Race day has a new home.

We partnered with Orbus Innovation to design and build the Exclusive Racing Club platform from scratch. The brief was exact. A private motorsports community needed a digital home, and nothing off the shelf came close to fitting what they required. Member applications, event management, lap time tracking, leaderboard competition, clubhouse simulator reservations, and an in-app shop are not features any ready-made platform serves at this level of specificity. We designed end to end UX and UI across iOS, consumer web, and a full admin panel, working alongside a developer, a payments specialist, and a project manager. The engagement concluded with a complete, TestFlight-vetted iOS app and a running web platform before the client shifted direction.

The market for private motorsports club software had a clear gap. Generic event platforms could handle ticketing. CRMs could handle members. Nothing could hold a racing club’s full operating model in a single coherent product. Approval-gated membership, tiered access, car profiles with hashtag identities, lap data, community, and a simulator booking system. That gap was the brief.

01 — Apply online

Web membership form

02 — Admin reviews

Approval dashboard

03 — Pay to join

Stripe membership tiers

04 — Access app

Full iOS experience

05 — Race. Log. Compete.

Events, laps, leaderboard

Motorsport is nighttime paddock light. The entire platform ships in dark mode. Deep charcoal surfaces, Rafa Racing red (#BA2528) as the primary brand color, and a secondary blue (#1977DA) reserved for interactive affordances. The typography runs on Kanit, condensed, bold, athletic. Leaderboard rank numbers render in ExtraBold Italic with a hot-pink-to-red gradient. The design system is iOS-native throughout.

• Kanit: the typeface as a design decision, not a default

  Condensed, geometric, athletic. Kanit formats lap times at 17px with the same authority it brings to the 36px leaderboard rank numbers in ExtraBold Italic with a hot-pink-to-red gradient. Competitive intensity through typography alone.

  Typographic system identity

• Hexagonal profile avatars

  Circular avatars are default. A hexagonal clip, applied to user-uploaded photos, signals immediately that this app is built for a specific tribe. It carries from profile to event attendee rows to the leaderboard at every component size.

  Differentiates at first open

• The #hashtag car identity system

  Members name their cars, #tigerchase, #yellowbandit, and that handle is their identity everywhere: event registration, lap times, leaderboard, shop. The red # earns its prominence every time it appears.

  System-wide identity token

• SVG race track illustrations, per event

  Each track has a custom SVG outline, Texas Motor Speedway, COTA, Austin, Paris, rendered in Rafa Racing red on dark event cards. Members recognize tracks from shape alone. Admin accepts SVGs as assets. New tracks extend the library without a design update.

  Custom per-track asset library

• Lap time entry gated to registered events, not a freeform log

  Tying lap entry to a registered event means the system confirms the member was actually there before accepting data. It feeds the leaderboard with trustworthy times and gives the admin panel a meaningful participation record. One logic gate that removes a whole class of disputes.

  Data integrity over flexibility

A 36k fixed fee across iOS app and web platform. Alongside Caleb Nance on development, Luis Lopez at Openlandmark on payments, and Zavida Mangaru as project manager. Four codebases, full-stack integration with Stripe, Mailchimp, and AWS S3.

A working slice of the iOS app. Use the tabs to move between the screens members navigated, and scroll any screen to its full length. The complete clickable prototype lives in Figma.

A Next.js web application at admin.rafaracing.app. The same backend, a different surface. Approving applications, loading events and tracks, managing rental inventory, monitoring simulator reservations. Permission tiers are hard-coded at the database level. One Super Admin, below which Admins and Employees operate within defined limits.

admin.rafaracing.app/members/active

Members, active

admin.rafaracing.app/members/review

Members, new applicants

admin.rafaracing.app/members/profile

Members, profile detail

admin.rafaracing.app/events/detail

Events, event detail

admin.rafaracing.app/clubhouse

Clubhouse, reservations

admin.rafaracing.app/clubhouse/simulators

Clubhouse, simulators

First TestFlight build January 2023. Fourteen builds later, full end to end functionality across every feature area. Members used it at live events in November 2023. The client then shifted strategic direction. The platform was not publicly launched. For the portfolio, a complete zero-to-one platform build, from IA through design system through a production-tested iOS app.

14

TestFlight builds shipped to beta

4

Codebases: iOS, Admin, API, Web

145

iOS screens designed

The hardest part of designing a platform like this is not the app. It is maintaining design coherence across a system, iOS, web admin, consumer web, emails, where every surface talks to the same backend and every change has downstream consequences. Iterating directly in Figma comments with the developer is what kept the product feeling unified rather than patched. That feedback loop is not optional on a project this interconnected.