Call for We Design Student Essay Proposals

Your essay could be published in our upcoming book inspired by the traveling and digital exhibition We Design: People. Practice. Progress.

A graphic that reads welcome to the Design Museum Family with the PSA logo

 

We are now accepting proposals for our upcoming book inspired by the traveling and digital exhibition We Design: People. Practice. Progress. This book intends to explore personal identity through a deep dive into the worlds of women and gender-expansive designers, Black designers, Indigenous designers and designers of color. “Designer” is too simple a title to encapsulate the history, experiences, and full identity of the humans behind the design. Through case studies, featured profiles, interviews, and personal essays, this upcoming publication inspired by the We Design exhibition asks 46 individuals working across a range of design fields to share who they are beyond “designers.” 

 

Proposals will be for the essays portion of the book. We are particularly interested in contributions from students — undergraduate, graduate, and recently graduated (1-3 years out of school) — that explore personal identity as it may relate to being a designer, design thinking, or designing for the future world. We are seeking submissions from writers early in their design careers who identify as any or multiple of the following groups: women and gender-expansive writers, Black writers, Indigenous writers, and writers of color. If accepted, contributed essays should be between 1500 – 2000 words.

 

Selected essayists will receive an honorarium of $600 for their work. 

 

Submission guidelines for proposals:

 

  • Essayists should be current undergraduate or graduate students, or have recently graduated within the last 3 years.
  • Proposals should be no longer than 300 words.
  • Proposals should pitch the essay topic as well as include a tentative title. 
  • The deadline for proposals is June 8th 2021.
  • If selected, a rough first draft of the full-length essay will be due no later than June 25, 2021
  • Please include a short biography that includes the school you currently attend or have graduated from. 

 

This call for proposals is now closed.