I began the process of designing this movie prop by researching old driver's licences. The prop was to be set in 1919 and although it needed to be relatively historically accurate I could add or take away some information if necessary in order to create a piece which would add to the narrative of the movie. Since Ireland was still under British rule in 1919 I wanted to design the front cover in a vintage British style. The licence on the right of the inspiration board above shows the lion and unicorn image which is a typical crest used for British documents. However, inside I wanted the typography to look like a real licence of the time. On the bottom left of the inspiration board you can see a real copy of an Irish (Dublin) licence from this era. I recreated this design as closely as possible. Which you can see below.

This was the first version of the licence inside which I designed. The real vintage licence didn't have a right side with a photograph but I wanted to add this in. I was happy with the authenticity of the design but I felt that it needed to look more like it was letterpress printed and had word out parts. I also had to create some really bad kerning and spacing between some words and letters. If you read the sentence "for the period of Twelve Months from" you can see that the spacing between "period" and "of" is really big. I had to do this from place to place throughout the design to make sure it looked hand printed instead of made on computer.

I added a worn out effect by using a textured background which I got from Lost + Taken. (click here). This site has lots of great textures which you can use to create a stamped / letterpress look to your designs.

This is the design which I made for the front page which would be printed on the back of the information page. It is very probable that this page would not be seen on film but still a full design needs to be created just in case. With no reference material for this page I took a typical art nouveau (the style of design for that time) flourish design and added a title which reflected the typography from the information page of the licence.

Lastly the front cover needed to be designed. I copied the design of the British licence which has a red background. I however, plan to print this design onto a green or kaki coloured piece of card as with the growing nationalism in 1919 I feel that a green rather than red cover would be more appropriate. 

The tools used were dip pens, brown ink, round corner punches, eyelet punch and brass eyelets, stamp set and black ink pad, red ink pad, company seal, awl or etching tool, mail style stamps, cotton ribbon, crinkle edge scissors. I purchased some of these tools on ebay from China, Evan's art supplies, Lidl, Tiger and Trimmings on Caple Street in Dublin.

Adding hand written words with dip pen and brown ink. 

The crinkle edge scissors adds a vintage style edge to the portrait photo. 

I used a pointed etching tool to make holes every 1 cm along the middle spine of the licence. I then used cream thread to stitch along the spine.

I began to add details such as licence number stamp, seal on bottom left, brass eyelet to secure portrait and red stamps over the portrait. I also worked on a 1916 themed telegram which I printed on light grey paper. For this piece I used an irish themed font called Gaeilge1 which is available here (Gaeilge1).

I used an old typewriter, which was my Mother's, to type a short telegram about the 1919 raid on Collinstown aerodrome which James Sheridan took part in.

This is the final telegram with all the necessary information added. 

This is all of the props finished displayed with the James Sheridan poster and silk screen print. I am delighted with the results and can't wait to see them being used.