To find out, The Motorsport Journal asked Matt Reeves, who studied automotive design at the University of
Swansea and has since established himself as an industry-leading livery designer with
Prodrive’s Aston Martin Racing and Subaru World Rally teams, as well as 2014 Le
Mans 24 Hour winners Jota Sport and British GT outfit Barwell Motorsport. To
contact Matt, click here.
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The Hanergy Aston Martin, designed by Matt, was among the most
colourful designs on the WEC grid in 2015 (Aston Martin Racing). |
James Newbold (JN): How do you get into this line of work?
Matt Reeves (MR): Part of my
third year major project at university was to work with Prodrive on a
commercial car, which got me a foot in the door back in 2005. Initially, I
started off with the automotive sector in Warwick, which was doing after-market
design and limited edition body-packs and bits and pieces like that for Alfa
Romeo and Subaru.
From there I got moved onto
motorsport projects, originally mocking up base liveries for clients, taking
photos of the car and mocking up what their brand would look like on the car.
Not long after that I got moved into the corporate marketing department and it
just progressed from there, working on race and rally programmes with Aston
being the biggest of those.
Motorsport is a very tight
business, people move onto different teams and once I was part-time freelance,
I kept in contact with people and the work has kept coming in each year with
new teams, some start-ups, some fairly established. A lot of it has been word
of mouth, and as a result I’ve hardly had any time to do my own marketing,
which is a good problem to have.
JN: Your schedule must be very different from the majority of people
who work in motorsport, for whom the winter months are pretty quiet!
MR: Yes, it’s very seasonal
obviously – there’s still bits and pieces, for the races through the year some
of the teams require marketing materials, guest invitations, posters and things
like that. I also work with another ex-Aston Martin colleague who runs a
marketing PR business and together we have a few non-motorsport
projects to keep me going through the off-season as it were – the period from
October to March once the cars are out there is very busy, which I enjoy.
JN: Is there a temptation to stick with liveries that have proven
successful in the past?
MR: Of course there’s always the
iconic liveries in the back of your mind, but you try not take too many cues from
them and steer more towards something that is your own work. My first livery
which I was involved with from the start was the Gulf Aston Martin DBR9 in 2008
– I know it just looks like a stripe on a car, but there’s a lot more to it
than that!
JN: Is there a process you follow to ensure maximum visibility for
sponsors?
MR: The first thing you have to
plan out is where to put the logos and key branding to get the most coverage.
People always think the side and the doors is a primary spot, but the front
around the bumper area gets just as much. The rear wing is probably less of a
valuable spot than people think, although it’s a bigger area. It’s just a
matter of making sure brands have the exposure they’re after for the money
they’re putting in.
Once you’ve got those, it’s a
case of looking at the sponsors’ design cues, if they have any, which mostly
depends on whether they are going to be a title sponsor. The colours are fairly
set – a lot of the teams that come to me will have a brand which they want to
carry through on the car as well. For example, if it was black or blue then you
wouldn’t pick up that it was sponsored by McDonalds.
JN: How satisfying is it to see your designs do well?
MR: It’s great to see it work out
on the track, it makes it all worthwhile. The Gulf Aston Martin from 2008 was
my first major one I worked on and to see it through from the concept stage,
mock-ups in Photoshop, getting it through to production and to then win the GT
class at Le Mans was incredible. I also worked on the Jota last year and did a
slight update for this year.
