Yesterday I heard some bad news, one of my favorite companies had shut down. The Designers Republic had suffered many money problems of the last months, as have the rest of the country, and on Tuesday the 21st of January they laid of their last members of staff and closed.
I heard the news from a friend who noticed it on Kotaku. I'm a big admirer of their work, initially through the WipEout game series. They did the branding, styling, typography and pretty much all the visuals on all the WipEout series.
I remember after buying and playing WipEout Pure on psp I had to find out who designed it. I didn't find out until I heard about WipEout Pulse for psp that The Designers Republic were really behind the great design. I got WipEout HD for my birthday last year (yes it is amazing) and the style of the game is one of my favorite forms of design. They were a perfect company for me, they were a company that did creative design and dabbled in games.
Ian Anderson spoke to Creative Review about their shut down and said they were becoming to client based and wanted to get back to hands on design. He said he will continue on with The Designers Republic name on his own.
Quote from Ian Anderson on Creative Review “I’m looking out the window and it’s a lovely sunny day - as it always is in Sheffield - and I think there are a lot of plus points. The Republic is dead… long live the Republic”
Here's a few Designers Republic related websites:
Their splash page they left before they shut down:
The Designers Republic Official Site
Their old website with lots of artwork, prints and design work:
The Designers Republic Dot Com
A selection of the games The Designers Republic worked on with Studio Liverpool (WipEout 3 has the most interesting designs):
WipEout 3
WipEout Pure
WipEout Pulse
WipEout HD
WipEout Game
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