The United States of America has three Grand Prix per year, but there's only one Austin. With an iconic circuit, and beautiful backdrops of the American south, the Austin GP has become a staple and fan favourite of the calendar. We go behind the design, with Senior Visual Designer - Sean Bull.

What emotion or energy did you want to capture from this particular Grand Prix?

With this poster I changed my approach a little and focused on a more minimal, emotional shot that parred down the excess of some of my previous designs where I would focus on hyper detail and try to fill with as much intricacies as possible, with the Circuit Of The America's (COTA) being the setting of such iconic ‘sunset laps’ I wanted to replicate the beauty of Formula One in those low light timings, and with the iconic hill into turn one with the COTA tower in the background it gave me the perfect opportunity to create a more expressive, palette toned piece.

I was a bit conscious that the scene might be too simple, but after peer reviewed feedback within our team and the reactions I decided to keep this parred down composition and proceed with refining it and getting the shot to match my references as close as possible, created with one light source, a strong Sun with exaggerated Texas sizing and some Volumetric cloud effects to breakup the sky and bring some more visual depth and contrast was a tough balancing act, working a lot with camera settings, exposures, ISO and shutter speeds with a lot of time spent in the tone mapping and post production to achieve both the right level of orange, shadows and just enough lighting on the car to reveal some of our livery design and branding. I

In the end this required me to make 2 renders, one with slightly brighter lighting on the car and then brush in post the focal areas to reveal just that bit more and the end result is one I am very happy with

What did this project teach you about your own style or instincts?

To take a bit more of a step back and realise that the cliché saying of ‘less is more’ sometimes Is correct, when I compare this to some of my previous posters such as Azerbaijan or Spa, there’s so much detail in the models, materials, textures and environments that took so long compared to this US poster, but the impactful result is hopefully just as high.

Going forward and what I've tried to create with each of my posters this year is to make something to go on a bedroom wall, a visually strong, and emotional poster with each one, translating the memories, sensations and emotions of Formula One and something specific to the track or region with each one.