Red Letter Day

You should not, cautions the old adage, judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to the 2025 Ferrari Yearbook, the creators of its elegant typographic cover certainly hope their treatment captures the world of Ferrari explored inside.

The latest in a line of Yearbooks dating to 1949, the new publication celebrates Maranello’s defining moments of the previous 12 months through beautiful photography, evocative writing and contemporary graphic design.

‘Our task was relatively simple: to capture what Ferrari means on the cover,’ notes Domenic Lippa, a partner of London-based design studio Pentagram. Senior designer Anthony Morgan expands that they wanted to create something bold and impactful, while continuing the legacy of the previous Yearbook designs.

Easy in theory, but in practice distilling the Ferrari brand into a purely typographic statement demanded restraint as much as invention, with the process spanning more than 30 iterations. Inspiration was not in short supply.

‘We looked through previous covers dating back to the ’40s, thought carefully about what Ferrari means to us, and then I let four of my designers go in different directions,’ explains Lippa. ‘It’s our job to stretch ourselves and challenge the brief, because stepping slightly outside it can lead to genuinely interesting ideas.’

Click to watch Domenic Lippa and Anthony Morgan explain the fascinating creative process behind the 2025 cover

To prove their point, the two designers scroll through countless iterations on a laptop – all typographic, all using variations of Ferrari red contrasted with the Prancing Horse in white or silver, each offering a distinct response to the brief. Gradually, ideas began to coalesce around the Ferrari name split across three horizontal levels.

‘As typographers, we start to look at the interplay of letterforms,’ says Morgan. ‘What’s interesting about “Ferrari” is the repeating ‘R’. When you deconstruct the word, you can still read it – it doesn’t always need to sit on a single line. That allowed us to make the name larger, and therefore more impactful within the space. From there, we simply started filtering down.’

The finished design is a study in sophisticated understatement. Three descending rows of interlocking letters create a sense of tension and movement, with nuanced shades of red and carefully judged shadow giving the Ferrari name immediate impact. The graphic is reversed on the rear cover – like glimpsing a Ferrari approaching on the road ahead, then watching it recede in the rear-view mirror.

As with vehicle design, the final challenge lay in translating the concept from screen to physical object. Subtle contrasts between matt and gloss reinforce the hierarchy and rhythm of the lettering, while the Prancing Horse appears in a restrained, jewel-like silver. The result is a cover that delights under close scrutiny as much as it commands attention at a glance.

More than 75 years after the first annual publication, the 2025 edition stands as a confident and contemporary addition to the Ferrari Yearbook canon.