Force India has a new graphic identity for 2015, it is too complex and the bunch of white sponsor names on the black engine cover looks a bit like desperation to cram on as many sources of income as possible. The car ends up looking like an uninviting fairground ride. This may sound tough, but if the sponsor wants to associate its company or product with a stylish modern sport then presentation is everything. The 2015 Lotus, with the exception of the red and white ‘PDVSA’ logos, has a strong theme with cream on black used for both the sponsors names and the little graphics darts. This is unlike Sauber who have chosen a remarkably dull blue for the main color and then applied a shapeless yellow and white graphic to the side pods for their ‘Banco Do Brasil’ sponsors. Sponsorship space on an F1 car is almost always sold on a dollars per square centimeter basis with different areas of the car having a higher or lower cost; the teams marketing people can either be creative in how these spaces are sold or they can be rigidly inflexible. It is clear which teams use which approach!
McLaren have yet to sign a major sponsor again this year and despite having Honda as their works engine supplier have chosen not to use Honda’s red and white corporate colors. Bright silver has been replaced by a very somber color scheme with just a touch of orange. The McLaren company logo ‘Nike ticks’ on top of the side pods is like a well kept secret and will only be visible on TV at a track like Monaco, whilst the orange lines on the nose highlight the lumpy form of the car when they could have been used to hide the strange plan view of that long nose.
Red Bull managed to get a lot of press coverage because of its black and white ‘disguise’ graphic on the pre-season test cars; it was hard to read any sponsor names but it did get people talking about the look of the car. The definitive race scheme is not just a multi-colored version, it’s actually quite different but all the focus is on the large red bull on the engine cover the actual ‘Red Bull’ logo is rather hidden behind the front wheel. Toro Rosso; darker red and gold on the nose which is always difficult because gold on TV tends to look like mud in most lighting situations.
Mercedes has had at least three goes at what the graphics on engine cover should look like, it’s the same with the green background behind the ‘Petronas’ on the side pods, is there to be a definitive version? It is a well-known fact that if a company wants to reinforce the strength of its image then ‘not making up your mind’ is not the way to do it. You have to have confidence in one clear graphic statement and then repeat it unchanged in all your messages. This seems to have been forgotten in 2015.
