How can one image - a few strokes of a brush with some colour mixed in - represent a major international sporting event to millions?

The Olympics does it with five interlocking rings. Wimbledon does it with crossed racquets.

Organizers of the Grand Prix of America at Port Imperial had this challenge as they began to establish a brand for their event, the Grand Prix which will take place on the shores of the Hudson River in New Jersey in June, 2013.

After reviewing dozens of renderings, the Grand Prix of America group chose a blue-and-red logo that features a stylized Statue of Liberty crown over a chequered-flag helmet, anchored by a single star.

It also has a hidden, artistic layer.

"If you lay the logo over the Statue of Liberty face, the flag works perfectly with the hair, and one of the checkers in the flag and the star line up with her eyes," says graphic designer Aaron Justus. "There's a link that may not be obvious to every viewer, but it's really cool how it worked out."

The logo was created by Racer Media and Marketing, a media and design agency directed by President Paul Pfanner. Although the Grand Prix of America staff considered a number of concepts, the Statue of Liberty was key to everyone. The iconic monument, which represents freedom and international friendship, graces the Hudson River harbor between New York and New Jersey.

Pfanner said it was a fitting symbol for the race, which will run on a 3.2-mile road course in the towns of Weehawken and West New York, N.J., with the dramatic New York skyline as the backdrop.

"The constant, through every planning process, was the Statue of Liberty iconography," he said. "It is shared between the New York metro area and New Jersey, something that the whole region and country can claim as an identity. It registers immediately as America to people. It's international, too - it's a gift from France to this country, which is an ironic metaphor; Grand Prix racing started on the roads of France and today is headquartered in Paris."

Pfanner, Justus and their associate George Tamayo worked on the brand identity for two months, in consultation with the Grand Prix of America management group. The first step was determining all that the logo needed to represent: the race and other associated events, the locale and the sport.

"We were naming the entity that was responsible for the race circuit and for the promotion and organizing of the event. It was the movement of bringing America to Formula One, rather than Formula One to America," Pfanner noted.

Then the graphics came together. The group agreed on the crown element, but Justus wanted it to be distinct. "The challenge was using such an iconic element and not being cliche or looking like clip art," he said. He analyzed 20 other logos that featured the Statue of Liberty to make sure his design was unique.