Artist Spotlight: Roberto Ramirez

Connecting a nickname to his favorite NFL team and his Xbox gamertag, the name “Bolts” has made its way into the conversation of many teams and designers thanks to the diverse design portfolio and disruptive style of 23-year-old Tucson, Arizona native Roberto Ramirez that has caught the eye of many.

Editor’s Note: Roberto is also the 2020 Trading Paints Paint of the Year winner for his unused Stewart-Haas Racing paint concept.

1️⃣ How did you get your start designing?

I’m sure this is the case for many artists, but designing is just something I’ve kind of done for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories of being interested in design is going on trips to Colorado to visit my mom’s side of the family, and my uncle would show me the basics of art, how everything is made up of basic shapes. I don’t think I knew at the time how far those simple lessons would take me, so thanks Uncle Rob!

I took on my NASCAR fandom from my dad. When NASCAR 09 came out, I was only about eight years old. I would see all these videos of people making custom paint schemes on YouTube and I wondered how people were able to import them into the game, because I thought it was the coolest thing ever. A couple years later, I finally had Xbox Live and was able to take advantage of that feature and a whole new world opened up for me.

The first ever replica paint scheme that I made was Robby Gordon’s 2011 Fast Five paint scheme—and honestly, knowing that I was 10 years old, it’s aged pretty well. I even got the right contingency layout—attention to detail, baby!

2️⃣ Where do you turn for inspiration?

Honestly, I look a lot at what people in other avenues of the sports world are doing for social graphics. I feel like the major American stick-and-ball sports are where many of the best social-graphic designers are employed, so I always enjoy seeing how they are able to build an image that is fresh every season, but recognizable to their loyal fans. That played a big role in how we built our brand elements at Spire Motorsports to go with our rebrand this season, and I think it’s helped us have a distinct feel from other teams on social.

Hayden Joyner at TRICON showed me the ropes of social graphics, and he’s the most talented person I’ve ever gotten the opportunity to work with, so I still look at his stuff every week to see where he’s at and how I can be better.

For paint schemes, I always enjoyed the way that Ryan Williams, BLACKBEARD, and Brendan Droppo were able to make killer paint schemes that had clean lines and spoke to you without being too busy, and I think that molded a lot of my style. It’s fun for me to be able to draw inspiration from and compete with them—Kyle Williams, Ryan Pistana, and all the others that are killing it right now.

3️⃣ What project of yours are you most proud of and why?

There have been so many cool projects, but one that sticks out is this year’s Go Bowling design that we ran at Daytona with Michael McDowell. To me, it’s a big deal any time that I have a paint scheme on track, but the Daytona 500 is a huge deal to me when I think about how cool seven-year-old me would find it that I have designs on track in that race now.

That was also one of the first times that I had gotten to be involved in the whole process from pitch to real life with not only the car design, but even Michael’s firesuit and the apparel the Nos. 71 and 07 teams wore at the track all weekend. I felt really appreciated by the team for my work on that project, and I genuinely think it stood out to fans as one of the best paint schemes of the weekend as well.

4️⃣ What’s your ‘trademark’ style that helps you stand out from other designers?

This may not be so much a style thing, but I feel like I have developed a very versatile skillset that I believe has helped me stand out in my career so far. I take pride in being able to do everything at a high level, whether it be a paint scheme, social graphic, or illustration. 

Speaking of projects I’ll never forget, when I was interning at TRICON [Garage] in 2023, Corey Heim was about to wrap up the regular-season championship and we needed a shirt to commemorate that. Having never done a vector illustration before, I told our office I wanted to do it and I could tell they were all a little worried. Three days later, we had the shirt up and you absolutely couldn’t tell it was my first vector illustration. So for me, I take pride in feeling like whatever you see me take on as a designer, I will figure out how to do it really well.

5️⃣ Where did the name “Bolts” come from?

So, “Bolts” technically comes from me being a fan of the Los Angeles Chargers, and it was part of my Xbox gamertag. The first people I knew in the NASCAR industry were all friends I had made on Xbox, and so they just knew me as “Bolts” and that was kind of how I became known around here. Now I go to work and occasionally people I’ve never met before will call me Bolts—it’s crazy! It’s a fun reminder of how my design career literally started on an Xbox.

6️⃣ You started out as a apparel designer for a country club in Arizona. What led to the jump in motorsports?

When I was in high school, my film & video teacher knew I was more interested in design and would give me projects that I could do for extra credit. He set me up with the Quail Creek Country Club in Green Valley, AZ and I did the shirts for their 5K run/dog walk for the rest of the time I was in high school. Looking back, that was great experience dealing with client feedback. I actually still have all the shirts I designed for Quail Creek at my parents’ house in Arizona!

I feel like motorsports was always on the radar for me, but I didn’t really know how to get there. In 2019, I was about a month away from starting my four-year journey at the University of Arizona—where I would go on to get my Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing—when Ryan Hines, then at Stewart-Haas Racing, thought I would be a good fit for a paint scheme that the No. 00 [NASCAR] Xfinity [Series] team needed for that fall’s race at the Charlotte Roval.

After that, my next opportunity with them came when they needed an extra hand to get all of their paint schemes transferred over to iRacing when COVID-19 hit and NASCAR had their Pro Invitational series during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. The work ethic I displayed there helped connect me with some of the most important people in my career and I knew that I had an “in” if I just kept working at it.

Fast forward to 2023, I had just graduated from the U of A and moved down here [Charlotte] in June to get started for real. Thankfully, it’s worked out so far.

7️⃣ You describe yourself as self-taught. What made you want to begin this journey? What were some ambitions that you had for your career?

I mentioned earlier that I got my start on NASCAR 09. After that, I found out about this really cool sim called NR2003 [NASCAR Racing 2003 Season] and got really into that. It was at this time I started trying to improve my skills and get really good at this game we call design. I switched from GIMP to Adobe Photoshop and just looked at YouTube tutorials all day; I would make replicas of real-life designs for NR2003 to challenge myself and maybe figure out how a really cool design was layered and get ideas to make my own.

At that point, the only ambitions I had design wise were to be on someone’s paint crew. Tim Johnston reached out to me about his new website 4 Wide Designs in 2014, and I did that for a couple years before being a part of Sim Racing Design’s paint crew for a year in 2016. That was the ceiling of my design goals, so it’s pretty crazy to think that all of that turned into where I’m at now.

8️⃣ Your portfolio includes extensive work at TRICON, Spire Motorsports and Stewart-Haas. What’s next on your list that you want to accomplish in motorsports?

I would really love to be able to design a livery in the INDYCAR Series one day. I have a lot of love for that series, and spent much of my teenage years doing just as many fictional INDYCAR liveries as I did NASCAR paint schemes. I would love nothing more than to see a work of art I designed racing in the Indianapolis 500 one day.

9️⃣ Your on-track designs have spent plenty of time in Victory Lane over the years. Which winning moment would you deem as your all-time favorite?

I’d have to go with the 2023 Xfinity championship race when Cole Custer got the win in my No. 00 Haas design. I designed about 20 different paint schemes for Stewart-Haas from 2019-2023, and that was the last project that I worked on with Jake Morris. Jake was an account manager there for a number of years, and gave me most of my projects for them, which was great experience working with different sponsors while I was still attending college. 

I feel a strong personal connection to every paint scheme I get to put out on the track—and I don’t take what I do for granted, so it’s always nice when a scheme tells a story.

That No. 00 was special for a few different reasons. It was obviously great to see my last project with Jake end up etched into history in all the championship photos, but it also bookended the SHR part of my story. My first and last SHR paint schemes were both No. 00 cars, so it felt neat to end it that way.

🔟 Share a design tip for people just getting started.

I always tell people that the best thing you can do is make yourself stand out. Whether that’s a unique style, unique skillset—whatever it may be—find what makes you marketable to a potential employer or client and run with it. It’s a competitive industry, so give yourself the best chance to succeed.

For more, follow Roberto Ramirez and Spire Motorsports on Trading Paints.