Most of the usual livery and general design principles apply… legibility, cohesive lines and angles, flow etc. The common issues I see when looking at other people’s kits is the lines don’t complement each other, there’s no established visual hierarchy, and most of them are simply too busy.
One of my instructors in school said this great quote: “Design without purpose is just decorating.” When you start just slapping on lines and fades to fill space or make it busy just for the sake of it, that’s decorating, not designing. Another good quote: “Design isn’t about what you include, it’s about what you leave out.”
Now, granted, livery design or product graphics are slightly different because mostly what you’re trying to do is convey a sense of speed or give the livery an overall feeling or mood of some kind.
The thing with karting liveries (and helmets) is that customers often see something they like, and they want that exact same thing. So when you see all these busy decal kits with the sharp points and fades and flicks, it’s because someone did that and now everyone sees it and likes it and wants the same thing. What most of the clients don’t realize (and it’s my job to explain this to them) is that by making your decal kit the exact same style as another because you think “it looks cool”, completely defeats the purpose of getting a custom design. Instead of standing out, you blend in.
This is why 80% of helmet paint jobs have the same “Euro” look, because people see it and like it and just want to get the same thing done, completely ignoring the fact that a custom designed piece should be personalized and unique.
I’ll finish by saying the KR graphics are pretty bad. The brush strokes are out-of-the-box effects, not a lot of effort there, the “wings” look like orange mustaches to me, the lines don’t match up across sections… It’s a shame because the logo is so nice and clean. The only good thing is it’s mostly white and the pops of orange help keep it bright and unique to the other liveries.