Designing for speed: Meet Envision Virgin Racing's graphic designer

Envision Virgin Racing cars for season 6
Image from Envision Virgin Racing
The Virgin logo in red text on a white background
by Virgin
2 September 2019

Working as a graphic designer for a Formula E team is a design role like no other. Envision Virgin Racing’s graphic designer, Mike Pass, shares what his job involves…

As the team’s only Graphic Designer, my job varies daily – if not hourly – when it comes to race week! During the week, I will create all digital assets, printed assets and any other marketing material that the team needs, including social banners, autograph cards and pop-up banners. My day-to-day work also includes a large amount of sponsorship collateral for current and prospective partnerships – this is often race-specific, and so my to do list continues to grow.

I moved down to the London office from my home town of Manchester to begin the role and it’s been a rollercoaster ever since. When I started, my very first race was just a few days away, which was a baptism of fire. While I don’t travel to every race, there is still a huge amount of preparation from a graphic design perspective – especially for the first race of the season.

Envision Virgin Racing's car at the Innovation Summit in New York
Image from Envision Virgin Racing

I got to experience my first Formula E race in Marrakesh – it was an incredible weekend. The event had a huge turnout and it was great to see racing on the streets first-hand. I learnt a lot about the sport and how adaptable you must be when racing on street circuits.

As a team, we host Innovation Summits at several races throughout the season. For the fifth season of Formula E, these were during the Paris and New York races. These are events that are hosted at an off-site venue and are attended by 200+ people, so there is a large amount of additional work required for them. 

During the Paris Summit, I branded three key things: the event itself, a hospitality suite for all our guests at the race and an evening party, alongside all the ‘standard’ race assets. It was great to be on-site for my second race and to see all the weeks of hard work in printed form.

Envision Virgin Racing logo on a round window
Image from Envision Virgin Racing

The Paris race taught me a lot about the pressures of time management and the flexibility required within my role – Formula E is a one-day event on a street circuit, so the elements are fairly fluid until you reach the venue and this meant that a lot of changes had to be made on-site.

Going to New York, I was prepared for late nights and long days – but the satisfaction I get from seeing my work displayed at major events makes it worthwhile.

I love working for Envision Virgin Racing; the teamwork and the camaraderie between every single person is unbelievable. From the mechanics working on the car to the press officers, everyone has an extremely important role to play and this is demonstrated excellently throughout a race weekend.

Find out more about what it's like to work for Virgin.