We’re keen to hear about your projects and ongoing research. At Futuress, design is as much artifacts and aesthetics as it is, for instance, the grammatical structure of a language, the infrastructure of a border, or the systems underpinning how food is circulated. We’re looking for stories on the politics of design and the design of politics, on marginalized visual and political histories, on design’s role in activist causes, and on the impact of social structures and processes on our personal experiences of the world.
We welcome unsolicited pitches from people who have important stories to tell—no matter whether you’re a professional journalist, designer, emerging writer, academic researcher, committed activist, or simply someone with something to say. You can read more about our approach to storytelling in our Futuress Writer’s Pack.
We’re also interested in hearing about your projects, events, or upcoming plans for potential story features and social media mentions. Please keep in mind that we’re a small team, so it may take us a while to respond to you. Due to our current scope and size, we also may not be able to accept every pitch we would like to commission.
1) Pitch a story:
- We generally publish non-fiction stories. That is, fact-based essays, interviews, features, investigative reporting, or narrative nonfiction pieces. In certain instances, we’re also open to publishing fiction.
- We believe in the power of storytelling to reach broad audiences. If you’re most comfortable with academic writing, for instance, we’re happy to help you adapt your research into a format geared towards a wider readership.
- We publish in English, and support non-native speakers. While we acknowledge that English is deeply entangled in the colonial matrix of power, it’s the language spoken by the largest percentage of non-native English speakers, and a powerful bridging language. We offer additional editorial support to non-native English speakers.
- We pay competitive prices. Our commissions are not based on word count, but are proportionate to the amount of reporting and research. Commissioned works start at 200 CHF for personal essays or lightly reported pieces, and go up to 1,000 CHF for pieces that are more heavily reported.
Please send your pitches via email to submissions@futuress.org. Please include:
- A working headline and subhead. This gives us a first idea of the direction of your piece. Futuress uses shorter, open-ended, and evocative headlines in combination with more descriptive, factual subheads.
- A short abstract of your story idea (max. 300 words). This should set out what you want the article to be about, what kind of form you’re envisioning, and the research or experience from which you are drawing. Please mention the political or social relevance of your pitch and why you think it should be published on Futuress, and include any relevant hyperlinks.
- A situated biography. We take great heed of the slogan from disability-rights activism, “nothing about us without us.” We’d therefore appreciate a situated biography from writers that includes your positionality and how it relates to your pitch.
- Some examples of previous and current work. As mentioned, you don’t have to be a working writer. This is more for us to get to know you a bit better through the work that you do. You can submit previous writing, creative work, research papers, or any other experiences that you think are relevant.
2) Submitting your project:
While we don’t run portfolio-based features, we do cover projects, initiatives, publications, platforms, events, and actions that we want to support on our social media channels or through articles. If you think your project aligns with what Futuress stands for, please send more information to submissions@futuress.org.