The Designers Republic

The Designers Republic is a Sheffield-based design studio, founded in 1986 by Ian Anderson and Nick Phillips. They've since become a highly influential design studio, accredited for pioneering the Vectorheart, and Y2K Futurism art style, examples of this including Psygnosis' Wipeout, packaging for the Sony Aibo ERS-210, and the majority of their output post-millenium. Other notable works include building the brand identity for Warp Records, anti-establishment, post-modern works such as Pho-Ku Corporation and merchandising lines. Their collaboration with Autechre spans from Incunabula to AE_LIVE 2022－, however with a "break" following Chiastic Slide, and ending with Quaristice.

History

Before The Designers Republic, Ian Anderson had become engrained in the Sheffield music scene, managing and working with various bands—something which naturally lead him into design—having to create flyers for various gigs. This resulted in him being asked to manage the band Person to Person, for which he created the Designers Republic banner, both to take advantage of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme and as a necessity due to a conflict of interest in him being band manager and also designer. After being asked to create the artwork for Chakk's 10 Days in an Elevator, he requested help from his friend Nick Phillips, with whom he created the artwork for Age of Chance's, their indie success provided tDR with wider recognition, and consequently work for Pop Will Eat Itself.. It was also at this time that they created the brand identity then-nascent Warp Records.

Their rising popularity in the design world lead them to work with various large-scale entities in the late 90's and early 2000's, such as Coca-Cola, Gatecrasher, Emigre, Channel 4, Nickelodeon, Pulp, and various others.

Changes in the music industry, large-scale copying of their style and mismanagement meant that in 2009, The Designers Republic would go into voluntary liquidation, emerging as a "leaner operation" since.

Relationship with Autechre

Autechre has a long-standing relationship with The Designers Republic and Ian Anderson. First learning of them through tapes sent to Warp Records and being "blown away" on first listen, he would then foster a personal relationship with the duo, liking the "intellectualization of the design process" and the dynamic between them.

Autechre and The Designers Republic took a creative break following Chiastic Slide, presumably for greater creative freedom, they would re-unite professionally for the artwork for Quaristice, inspired by the abrasiveness of the music and Norton Disk Tools' disk defragmentation graphic, they would create the erratically spaced typographic cover for the album. They have since worked together for nearly all their following projects.

The Designers Republic has had a continuous theme of humanity vs. technology in their works with Autechre, from Incunabula to the unreal nature of the Amber cover, impossible, strange machinery for Tri Repetae, fragmentation and abstraction for Chiastic Slide, Exai's abstract, brutalist typography to the entirely human covers for Oversteps (both the circle and typography were handwritten in the cover).

As of AE_LIVE 2022, The Designers Republic have worked with Autechre on the following releases:

• Incunabula (1993)
• Basscad,EP (1994)
• Anti (1994)
• Amber (1994)
• Garbage (1995)
• Anvil Vapre (1995)
• Tri Repetae (1995)
• Chiastic Slide (1997)
• Envane (1997)
• Cichlisuite (1997)
• Peel Session (1999)
• Peel Session 2 (2000)
• Quaristice (2008)
• Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae (2008)
• Oversteps (2010)
• Move Of Ten (2010)
• Exai (2013)
• L-event (2013)
• AE_LIVE (2015/2019)
• elseq 1-5 (2016)
• NTS Sessions 1-4 (2018)
• AE_LIVE 2016/2018 (2020)
• SIGN (2020)
• PLUS (2020)
• AE_LIVE 2022－ (2023)