中文HP Inc. has revealed how its printing technology, materials science and engineering helped Scuderia Ferrari HP bring a special United States Grand Prix livery to life. Ferrari conceived and designed the graphics to celebrate the engineering and creative processes behind Formula 1 performance, exposing the sketches, technical drawings and design detail normally hidden beneath the finished bodywork. Working across Ferrari’s Maranello headquarters and HP’s engineering operation in Barcelona, the two teams developed two versions of the design: a race-ready livery for the cars competing in Austin and a dedicated display vehicle carrying hidden graphics that fluoresce blue under ultraviolet light.
Translating Ferrari’s artwork onto the complex, contoured surfaces of a modern Grand Prix car was a demanding brief. HP Latex printing technology and specialised vehicle-wrapping techniques reproduced intricate graphics across the cars while meeting the heat, handling and maintenance demands of a race weekend, where every component is scrutinised for weight, durability and aerodynamic impact. The latex route offered the flexibility and conformability needed for three-dimensional surfaces without compromising the finish expected at the sport’s highest level.
The display car added a deeper technical challenge. HP engineers adapted an existing invisible blue ink for use with the HP Indigo 200K Digital Press, so that graphics stay concealed under normal viewing but become visible under ultraviolet illumination, creating a second visual layer that reinforces Ferrari’s theme of revealing the engineering beneath the paint. Achieving the effect required extensive testing of ink formulations, primers, substrates and application methods to cope with the car’s curved geometry. HP Z Workstations supported the digital design and engineering effort, helping translate Ferrari’s creative artwork into graphics aligned with the vehicle’s form.
Anneliese Olson, President of Imaging, Printing and Solutions at HP, said the collaboration brought together printing, colour science and engineering expertise to solve unusual production problems while generating knowledge applicable to future customer projects. That last point is the strategic one. HP is explicit that the work has potential well beyond motorsport, particularly in covert brand protection for labels and flexible packaging, where graphics visible only under specific lighting could support authentication and anti-counterfeiting applications. A security feature that is invisible until illuminated is exactly the kind of functional print effect brands increasingly want.
The project also demonstrated how HP Latex technology and advanced wrapping can reproduce detailed graphics on complex three-dimensional surfaces while surviving harsh operating conditions. For commercial printers, packaging converters and specialist graphics producers, the Ferrari collaboration is a vivid showcase of how digital inkjet, specialty inks and material engineering can push printed decoration beyond conventional visual effects into functional and security-related territory. It is a reminder that some of the most valuable print innovation still happens at the edges of impossible briefs.
Source: INKISH.NEWS (inkish.news)
The more consequential implication is in security and brand protection. Invisible, light-activated graphics have long been the preserve of specialist security printers, but HP’s adaptation of the effect to a mainstream digital press suggests a route to covert authentication that converters could offer brand owners at scale. Pharmaceutical, luxury and electronics labelling are obvious candidates, where a package that reveals a hidden mark only under specific illumination can help distinguish genuine product from counterfeit in the field. The Ferrari project is, in effect, a high-visibility stress test of capabilities, materials and application methods that could be repackaged as a commercial service. It also underscores how motorsport remains a proving ground for print technology: the unforgiving surfaces, temperatures and handling of a Grand Prix weekend force engineers to solve problems that later pay off in less extreme commercial environments. For HP, the collaboration is both a marketing coup and a pipeline for future functional-ink products.
The security-printing opportunity is sizable and underserved. Brand-protection spending keeps rising as counterfeiting spreads across pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, electronics and luxury goods, and brand owners want authentication features that are hard to replicate yet cheap to verify in the field. An invisible mark that only appears under a specific light, produced on a mainstream digital press, fits that brief better than many legacy holograms or tags, and it can be woven into existing label and flexible-packaging artwork without redesigning the product. For converters, offering such a covert layer could become a differentiated, higher-margin service as customers seek supply-chain integrity. The Ferrari collaboration also delivers marketing value that is hard to buy: associating HP’s colour science and materials engineering with one of the most recognised names in motorsport, in a way that visibly demonstrates capability under extreme conditions. That visibility helps HP tell a broader story about print as a functional, value-adding layer rather than a commodity output.
Beyond the spectacle, the project illustrates how deeply materials engineering now underpins printed decoration. The primers, substrates and application techniques validated on the Ferrari bodywork are directly transferable to commercial vehicle wraps, premium packaging and high-value labels, where durability under heat, solvent and abrasion is non-negotiable. HP’s willingness to adapt an existing specialty ink to a new press platform also shows how quickly functional effects can move from prototype to production when the engineering incentive is high. For converters weighing investment in latex or Indigo technology, the collaboration is a reminder that the differentiator is increasingly the ability to solve unusual, high-stakes briefs rather than simply to print faster, and that the most valuable print work often lives at the intersection of colour, chemistry and creativity.
