How to pitch Design Observer

At Design Observer, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future and, very specifically, how the practice of design imagines a better world. 

This is where you come in.

Over the past 20 years, Design Observer has built an extraordinary community of professional designers who have lent their perspective, expertise, and passion to the conversation about the value of design in an always-evolving world. And that’s what makes this community so special — it’s filled with people who take the time to look deeply at the world as it is while imagining how it could be: open, inclusive, equitable, beautiful, efficient, healthy, and joyful.

Below is our pitch guide for the types of contributors and stories we have traditionally amplified: designers; professional journalists focusing on business, design, education, equity, justice, and beyond; and book publishers and film festival producers. 

So pitch us. We’d love to hear what’s important to you.

All the best,

Ellen McGirt
Editor-in-chief

Current calls for pitches

Featured (pitches due 9/22): The Design of Horror | The Horror of Design (DH | HD)

Whether you’re seduced by the scary or shy away from it, we want your take on the most chilling and thrilling ways that horror and design intersect. What cursed objects, theories, trends, policies, or people are haunting today’s designers? What horrors from history, and harbingers of frights still to come, should we be paying attention to? How can we dredge up enough final-girl energy to confront these resident evils?

We welcome art-eds, op-eds, criticism, reported articles, and multimedia work from professional designers and journalists. Read the rest of this pitch guide for more on what types of stories will make us bite. Also check out some of our archival horror coverage for inspiration.

Pitch us by 9/22. We’ll commission stories on a rolling basis through the beginning of October. 

Other open calls

Pitches on the following themes are reviewed on an ongoing basis.

The perils and promise of AI: Design Observer is looking for reported and opinion pieces exploring the nuances of design and disruptive tech for our new vertical, AI Observer. Read more about our ethos here.

Travelin’ thru: Are you a wanderer? Have you been a tourist? How do you handle the nuances of going to places in conflict or poverty? Design Observer is looking for short personal essays, reported articles, and visual-driven pieces on the ethics — and tensions — of travel, the observations of others, and the need to understand, first hand, locales not our own. 

How are you imagining your future? With the global community at a series of ever-alarming crossroads — you don’t need me to name them, but climate change, ongoing inequality, rising authoritarianism, and the decline of civic institutions all leap to mind — what’s your vision? Your dream? Nightmare? Blueprint? Mantra? We’re opening up a call for submissions for essays, op-eds, art-eds, sketches, haikus, short videos, animations, and anything you can or have written or made that helps us see your future through your eyes. Bypass the need to bring inspiring solutions if you don’t have them; bring the dystopia if that’s what’s going on for you.

General guidelines by pitch type and discipline

Collaborations with book publishers and film festival organizers  

Get in touch with our editors here to request coverage or pitch a collaboration. 

Essays and op-eds from design leaders, practitioners, thinkers, and writers

We are interested in hearing from professionals from all disciplines, levels, and backgrounds, and we are especially interested in hearing from people who live outside North America or come from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in design.

If you are a working designer or design thinker and want to contribute an op-ed, art-ed, personal essay, career insights, or other relevant piece, sign up here to become part of our contributor network. You’ll be added to our contributor’s mailing list and receive occasional updates to our editorial calendar and calls for more specific pitches.

While we will be reaching out with calls for submissions based on upcoming editorial themes, we are always looking for:

• Opinion pieces and personal essays on important issues facing the design community 
• Interesting conversations between designers in different disciplines. How do you work? Collaborate?
• Submissions to our franchise lists, like the Design Observer 20
• Insights and explainers for the next generation of designers
• Responses to requests from DO journalists for comment on topical issues 

If you would like to be considered for publication, join our mailing list for contributors here. You can expect to hear from us a few times a year; you can also follow us on social media for more opportunities to work with us. 

We pay an honorarium of $150 for art-eds, op-eds, and essays (~800-900 words) by design leaders, practitioners, thinkers, and writers.

Before you reach out, please review our pitching requirements below.

Reported articles from professional journalists

Design Observer welcomes pitches from professional writers and data, video, and audio journalists on the broad range of topics we cover — and forward-looking topics we should pay attention to. We are interested in hearing from journalists of all experience levels and backgrounds, and we are especially interested in hearing from people who live outside North America or who come from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in design and business journalism.

If you are a professional journalist or writer and want to pitch us or be considered for assignments, sign up here to become part of our freelance network. You’ll receive occasional updates on our editorial calendar and calls for specific pitches.

We are always looking for:

• Reported pieces for any of our subject channels
• Profiles of interesting people tackling big problems
• Submissions to our franchise lists, like the Design Observer 20
• Submissions to Equity Observer
• Certain book, exhibit, and film coverage

If you are a professional journalist and would like to be considered for publication, join our mailing list for freelancers. You can expect to hear from us several times a year; you can also follow us on social media for more opportunities to work with us. 

Rates start at $1.50 a word for commissioned short pieces featuring original reporting and sourcing (typically, 500-900 words); longer reported pieces will be commissioned on a case-by-case basis. 

What’s a Design Observer story?

We spend much of our time thinking about a better, more beautiful world, and you should, too.

We look for three beats in our stories: information, inspiration, and joy — and two out of the three will get you a greenlight. Your pitch does not need to be long, but it should tell us why our readers will care about the topic, and why now. Tell us a story, take us on a journey, make us laugh or think. Who should we get to know? How does the past inform the present? Help us to be better observers of the world. While we’re always interested in stories that explore innovation within individual design disciplines, we are also looking for a broader arc: design that is inclusive or reparative, that addresses pressing issues in new ways, and most of all, that is solving the right problem.

Your pitch should include:

• A headline, detailed synopsis, and outline, if necessary
• A list of industry experts you plan to interview, if applicable
• Your timeline for turnaround, if greenlit
• How you see your story fitting into or expanding Design Observer’s editorial offerings
• New or unexpected audiences who might find your story compelling

For essays and op-eds, we prioritize submissions with full drafts. We also consider compelling pitches (backed by strong clips of a contributor’s previously published work), but typically take longer to review and respond to those. For reported articles, we prefer to work with journalists to shape the story from a pitch.

Think about the best format for your story. Should it be photo-driven? Is it best told through a map or graphic? An audio interview? A Q&A with an expert?

Ready? Pitch us here.