Name? And where are you from?
Steve, originally I come from a town in the south of england called Swindon, I moved up to the Midlands around 15 years ago and have been here since. I am lucky to live now in a beautiful part of the country with some amazing places to visit very close by.
How long have you sim raced and how did you get into sim racing?
I have been playing racing games pretty much all my life. My first recollection of a racing game was called chequered flag on the ZX spectrum. looking back now it was terrible, but at the time it was one of the most realistic games you could play.
My next big racing title, the one that really got its claws into me was Gran Turismo on the Sony Playstation. This was the game that really started off my love of playing racing sims.
I then purchased my first PC in my late 20’s and discovered the Simbin title GTR, it was here I started to learn how to make mods and joined the sim community, running my own mod team. This in turn started my passion for creating car mods and liveries and then went on through GTR2, then GT legends , Rfactor , Assetto Corsa and now ACC, Rfactor 2.
Whats E-Sportdesigns?
E-sport designs came about just over a year ago , when I finally decided to not just make race liveries as a hobby, but try to see if I could make specific liveries for teams and drivers. It is a website for e-sport and race drivers to come to if they are looking for a new design. My website has also become my portfolio and a place to showcase my work to new clients.
Why did you start E-Sportdesigns?
I have always created liveries but never really had a place to host them for people to use and see. I always used to upload my designs to other sites where they would become lost in all the others. So i decided to create my own website so that I had a place to upload my work, where I could direct people to and my work wouldn’t get lost. It was also my aim to go from creating liveries as a hobby, to creating designs for teams and drivers. Since starting a year ago I have now worked with some really great people, teams and drivers and have been so lucky to say I have created designs for some high profile teams such as Jenson Button’s RJN Rocket, GTWC team Haupt Racing, German Touring car team Skuba Racing and many E-sport teams and drivers.
You’ve done a fair few designs for teams now from what I’ve seen. Do you know roughly how many of your liveries are making the rounds through out ACC and any favourites?
Over the years I have created many hundreds of designs, ACC is the newest game that I am currently working on. It’s difficult to say how many are being used , but lets hope that people like them and use them, it makes the whole experience a little better.
Free liveries? Where do we get them?
My website is the main place where I host my designs “www.e-sportdesigns.com”, there is a download section in which I host free liveries for people to download and use as I still like to give back to the community that has given me so much, and showcase the work I have done with teams and drivers.
What Sim titles are E-Sportdesigns currently catering for? And are there any other titles you plan to move into?
Currently ACC is the main design sim, it offers the most realistic asthetics in any sim out there in my opinion and its very popular among e-sport racers & real racing drivers alike. I do have a lot of experience with the previous title AC and Rfactor , but dont have much time to work retrospectively.
I do plan on creating more for Rfactor 2 & would like to start working in Iracing also, The trouble is with design, it can take such a long time to create, it doesnt leave a great deal of time to work on other things, but hopefully soon I will be able to put some more efforts into those titles.
Obviously as new sim titles emerge I always look at how creating liveries is done within them and will evolve with the community on new software.
Anything interesting in the pipeline that you’d like to talk about?
I do have an exciting venture that is being worked on in the back ground at the moment, which I unfortunately can’t say to much on as it involves quite a few well known community companies. All I can say is ..it will involve me producing more designs ..across more platforms and with some of the big names in esport & real world motorsport.
What do you have planned for E-Sportdesigns in the future?
Eventually .. my goal is to work with real world racing teams, designing liveries which will be shown on real world cars. E-sports is huge now and growing ever bigger by the day, but for me there is something more to seeing an actual car , and to see one that had my design on it would be a dream come true.
For e-sports, I plan to grow my portfolio of teams and drivers, I hope to work with more high profie teams and hopefully gain partners and sponsorships along the way. I have recently become an authorised promoter of Heusinkveld, which anyone in the community will know is a high roller, and for me this was perhaps my greatest acheivement yet. Hopefully this will grow and my reputation continues on the path it has so far.
Anything interesting you’d like to tell us about E-Sportdesigns and yourself?
I have become friends with many people since starting my website and have been priviledged to work for and with so many kind and fun individuals. Aristotelis Vasilakos from Kunos is now a friend who I chat to often, he’s a really great guy and an example of how a developer can work so well with their community. I was lucky to be able to race with Aris during a 12 hr charity endurance race at the Nurburgring .. We didnt win but we had a great time and its an event I will always look back on and make me remember why I love doing what I do.
It can take around 10+ hours to create a livery from scratch , some less time some considerably more.
I once had dinner with Dave Richards , Team manager of Subaru’s Prodrive world rally team and Colin Mcrae’s Team manager.
I worked with LMP team Creation Autosport on a driver training simulator with drivers such as Jamie Campbell walter, Stefen Sarazin, Sean Edwards & Nicolas Minassian. My Favourite circuit is the Nurburgring. I have visited it 5 times previously and plan to go back for the 50th running of the event in 2022. I have two tattoo’s on my arms which are the longitude and latitude co-ordinates of the two start / finish straights of the GP and Nordschelife tracks.
And finally what do you think to PSR? I heard they finally made a position available for you?
Absolute bunch of legends .. in 20 years of being in the community … honestly … PSR are a group of some of the nicest most genuine people I have met. I really am very honoured to be part of PSR and although I cant dedicate as much time as I would like to racing with them, I hope to stay with them , enjoy the banter and help them in any way i can with my knowledge and skills.
Don’t forget to go check out E-Sportdesigns
https://www.instagram.com/esportdesigns/
Big thank you to Mr Steve Hindon for taking the time to answer my questions and also be the first person to do the Q&A. I have some more Q&A’s lined up with some very interesting people and companies so don’t forget to subscribe to be notified of new posts.
Average Sim Racer 