Sleeves removed: Design Republic closes

Something we'd missed in the stream of stuff over the last couple of weeks: Design Republic has gone out of business. A combination of tax demands, lost pitches and a client suddenly not paying a bill conspired to bring the organisation down; amongst their work they were responsible for turning Pop Will Eat Itself from a bunch of scruffy greebos into a space-age digital outfit, and found a visual style to match The Age Of Chance's grounded futurism. Ian Anderson plans to start again, though, so if you're a band and looking for a distinctive cover art image, you might want to hang around in Sheffield and hope to get lucky.