North Dakota driver's license design

North Dakota does not come up often in ID discussions because it is a less frequently ordered state, but the design has some distinctive features worth noting for both collectors and buyers.

Visual design

The current North Dakota license uses a landscape format with an image of the state's badlands landscape across the lower portion of the card. The design has a notably more muted color palette than many states — predominantly blue and grey with tan earth tones in the landscape image. The state seal appears in the upper area of the card alongside the standard data fields.

North Dakota licenses include a vertical "Under 21 until" notation on cards issued to minors, in the same format as many other states' under-21 designation.

Security features

The card uses a holographic overlay that covers a significant portion of the card face. The overlay design includes the state name and a pattern that shifts colors under angle changes. Under 365nm UV, a background pattern appears that is not visible under normal light — this is a standard security feature on current ND cards.

The photo and data fields use laser engraving on the current card generation. This produces the characteristic laser-engraved depth on the name, address, and license number fields rather than ink-printed text on a flat surface.

Vendor reproduction notes

North Dakota is not among the most commonly produced state templates, which means fewer vendors have refined their ND template over many orders. When researching vendors for a ND card, specifically asking about their ND template quality and requesting sample photos is more important than for a high-volume state like California or Texas where template quality is more consistently established.

The badlands landscape image is a complex photographic element that requires good print quality to reproduce accurately — checking how the gradient transitions in that image look on a sample card is a useful proxy for overall print quality.