About
An independent design studio, out of Vancouver.
We make our own products — and help other people make theirs — with the same obsessive care. Here’s who we are, and where we’re going.
Founded 2025 · Vancouver, BC · Independent
What we believe
The bar we hold ourselves to.
This started as a manifesto, and it still reads like one. It’s the why behind everything with our name on it.
Software got loud.
Most products are designed to take from you — your attention, your data, your evening. They ship features to win meetings, not to earn a place in your life. The result feels like a slot machine and ages like milk.
We’d rather build calm.
We make tools that respect attention and improve with age. Fast where it counts, quiet where it doesn’t, honest about what they are. A product should leave you better than it found you — then get out of the way.
Own the whole feeling.
Brand, words, screens, motion, and the working product all live with the same pair of hands, from the first sketch to the last pixel — for our products, and for the ones we make with you.
Durable over disposable.
We build things meant to still be standing, and still loved, years from now. Every new bet has to earn its way past the ones we’re already proud of — but the ceiling on what we’ll build is nowhere in sight.
The mascot
Why a purple capybara.
The capybara is the most unbothered animal alive — calm in chaos, gets along with everything, welcome wherever it goes. That’s the temperament we want in our software, and in the people who build it. Purple, because the obvious mascots were taken — and because it suits us.
Build calm things. Run them well. Stay unbothered.
The founder
One pair of hands, by design.
Purplecapybara is, for now, one person — on purpose. The brand, the design, the words, and the build all live with the same person, because that’s the only way the details ever actually get done.
It keeps us honest: no committees, no theatre, nothing shipped that we wouldn’t use ourselves. As the studio grows, that standard is the thing we’re most careful to keep.
Iain Roberts, founder
studio@purplecapybara.comTimeline
A short history, honestly told.
2025
Founded in Vancouver.
One person, designing and shipping software end to end — no agency, no committees, no shortcuts.
2025
The first products shipped.
Small, calm, and designed down to the last pixel.
2026
A repeatable craft.
Brief, character, screens, motion, launch — the way we work became a playbook we can run for any product, ours or yours.
Today
Three products, live.
Orpheus, cashout.community, and GPA Shark — each with its own name, character, and voice, all designed and run here.
Next
Expanding.
More products, the studio’s first design partners and hires, and a reach that starts in Vancouver and doesn’t stop there.
Where we’re going
We started in Vancouver. We don’t intend to stop there.
More products, more collaborators, and the same obsessive design — taken further every year. If you’re making something people should love, or want to help us make ours, come say hello.