From its relentless pursuit of technologically advanced cars, exhilarating rivalries and thrilling overtaking manoeuvres to creative marketing campaigns, clever brand deals and a rich history associating some of the biggest automotive design and manufacturing companies, Formula 1 has it all to be called the face of motorsports. The vast popularity of Netflix’s Drive to Survive documentary show may be partly credited to have exponentially increased the sport’s fanbase by introducing the sport in a personal and dramatic light, showing real-life arcs of successes, failures and redemption from racing drivers and behind-the-scenes professionals. With the intent of telling the story of the sport more aptly, meticulously and respectfully, Formula 1 announced the world’s first official F1 exhibition in July 2022. The exhibition arrived at the international exhibition and convention centre, ExCeL London, on August 23, 2024, after being showcased in Madrid, Vienna and Toronto since its debut in March 2023. Promising a larger and more immersive experience than previous editions, the F1 London experience is elevated by unique collaborations including London-based design practice Hingston Studio and Silverstone Museum, which is next to the historical Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. The F1 travelling exhibition takes viewers on a journey spanning over seven decades of the sport with unseen films, exclusive stories and artefacts while portraying conceptual iterations of where the future of the sport is headed. As the exhibits and interactive experiences are divided into six distinct zones, Hingston Studio’s intervention is indispensable to the cohesive visual narrative of the exhibition.

Once Upon A Time in Formula 1 presents some of the most significant moments in F1’s history through rare artefacts, interviews with important sports figures and an iconic race cars exhibit arranged on a curved black and white trackside curb. The black and white portrait of Italian racer and Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix founder Enzo Ferrari highlights the red of the 1961 Ferrari 156 F1, which was built in accordance with the new F1 regulations and took home the 1961 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers as well as the 1961 World Championship of Drivers for its American driver Phil Hill. British designer-engineer and founder of the Lotus Cars company Colin Chapman, together with British aircraft and F1 designer Maurice Phillippe, designed Lotus 72D in 1972, featuring several internal and external design changes that secured the Constructors Championship and its Brazilian driver Emerson Fittipaldi the Drivers Championship that year.

The third car on display is a Williams FW07, built for the 1979 F1 season that made the Williams F1 team and its driver and founder Frank Williams a top contender in the 1980 season and onwards. Showcased with a portrait of the founder of the McLaren Group and its F1 company, Ron Dennis, is the McLaren MP4/14, a 1999 McLaren-Mercedes model that featured advanced aerodynamics like none of its predecessors. Created by some of the most recognised designers and engineers in the industry, the F1 car won McLaren the Japanese Grand Prix and Finnish racing driver Mika Häkkinen the Drivers Championship, among several other wins that year. A London-exclusive partnership with the Silverstone Museum, an educational centre with artefacts, archives and collections on the history of the sport, allowed visitors to witness stories from the British Grand Prix and experience the thrills of being behind the wheel on the historic Silverstone track through advanced racing simulators.

Following a glimpse of the most lauded F1 motorcars, visitors are offered a chance to dive deep into its makings. “FIA regulations require all Formula 1 teams to design and build their own cars,” states a graphic on the walls of Design Lab, the second area of the exhibition that underlines the annual process of building new cars before the beginning of every season. “Design Lab takes you into the heart of a Formula 1 factory, revealing the story of a different kind of race that plays out behind the scenes– the race to build a car”, an official release states. The room features a 2020-made Red Bull Racing RB16B as a centrepiece, with which Belgian-Dutch driver Max Verstappen(Red Bull Racing) clinched the Drivers Championship title by overtaking British driver Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team) in the final lap of the last race of the 2021 season. The section brims with generous contributions of individual parts and components from the exhibition partner Pirelli, a renowned tyre manufacturing company from Italy and F1 teams such as Williams Racing, Kick Sauber, Mercedes AMG Petronas and McLaren.

Stop number three on the motorcar racing journey is all about past and present racers and drivers, their stories and fierce competitive battles. Drivers and Duels is a race circuit-inspired room that celebrates the F1 champions through displays and installations of their racing gear, particularly the helmets. The central design installation depicts the progress of drivers’ seating positions, uniform, helmet and other accessories, which underwent major changes over the years. The year 2020 observed the use of laser scanning technology to measure seats and helmets to perfectly fit the drivers. The revised regulations in 2020 gave the drivers liberty to change their helmets multiple times over the course of a season, which resulted in iconic, one-of-a-kind helmet designs, such as French driver Pierre Gasly’s 2023 white-burgundy Alpine helmet with gold motifs and the British-Belgian driver Lando Norris’s 2024 neon yellow McLaren helmet with black graphics, which is also a part of the central display. With highlights such as Hamilton’s original go-kart, a film collaboration with Gasly and his family, 100 notable helmets including Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna’s signature yellow and green helmet, Hall of Fame, collection of historic memorabilia and an array of interactive experiences, Drivers and Duels narrates the stories of remarkable drivers and unforgettable races in the history of F1.

Revolution by Design takes visitors through a series of the sport’s technological developments and pivotal designs spanning decades, along with the latest innovative designs contributed to the exhibition by F1 teams including McLaren, Scuderia Ferrari, Mercedes AMG Petronas, Classic Team Lotus and Susie Wolff. The 1967 Lotus 49, 1988 McLaren MP4/4 and 2018 Mercedes AMG F1 W09 EQ Power+ are some among the game-changing motorcars that grace the room. The regulations implemented in 2020 also stipulated modern helmets to survive extreme temperatures up to 790℃, which became a lifesaving factor for the French-Swiss driver Romain Grosjean in the 2020 Bahrain crash when his car collided with the barrier and caught fire. In collaboration with Grosjean’s then F1 team Moneygram Haas, the Survival stage of the exhibition displays the remains of the car from the collision, honouring the brave drivers and their contributions throughout history that led to improvements in the sport’s safety measures. As the visitors comprehend their learnings of the sport and its constituents, the journey comes to an end at The Pit Wall, which offers an immersive cinematic experience, transporting the viewers into the 74-year chronicles of Formula 1.

To accommodate the expansive history of the sport, London-based motion graphics, design and creative direction company Hingston Studio devised a visual identity system unique to the F1 exhibition, while coordinating with the live event and exhibitions specialist Round Room Live from the United States. Hingston Studio curated a bespoke headline typeface design system with three distinct cuts, namely Torque 100, Torque 50 and Torque Inline for a cohesive visual storytelling experience throughout all the areas of the exhibition. “With such a vast and complex narrative to tell, the information architecture was key,” says the studio via an official channel, “meticulous identity guidelines detail how the brand and typographic system can flex across print, digital and environmental touchpoints, including the exhibition spaces themselves.” The studio was also responsible for creating graphics and animated visuals for the London exhibition’s marketing campaign. Reinterpreting the spirit of the sports, the studio created computer-generated dynamic lights that fluidly move to outline an F1 car profile. From information displays to interactive installations, all aspects of the design exhibition demanded a streamlined identity that translates across physical and digital mediums, creating a truly immersive experience for the visitors.

The typographic intervention complements the nature of the sport, giving more meaning to the exhibits and tying them together thoughtfully and seamlessly for the visitors’ understanding and ease of navigation. The exhibition space is dressed in black, white and grey with a minimal design language that highlights the immersive exhibition while integrating elements of the sport. The exhibition’s portrayal of the history, present and future of Formula 1 embraces the difficult and controversial moments of the sport and presents them with respect, sincerity and authenticity, while comprehensively underlining the thrill and excitement of racing.