Given that he is one of the back-room men in F1 who does a job many people think about, but few understand, we thought we would wish happy 50th birthday to Ian Hutchinson.

For those of you who don't know him, Ian is the man responsible for designing the livery and paint scheme of cars as legendary as the famous Le Mans winning Silk Cut Jaguars, the 7Up Jordan, every Mild Seven Benetton from 1994-2006 and more recently Team Ireland's car which won three awards for best design on its way to winning the World Cup of Motorsport in 2009, plus being involved in the Virgin Racing F1 livery and Cosworth's new-look image on its return to F1.

"I've been fortunate to work with Ian on a number of occasions, said Cosworth's Mark Gallagher, who worked with Jordan during the &Up days and was team boss at A1 GP Team Ireland, "and each time he manages to get the balance right and create something memorable.

"It is not easy to design an aesthetically pleasing, memorable and really visible identity, especially on something that's doing 200mph," he continued, but to also be able to develop a theme across everything that a team or sponsor has to create - clothing, garages, trucks, merchandise, press materials - it require a lot of skill and deep experience.

"I doubt many people realise that the 7Up and Fuji Film logos on the Jordan-Ford Cosworth 191 were not in fact the correct corporate identity, but after Ian told Pepsi Cola and Fuji Film that the standard logos would be invisible on an F1 car at speed he was proven correct and they asked him to do whatever necessary to make them visible. It is amazing how few sponsors recognise that their identity developed for print, digital or advertising media simply won't work on an F1 car, or any other racing car. Ian takes them by the hand and shows them how to do it. I'd like to say it isn't rocket science, but actually in Ian's case I think it is! Well done, and happy birthday Ian."

And happy birthday from all at Pitpass.