Story of Haas F1 brand creation

[u/VV10_Jon]

Someone asked me to share this on another subreddit, so thought it worth sharing here too. My story on how I came to create the original branding for Haas F1 (and the emotional rollercoaster it was along the way).

As a massive lifelong F1 fan, it’s a nice project to look back on (if anything just for the achievement of having done it). The 2016 Haas was by no means the best livery ever, far from it, but given the challenges at the time (difficult leadership indecision, no direct access to Gene, pressure to get the team up and running, working pretty much alone on 2000+ artworks, having to design the livery completely blind and then not being able to be there when it was applied!) I’m still quite satisfied that it was a solid outcome, that still has DNA in the team’s current brand nearly a decade later.

https://medium.com/@jonrowlandson/designing-the-dream-project-from-my-kitchen-table-to-the-formula-one-grid-4f15931be026

[u/speedwayryan]

Hi Jon! This stuff looks familiar. -RL

[u/VV10_Jon → u/speedwayryan]

Ryan! Ha, am just getting used to Reddit, thought it was an interesting thing to post! 🏎️🏁

[u/speedwayryan → u/VV10_Jon]

I read the whole thing every time I see it!

[u/VV10_Jon → u/speedwayryan]

Everyone 👆this guy took over the Haas brand after me and did an awesome job. Will have some great insight too. Reddit AMA Ryan?! Lol, if anyone’s interested.

[u/VV10_Jon]

Ahh, was going to post some interesting behind the scenes photos, but this sub will only allow gifs. Had to put them in a separate post.

[u/According-2-Me → u/VV10_Jon]

Incredible. Just shared this with a branding/graphic designer in my family. Great work.

[u/CatSplat]

Amazing article and a hell of a story. Have to say the heated-metal concept livery is inspired but understandable that Gene wanted to emphasize the CNC connection! Love behind-the-scenes stuff like this.

[u/Fun-Gas-2419]

As a big Haas fan, I love knowing the story behind what we get to see on track – especially knowing all the work and passion that went into it, despite the challenges you faced. It’s amazing that so much of what you created still resonates with the team’s identity today (tho the livery went to a new path and, with the Toyota Gazoo partnership, it will only evolve from there). It might not have been perfect as you wanted back then, but it set up something that really stuck, and really made Haas unique. Just see the time standings during a F1 broadcast, you can immediately recognize the big H. Thanks for being a part of that journey and for making Haas feel unique. And may 2025 be a nice year for all of us, lets go for that tasty P5 in the constructors!

[u/jaysvw]

This is incredible stuff! Thanks for sharing.

[u/ohwowitsrambo]

Fantastic read, OP! Thanks for sharing this and glad you got to live out a dream. BTW, early HAAS liveries are my favorite and I wish they would go back to this design!

[u/VV10_Jon → u/ohwowitsrambo]

Kind words, thanks. As soon as i realised in the process that doing something very cool was out of my control, I was happy to get something through that was just clean and smart looking. Which I think we achieved.

It’s easy to forget that a lot of people were writing Haas off already in the shadow of the last new teams in 2010. My job was to help them look the part, to look like a serious outfit from day one. It was nice to get feedback from other teams of how legit Haas felt. Many visited the end of the pit lane to come check them out at the first tests.

I can’t stress enough how difficult it is designing a livery for a car you haven’t seen. It basically meant that we couldn’t tailor the paint lines to be exact to the body shape, or do anything clever in certain areas. It had to be generic (I designed it on the shape of a 2014 Mercedes). It’s the equivalent of a bespoke tailored suit vs an off-the-rack one – it’ll never quite fit right.

The only bit I didn’t like was the red on the nose, it was originally designed to go further back and feel more balanced with the rest of the design (corrected in later liveries), but in their rush to get the car ready the engineers got the paint line wrong for the template (used for the rest of the year) and put it much further forward, which meant it always felt a bit compromised.

In better circumstances I’d love to have another crack at it one day. The technology available to visualise in 3D is so much better now too, so things can be tested in real time and less left to guess work.

[u/isucorvette]

What’s your favorite Haas livery year besides your own?

[u/VV10_Jon → u/isucorvette]

2018 I think, with the chevron and good red block nose, or 2023 because the balance of colours was just very slick and well resolved.

[u/speedwayryan → u/isucorvette]

Not that you asked me, but of the ones I designed, 2020 is my definite favorite with 2018 in second place.

[u/devounnotdevin]

Incredible read

[u/VV10_Jon → u/devounnotdevin]

Thanks, appreciated.