Research

After extensive research into livery designs, I found that official F1 liveries are highly intricate, tailored for long chassis with extensive external aero body panels, making them challenging to replicate. Consequently, I focused on university formula livery designs, realizing that my primary goal was to accurately represent the school's colors.

Instead of choosing a straightforward design to quickly join the team, I focused on creating a final product that truly honored the racecar and established a strong foundation for future livery designs.

Style Elements

In addition to the color palette, I received an SVG file of the team name and a PDF of the chassis skeleton. The team also provided previous UW Formula Livery designs and references from other universities' livery designs. Notably, many university race cars were easily identifiable with their respective schools, making that my primary objective.

Design Process

Initially, I intended to design the entire livery in Illustrator, as most online sources recommend using vector shapes. However, the chassis skeleton provided was a hand-drawn .PDF, making it difficult to trace the paths accurately in Illustrator. Therefore, I switched to Photoshop and rasterized the design. After many meticulous hours of pixel coloring and shading, I filled the chassis design with black, creating a blank canvas to brainstorm the livery.

After coloring the PDF file and converting it into a rasterized, colored design, I began creating body lines that flowed along the chassis. My goal was to give the car a sleek, sharp look that evoked a sense of speed and precision. Once the body lines were drawn and properly masked, I filled them with the University of Washington branding colors. I used purple as the primary color, gold as the secondary, and white/black as tertiary, ensuring the color ratio accurately reflected UW's branding. I also created a vector logo for UW Formula, incorporating a "U" and a "W" with a flag in the middle. For mockup purposes, I added gradient shading and sponsorship decals to complete the look.

Final Product

After submitting my design mockup, I was accepted onto the team and began the process of getting the design printed and applied to the car. We collaborated with a vinyl wrapping shop called EMWraps, where I converted the rasterized design into a vector for printing. The shop then wrapped the design onto the chassis, completing the racecar’s livery.