Airside made the announcement on Twitter this morning. The three founders -- Alex Maclean, Fred Deakin and Nat Hunter -- also published the following statement on the Airside website:
"For the record, we aren’t going bust, in fact we’re currently thriving. We haven’t fallen out with each other, in fact we’re as close as we ever were. What has happened is that after 14 years of working together we have grown into different people with different goals and despite all of our best efforts we can’t see a way for Airside to move forward and accommodate all of our individual ambitions. You could put it down to musical differences if you like!
"The world has changed enormously since we started in 1998 and we feel we’ve been a big part of that change. We were lucky enough to be the first of a certain kind of design company that now feels like the norm.
"New paradigms are emerging and as individuals we want to explore them in a way that Airside is currently unable to. Our influence has been very clear on a generation of creative practitioners and that makes us feel good; it also feels like our work here is done.
"We feel that it is completely true to the unique spirit of Airside to end the company as friends and to end it on a high. We’ll be making an announcement as to our individual future plans nearer the time of our closure and there will of course be a party to mark our closing.
"Between now and then we’ll be focussed as always on creating amazing work for our clients and ourselves – the last chance for us to work together as Airside. Although we definitely plan to collaborate in future, and don’t bet against a re-union tour in 2022! And of course the spirit of Airside will live on in the shape of our Tokyo branch Airside Nippon, which will continue to trade as usual.
"Voluntarily choosing to end Airside has been one of the toughest decisions we've ever made but it also feels completely right. We’ve loved every minute of working together and feel like we created a truly unique company that completely fulfilled all the dreams that we had back in 1998: maybe that's why it feels OK to end it now. When we see the inspiration and positive impact we believe we've had on the creative world we are very proud.
"Sniff! We'll all really miss Airside."
