Because imaging is not just about photography, and due to my graphic design background, I wanted to leave here a brief intro, as well as homage to one of my favorite graphic design companies and the one that influenced most of my visual taste. The Designers Republic, from UK.
I first had contact with their work in 1995, i was still 12 or 13, when the first WipeOut, for Playstation one, got out. Never before I’ve seen such attention to detail, at so many levels, put into a video game. The visual appeal of the game was impressive, and everything was studied, including all the teams logos, outdoors publicity in-game, the mind-blowing soundtrack, etc. In fact, it was the first ever video game to feature in-game adds from major companies such as Red Bull, and a soundtrack with names such as The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, The Future Sound of London, Leftfield, etc
Back then of course i didn’t even know what graphic design was, and only almost 10 years later i came to learn about The Designers Republic’s part on that and others projects, when i was taking my degree in Communications Design at UALG College, in Faro, Portugal.
Their work was of great influence to me, especially the minimalistic, raw , subversive aspect of their designs.
“The Designers Republic (tDR for short) was a graphic design studio, founded on 14 July 1986 by Ian Anderson, and based in Sheffield, England. It was known for its anti-establishment aesthetics, while simultaneously embracing brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands, such as Orange andCoca-Cola. The studio closed in January 2009, though Anderson has stated that “[The Designers Republic] will go forward after this”. Despite this, Warp Records announced in 2010 that the studio had designed Oversteps and Move of Ten, Autechre‘s tenth album and EP respectively, as well as designing their 1991–2002 EP
The work of tDR had great influence on the development of graphic design, especially in the fields of web and cover design in the electronica scene. The Designers Republic’s works are often playful and bright, and considered Maximum–minimalist, mixing images from Japanese anime and subvertised corporate logos, with a postmodern tendency towards controversial irony, featuring statements like “Work Buy Consume Die”, “Robots Build Robots”, “Customized Terror”, “Buy nothing, pay now”, and “Made In The Designers Republic”. They also celebrated their northern roots with phrases like “Made in the Designers Republic, North of Nowhere” and “SoYo” (referring to Sheffield‘s county of South Yorkshire) — affirming they were not from London‘s design community in Soho.” – Wikipedia
Hope you like their work has much as i do. Check out The Designers Republic at www.thedesignersrepublic.com
Related articles
- Design is fundamental (en2design.wordpress.com)
- Review: Wipeout 2048 (Vita) (bnbgaming.com)
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