Good Design Practice And The Tobacco Livery Of Motorsport

Internationally, Tobacco was the lifeblood of the motorsport economy for decades. The use of sponsored livery came in the late 60s. The use of Imperial Tobacco’s red, fold and white branding on Lotus Formula One cars were the call to arms for the rest of the sport. It would be a gross distortion to suggest that Formula One was the only sport behind the phenomenon. North America, always somewhat disinterested in European-lead sport, incorporated the deals into its Indycar and NASCAR liveries, decking them out with tobacco colours and logo designs. The use of tobacco influenced livery has seen a protracted period of decline ever since the eighties. A combination of health organisation and government pressure has forced teams to look elsewhere for sponsored livery.

But the decline years lay bare the fundamentals of how Business logos operate in the public consciousness. In the early days, when only certain governments banned the use of explicit logos, custom logo design kept the brands recognisable with cunning variations on the original template. Colour is one of the widest strokes that can be taken when defining a brand identity, and this element was never really censored despite the team’s willingness to paint their cars in whatever cigarette packet colours seemed appropriate. Even those teams that have been staunchly traditional in their livery choices, such as Ferrari, have always found cigarette companies worthy of partnership.

It’s also difficult to disassociate a font style with a certain logo form. This was probably the most inventive area for the Formula One sponsorships. The common practice was simply to put the name of the team in place of the brand, but to retain the font. Sometimes a consequence of the mismatch between the team and brand names, clever variants on brand names also began to appear. Lucky Strike became ‘Look Alike’ and Benson and Hedges became ‘Be On Edge’, using both visual and sound association with the actual brand. However, the last gasp of Tobacco sponsorship has always been the most clever and subliminal: Marlboro’s use of barcode style logos on its racing teams cleverly reminded viewers of the height and density of each character of their logo.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites