The touchscreen home screen on the 4K portrait kiosk, with the car and links to the drivers and ways to get involved — The kiosk running the app, April 2023

Case study · Creative · Motorsport · Paddock Club hospitality

Every raceon every screen.

A Formula 1 team wanted Paddock Club guests to explore the team, the car and the season on a touchscreen, in the team’s own designs down to the pixel. We built a custom React web app for 4K kiosks, hosted it ourselves and updated it before and during every Grand Prix.

~40 pagesbuilt from the team’s own designs

Every GPstandings, tracks and shop updated

Remoteupdates pushed and screens managed by PC1

The full case study, with the team and the creative agency named, is available to partners and clients on request.

Partner access

The challenge

Exactly as designed.

The team’s designers supplied every page as Adobe XD artboards (Adobe has since retired XD, and we now work from Canva designs too), and the team guards its branding closely. Off-the-shelf signage software could not reproduce those designs faithfully at 4K, so the screens needed custom software.

The app also had to run unattended in hospitality and change quickly whenever a sponsor, a driver or a track changed. Agreed at 15 to 18 pages, it grew to around 40 as the season took shape. We put the time set aside for a content system into the extra pages rather than going back to the team for more.

How updates work

From artboard to paddock.

The team keeps designing in the tool it knows. We turn each change into a tested update that every screen picks up on its own.

Design
The team updates the Adobe XD artboards for the next race.
Build
We export, cut and encode every image to the right size and build the changes into the app.
Publish
The update goes to the cloud backend, a Node.js server we run and keep patched.
Pull
Each screen fetches the new content when it restarts, or from a hidden menu behind a secret button.
Check
We log in to the screens remotely to test, and work with staff on site over the race weekend.

Locked down

Kiosk mode

Lockdown software keeps each screen in the app, so guests can’t wander into Windows.

Accessibility

Within reach

When it emerged that a wheelchair user couldn’t reach the top menu, we added a back arrow at the bottom of every page.

Detail

Tyres to scale

Pirelli’s tyre images varied in size by compound, so we redrew the wheels to keep them constant. They are now more accurate than the originals.

Inside the app

Tap through it.

The screens hold the car, the race and academy drivers, the 2023 season, the team behind it and ways for guests to get involved. Pick a section to see it on the kiosk.

Photos of the live kiosk, taken during our April 2023 walkthrough.

Home screen with the car and links to the drivers and ways to get involved

Front and side drawings of the kiosk: a portrait screen in a white leaning unit with an integrated speaker and LED edges — Kiosk design for the 2023 screens: a portrait 4K display with an integrated speaker.

Under the bonnet

Built for one screen, perfectly.

Front end: A React progressive web app, built for a 4K screen in a fixed portrait orientation.
Back end: Node.js on a dedicated server that PC1 manages and keeps patched.
Screens: 4K touchscreens with slot-in PCs and kiosk lockdown software, ready to scale to more devices.
Support: Secure remote access to every screen, so updates land even when nobody is on site.
Next: Costed paths to a content system for the team’s own staff, a fully responsive version, or a headless rebuild on Strapi or Sanity.

Race by race

The 2023 season, live.

Every round brought new standings and track pages, and often a new sponsor, driver or pop-up shop. Some changes arrived on race weekend itself.

Silverstone
A new academy driver added. Steering-wheel page rebuilt around a new wheel image, with a pulsing “Press a button” prompt.
Singapore
New car facts and header images, an updated partner logo and a new pop-up shop page.
Austin
Constructor standings redesigned. Two new sponsors added, one swapped at the last minute.
Las Vegas
Pop-up shop details, refreshed imagery across the car and driver pages, and a new partner.
Abu Dhabi
Another academy driver added with bio and gallery. Pop-up shop removed and guest links enlarged.

The outcome

What changed.

Two seasons in the paddock
Portrait driver and team screens in 2022, then the full 4K app for 2023, kept current race after race.
Everything as designed
The team got every page it asked for, in its own designs.
Accessible
A back arrow at the bottom of every page, added when a wheelchair user couldn’t reach the top menu.
Ready for the next brand
Refined since to cost less to run and update fully remotely, and suited to transparent OLED displays.

Kit & technology

Built with.

React PWA
4K portrait touchscreens
Multi-screen & mobile
Node.js backend
Kiosk lockdown
Remote management
Adobe XD & Canva hand-off

“There is no off-the-shelf software that can give the team exactly what it produces in the Adobe XD files. The PWA solution meant it got exactly what it asked for.”

Graham ThomasSales Director, PC1

More case studies