COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COMDESIGN INSPIRATION SEPTEMBER 2019
Up until recently I always thought I
ended up in this line of work because of
my art teacher, Mr Phelps. When I was
about 14 he told me about a job entitled
‘graphic designer’, pitching it as the
perfect combination of my two favourite
subjects; CDT and art. So without any
real idea what a graphic designer was, I
decided to become one.
However, when I recently read an article
with Richard Turley (who led the design of
the new F1 brand identity) it dawned on
me that my love for graphic design actually
started much earlier.
I’ve always known that my dad gave
me the gift of motorsport (a big passion
of mine), but what I didn’t realise until
recently is that he also gave me the gift of
graphic design. As a kid, we would spend
our weekends at stock car racing circuits.
He was a tyre and exhaust fitter who loved
cars and he was an avid follower of short
circuit racing, particularly stock car racing,
which a friend of his competed in (Conrad
Self, car 636). We’d often spend time in the
pits with Conrad, and we’d wander around
looking at the other cars.
In the interview, Richard talks about
why the F1 logo needed to be so simple;
“The identity is also built out of this idea
that Formula 1 is full of logos – it’s the
sport of logos”.
It dawned on me that his statement
didn’t just apply to F1, it applied to
all motorsport – including stock car
racing. As a kid, I’d gaze longingly at the
signwriting on the cars. The car numbers
were airbrushed to perfection despite the
battered nature of the cars, the detailing
almost fooling the eye into thinking
they were genuinely metallic. They were
covered with colourful hand-painted
renderings of logos of local garages, auto
salvage companies – even chippies.
And motorsport isn’t just full of
logos – there are all kinds of graphics
everywhere; the iconic Martini stripes and
cheeky abstractions of the Marlboro logo
throughout the noughties to get around
cigarette advertising laws – each helmet is
filled with graphics personal to a driver.
So I’ve chosen the Tyrrell P34 as my
design icon for a couple of reasons.
First of all, without being brought up
around motorsport I’m not sure I’d have
found the career I love.
Secondly, it represents everything I
love about F1. Obviously I love the speed,
the glamour, the risk... but I also love
that F1 is ultimately a competition of
creative minds. Teams of creative thinkers
(designers, engineers, aerodynamicists)
work tirelessly to come up with ideas that
make their cars go round a track quicker
than the opposition.
I’m a designer that is driven more by
ideas than aesthetics, and while there are
far more beautiful cars to have graced F1
than the P34 (and far more successful,
but we’ll gloss over that), for me it stands
for the kind of audacious thinking I love in
both motorsport and the creative industry.
In 1975, on a flight home from the
South African Grand Prix, Derek Gardner, a
designer for the Tyrell F1 team, snuck into
the first class section of the plane and
showed retired three-time world champion
Jackie Stewart his plans for their next
car. Stewart had a choking fit on seeing
that the proposed car had six wheels. TheTHE DRIVING FORCE
OF CREATIVITY
Adam Rix is creative director at
design agency Music, whose clients
include the NHS, Dr Martens and
Universal Music UK.
http://www.music.agencyrest of the sport had a similar reaction.
It was an idea borne out of restriction,
when many fundamental parts of cars
were standardised – so any competitive
advantage came from thinking differently.
As a designer who is probably more
inspired by advertising than I am by other
graphic design, I’ve always really liked
this statement on ad agency Fallon’s
website – “We believe creativity is the
last legal means to an unfair advantage”.
That’s what I love about what we do. And
achieving that unfair advantage often
requires the sort of audacious idea that
Gardner had... Drumming gorillas selling
chocolate. Thousands of balls thrown
down a hill to sell TVs. Advertising for a
hotel that tells the world how crap it is. An
art gallery with four logos. Stamps with
fruit and veg you can stick eyes on... and
that’s just the first few things that spring
to mind from the archives.
Ultimately our industry is a competition
of creative minds – and almost every good
creative I’ve ever met is at least a little
bit competitive (even if they don’t admit
it). Our job is a competition to outthink
our peers (and be lauded with industry
awards, if you’re that way inclined) on
behalf of our clients to make them more
successful and more famous – to give
them an unfair advantage.
You can’t always win but when you do, it
feels great.Adam Rix views the Tyrrell P34 as the perfect example of using design to achieve a competitive edge.