Michigan hologram overlay — what I found inspecting it

Michigan driver's licenses use a full-card holographic overlay that is one of the more complex I have examined across US state cards. Spent an afternoon comparing a vendor card against a genuine license I borrowed from a collector. Here are my notes.

Coverage and design

The Michigan overlay covers the entire card face with a continuous optically variable device. The design includes a repeating Michigan state logo element, the word "MICHIGAN" in small text, and a wave pattern that shifts across colors as the viewing angle changes. On a genuine card, this shift is smooth and the color transitions move as a wave across the card surface when you tilt it.

Vendor card comparison

The vendor card I examined reproduced the overlay design elements correctly in terms of content — the state logo was present, the text element was in the right position, and the wave pattern was visible. The differences were in the quality of the color shift and the sharpness of the design elements.

On the genuine card, the color shift produces clean bands that move smoothly. On the vendor card, the same tilt produced a similar shift but with slightly more color mixing between bands — the transition zones were wider, producing a muddier intermediate color rather than a clean transition. This is a characteristic of lower-grade OVD film and is visible when the two cards are directly compared, though not necessarily obvious when viewing the vendor card alone.

What holds up under casual inspection

At a glance — the standard venue-level check — the vendor card's hologram looks correct. The OVD is present, it shifts colors on tilt, and the design elements are in the right positions. The quality difference is only apparent in careful comparison or if you know specifically what the clean Michigan color shift looks like.

For most practical purposes, the vendor card passes the hologram check. For collection-level quality evaluation, the grade is medium rather than high.