Starting Monday, Virginia is rolling out new designs for driver’s licenses and ID cards.
The new designs incorporate enhanced security features that make them more difficult to counterfeit, according to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. They also feature some new design elements, aiming to “illustrate the beauty of iconic Virginia imagery.”
Virginia’s license design was last updated in 2009.
The new licenses depicts the inside of the Virginia State Capitol rotunda. (The old license design featured the outside of the state capitol). In addition, the new design shows off the American Dogwood, the official state flower, which is displayed in the center of the rotunda. The new design also features images of Virginia’s official insect, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly.
“The attractive design elements are actually layers of state-of-the-art security features,” said DMV Commissioner Gerald Lackey in a statement. “Virginians can count on their DMV to provide secure credentials that stand the test of time.”
The color palette is also getting a slight refresh. For regular licenses, the blue banner will be a less purplish blue than the old design. Green banners will be used for ID cards.
Those under 21 will still receive vertical cards.
If you have a license with the old design, no need to replace it. They will remain valid until the expiration date.
(Still looking for those butterflies, aren’t you? Look near the sample driver’s ear. The butterfly design is part of an overlay pattern surrounding the driver photo.)
