The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

Overview[graphic design studio founded in 1986 by Ian Anderson][known for anti-establishment aesthetics][designed record covers for electronica artists and bands][had great influence of development in graphic design][closed for business 2009]

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

‘there is a feeling that the culture has stalled, that there is nothing left to invent and that ‘newness’ can only lie in sampling and remixing what already

exists’ (Anderson, I. in Poyner, R., 2003:103)

- Ian Anderson on the use of retro and vernacular imagery

Album cover for artist ‘Magic Juan’ as designed by DR in 1993.

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

[begun designing the artwork for artists and bands signed under electronica label Warp Records]

Autechre’s album Incunabula

Pop Will Eat Itself’s album Dos Didos Mis

Amigos

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

[The Designers Republic are responsible for creating striking visual identities for artists and bands in the 1990s]

It were these designs that attracted people to Warp Records – the exciting, new and postmodern artwork in

which TDR designed matched perfectly with the experimental, forward-looking electronica music in which

Warp released.

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

“‘…People used to say ‘you’re at Designer’s Republic’ because you break the rules… we’d say ‘we’re not really, we just don’t know the rules’…”’

…in [the album] Incunabula there’s lots of layers, which is a way of expressing lots of different things about the music’.

“‘…say a red car is yellow and you’ll get a response… confront people’s conceptions of what is, by presenting what could be…’”

Burgoyne, P., 2009. Creative Review: The Designers Republic Remembered. [online] Available at: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/january/the-designers-

republic-remembered [Accessed 22 October 2011]

-Ian Anderson

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

[TDR were responsible for influencing and changing the ways in which designs were created]

They were able to create powerful dialogue in designs which contained little to no words – they were able to communicate with their

audience.

Their use of layers is notable – they created letters, diagrams, signs and codes through the use of chopping

and cutting up layers.

Their designs were exciting – and influenced other designers to go against the ‘rules’ and ‘norms’ of

graphic design.

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

Influenced othersGraphic Designer Corey Holms

(cited in ‘How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul’ by Shaughnessy, A. 2005:131)

The Designers RepublicInfluence on 90’s Club Culture & Music Promotion

Reference List

Burgoyne, P., 2009. Creative Review: The Designers Republic Remembered. [online] Available at: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/january/the-designers-republic-remembered [Accessed 22 October 2011]

Poyner, R. (ed) (2003) ‘Techno’ in No more rules: graphic design and postmodernism. London, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. Pp.96-118

Shaughnessy, A. (ed) (2005) ‘Corey Holms interview’ in How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul. UK, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. Pp.131