounds like half of the street signs in North America :-)

ChrisL

the german one (i think its EU-standard, isnt it?) is so unbearable ugly. i cant stand it, and i find it a very humorous act to just digitalize the typeface after they made it so akward to «make it harder for people to copy them».

Oh, but I loooove Sauerkrauto, really! It's so much better than Lineto's version. :^)

What I’m looking for specifically is (commercial) digital typefaces that are interpretations of, or were inspired by letters and numbers on license plates. So only fonts that are available for use on Mac and Windows computers apply.

Gotcha. In that case, I think you've got 'em all -- at least the ones in my bookmarks, anyway. The other couple I know are straight-up recreations... to try a bad metaphor too early in the morning, something like the FHWA fonts, when you're looking for Interstate.

The previous norwegian license plates used the same alphabet that are used on the norwegian road signs. This have recently been digitized:
http://www.luth.no/default.asp?Searchstring=TrafikkAlfabet&side=fontpris...

The current norwegian license plates use a monstrosity of an alphabet - it's ugly and unusable (difficult to read and differenciate characters if blurry).
Here's a link to an article about them - in norwegian:
http://home.no.net/toeng/bilskilt/bilskilt.html

A third alphabet (some version of Myriad?) will apparently be used as of late 2006.

Jacob

I know this is old, but I found Penitentiary Gothic:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ephemera/penitentiary-gothic/

It is the closest I have found to a license plate font!

Susie

Hey, Yves, how about Garage Gothic, by Tobias Frere-Jones -- it shares the same aesthetic you were describing, although it was inspired by parking garage tickets rather than license plates.

In the UK we have Charles Wright,
which has some pretty odd forms.

EDIT: Yves, just re-read your first post properly (initially I just searched the page for "Wright"), Carplate doesn't look right at all, but Lineto's Alpha Headline is an interesting story. I've got some more about the origins of Charles Wright somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT II: I only just noticed this post is a year old (today!) I can't believe I missed it first time around.

I only just noticed this post is a year old (today!)

I had not noticed either, Richard. :-) Thanks for pointing that out!

Christian Schwartz's Pennsylvania is a cleaner choice and well done, of course.

Edit: (This is the wrong link:) http://www.christianschwartz.com/5608.shtml that Ricardo was teasing me about.
This is the correct link:

http://www.christianschwartz.com/pennsylvania.shtml

ChrisL

PS: Please not that by correcting the link, my post is now out of order and should be just above Ricardo's to make sense, sorry.

You mean this one, Chris?

http://www.christianschwartz.com/pennsylvania.shtml

:-)

Yes Ricardo! Thanks for fixing my boneheaded link :-)

ChrisL

Sir, you are out of order! ;-D

Wow, I had never seen this happen before, Chris! I didn't know that a post could move up or down in a thread like this! No wonder people were getting confused about edited posts.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand: I like Pennsylvania, yes I do. Reminds of old Maryland plates from way back when.

Ricardo,
I was born "out of order" and have not functioned well since :-)

I grew up in Pittsburgh and went to the same design school there (CMU) where Christian Schwartz attended. It was there where Christian became familiar with Pennsylvania plates as well as the industrial environment which became an influence on some of his other faces (like FF Oxide, the one I accidentally linked to above).

ChrisL

I dare not again correct my previous post above which now says "Please not" instead of 'please note' because it will move down to the bottom again and confuse us all once more! Sorry!

I dare not again correct my previous post above which now says “Please not” instead of ’please note’

It's all good, Chris! Remember... Zpeleen iz oberaited. ;-D

LOL!!!
ChrisL

What about Virginia?

What about Oklahoma?

http://www.tax.ok.gov/plates/sp145.html

I found a free one of the British licence / number plate

http://www.dafont.com/uk-number-plate.font